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Causality of Current Environmental Change in Tropical Landscapes
Author(s) -
Young Kenneth R.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
geography compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.587
H-Index - 65
ISSN - 1749-8198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2007.00067.x
Subject(s) - biodiversity , forcing (mathematics) , land cover , climate change , geography , environmental resource management , ecosystem services , causality (physics) , tropics , environmental change , land use, land use change and forestry , deforestation (computer science) , land use , ecosystem , ecology , natural resource economics , environmental science , climatology , economics , biology , computer science , physics , quantum mechanics , programming language , geology
Disjunctions in scale, effect, and direction of forcing are characteristic of how global environmental change alters and interacts with landscapes in regards to land cover, ecosystem services, biodiversity, and sustainable land use. Many effects are subtle, indirect, or best characterized as thresholds, wherein change at first modest is followed by abrupt shifts in rate or mode. In the tropics, global climate and atmospheric processes are changing aspects of natural and utilized landscapes, with consequences already discernable for the practices and goals of land use and of biodiversity conservation. The coupled human‐biophysical systems are interconnecting in new ways through globalized movements of information, commodities, and people. An expectation of heterogeneity, asymmetries, and discordances in causality and repercussions provides a useful and holistic analytical framework to evaluate change in tropical landscapes and elsewhere.