Environmental Geography

Environmental (integrated) geography studies human-environment interactions — how societies shape and are shaped by the physical environment.

Scope

It covers human impacts on the environment, nature-society relations, hazards and resources, and the integration of physical and human geography.

Core questions

• How do societies transform the environment?
• How does the environment shape human activity?
• How are environmental hazards and resources managed?
• How can human and physical geography be integrated?

Key concepts

• Human-environment interaction
• Nature-society relations
• Land transformation
• Hazards
• Resource geography
• Sustainability

Key theories

Ideas of nature

Glacken traced Western ideas about nature and humans' role in changing it.

The transformed earth

Turner and colleagues documented the scope of human transformation of the biosphere.

History

Building on the human-environment tradition (Marsh, Sauer) and Glacken's history of ideas, environmental geography documented global human transformation of the earth (Turner) and now centers on global environmental change and sustainability.

Debates

Environmental determinism versus possibilism

The discredited view that environment determines society versus the view that it sets possibilities societies choose among.

Key figures

• Clarence Glacken
• B. L. Turner

Seminal works

• glacken-1967
• turner-1990

Frequently asked questions

What is integrated geography?

The branch bridging physical and human geography to study human-environment interactions.