Spring Semester 1998
Monday, January 19, 1998
Robert Costanza,University
of Maryland, Bobbi Low,University
of Michigan & James Wilson, University
of Maine. "A Framework for Modeling the Linkages
Between Ecosystems and Human Systems."
Abstract
We were very fortunate to have Dr. Robert Costanza, University
of Maryland, Dr. Bobbi Low, University of Michigan, and Dr.
James Wilson, University of Maine, visit the IU campus from
January 17 to 21. They are working with Elinor Ostrom
on a series of papers that explore a dynamic model - referred
to as the Beijer World - which uses an underlying framework
to undertake analysis of both biological and human systems and
their linkages. Copies of an initial paper entitled "A
Framework for Modeling the Linkages Between Ecosystems and Human
Systems" were available at an informal colloquium session
held on January 19th, at 4:00 p.m. They presented some
of the more advanced models they have developed and some of
the findings from these models.
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Friday, February 6, 1998
Myron Gutmann, Professor, Department
of History, The
University of Texas at Austin. "Land Use and
Wind Erosion: Rethinking the Causes of the Dust Bowl of
the 1930s."
Abstract
The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is one of the best known and most
often studied of the environmental "surprises" in
United States history. It was well described by its contemporaries,
and powerfully presented in the visual and literary arts.
Many historians have tried to explain its causes, and most of
the available explanations rest on the way that farmers used
the land in the 1930s. Are those explanations still appropriate?
The problem with answering that question is that despite a large
quantity of newly amassed data, a great deal remains to be known
about land use and environment in the 1930s. This paper
presents an innovative starting point by looking at a statistical
model for predicting dust activity based on data from the 1960s,
1970s and 1980s. The paper tells us what has caused the
dust to blow in the recent years, based on the best approach
available now. Then the paper discusses whether the findings
from recent decades can be extrapolated to data over a longer
period of time and covering a larger area. The conclusions
present the story of dust in the recent past, and some partial
confirmation of the story of the 1930s. It gives renewed
emphasis to the role of natural forces in the creation of the
Dust Bowl.
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Monday, February 23, 1998
Billie Lee Turner II, Professor,
Department of Geology,
Clark University, Worchester, Massachusetts. "Socializing
the Pixel" and "Pixelizing the Social". Advanced
Interdisciplinary Research on Land-Use/Cover Change.
Abstract
Remarkable advances underway in the remote sensing (RS) and
the geographical information systems (GIS) provide an increasing
wealth of data and analytical sophistication potentially potentially
relevant to a wide range of problems and understanding.
RS and GIS have been rapidly adopted in the natural sciences,
and constitute critical avenues of advancing global change science.
The social sciences, in contrast, including the human dimensions
of global change, have been slow to explore the usefulness of
RS and GIS for a variety of reasons, such as its presumed applicability
to core social science problems, and perhaps, suspicion generated
by the anti-positvistic trends within the social sciences.
Such programs as that of the IGBP-IHDP on Land-Use/Cover Change
seek to rectify these trends and, in so doing, advance interdisciplinary
cooperation in problem solving.
One such effort involves a genre of activities referred to
as "socializing the pixel" or "pixelizing the
social." The aim is to make remotely sensed remotely
sensed (spatially explicit) data more relevant to the core interests
of social sciences and to link those interests directly to remotely
sensed imagery. The two principal avenues proposed by
the LUCC are "mining the pixel" and "modeling
to and from the pixel." "Mining" refers
to explorations that apply social meaning to the RSD, such as
landscape (pixel) mosaics that infer the trajectory of socioeconomic
well being. "Modeling" refers to explorations
that seek the relative robustness and wedding of empirical and
theoretical approaches. Empirical approaches, such as
markoivan analysis, use changes in the pixel themselves to infer
probabilities, and these probabilities can be "messaged"
pixel by pixel by the application of the biophysical and social
data to them. Alternatively, theoretical approaches begin
with structural and behavioral concepts of the "nature"
of change, and with survey and archival work can be linked to
the individual pixels incurring potential change. As yet,
we do not know which approach is more robust under different
conditions, nor how the two approaches are ultimately wedded.
Explorations of this kind draw the social scientist into collaborative
research with RS and GIS sciences and, commonly, the natural
sciences. An example is given on a project of this kind
just underway in the southern Yucatan peninsular region.
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Monday, March 9, 1998
Steven Perz, Center
for Latin American Studies, University
of Florida, Gainsville. "Population and Land-Use
Changes in the Brazilian Amazon."
Abstract
Since 1970, population growth and land use accelerated in
the Brazilian Amazon as new frontiers pushed into the region.
This talk assesses the role of population growth particularly
by migration, for rises in land cover change. The findings
indicate that net in-migration rates remained high until the
1990s. Perz discussed the implications of the findings
for the causes and pace of land cover conversion in the Amazon.
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