Landscapes on the Edge

Landscapes on the Edge
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 180
Release: 2010-04-25
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309140242

During geologic spans of time, Earth's shifting tectonic plates, atmosphere, freezing water, thawing ice, flowing rivers, and evolving life have shaped Earth's surface features. The resulting hills, mountains, valleys, and plains shelter ecosystems that interact with all life and provide a record of Earth surface processes that extend back through Earth's history. Despite rapidly growing scientific knowledge of Earth surface interactions, and the increasing availability of new monitoring technologies, there is still little understanding of how these processes generate and degrade landscapes. Landscapes on the Edge identifies nine grand challenges in this emerging field of study and proposes four high-priority research initiatives. The book poses questions about how our planet's past can tell us about its future, how landscapes record climate and tectonics, and how Earth surface science can contribute to developing a sustainable living surface for future generations.

Nordic Landscapes

Nordic Landscapes
Author: Michael Jones
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 660
Release: 2008
Genre: History
ISBN: 0816639140

"The first in-depth presentation of the Nordic landscapes to be published in nearly twenty years. “Norden” -- the region along the northern edge of Europe bordered by Russia and the Baltic nations to the east and by North America to the west -- is a particularly fruitful site for the examination of the ever-evolving meaning of landscape and region as place. Contributors to this work reveal how Norden’s regions and people have been defined by and against the dominant culture of Europe while at the same time their landscapes and cultures have shaped and inspired Europe’s ways of life. Together, the essays provide a much-needed picture of this culturally rich and geographically varied part of the world."--pub. desc.

Gardens on the Edge

Gardens on the Edge
Author: Christine Reid
Publisher: Murdoch Books
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2018-11-06
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 9781760634452

This lavishly photographed book, written and curated by internationally respected gardening author Christine Reid and shot by renowned photographer Simon Griffiths, focuses on 18 stunning gardens from around Australia situated on a natural 'frontier'-rainforest, desert, bushland, saltbush plains, a volcanic crater, the ocean's edge, a harbour. The featured gardens have been created or restored in locations where the surrounding natural landscape is as significant as the cultivated and designed elements. In its images and stories Gardens on the Edge is much about the diversity and character of the Australian continent as it about the gardens. The accompanying stories not only explore the establishment of the garden, but also reference Australian history and geography, and cover issues ranging from dealing with droughts and climate change to restoring a long-neglected kitchen garden.

Trace

Trace
Author: Lauret Savoy
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2015-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1619026686

With a New Preface by the Author Through personal journeys and historical inquiry, this PEN Literary Award finalist explores how America’s still unfolding history and ideas of “race” have marked its people and the land. Sand and stone are Earth’s fragmented memory. Each of us, too, is a landscape inscribed by memory and loss. One life–defining lesson Lauret Savoy learned as a young girl was this: the American land did not hate. As an educator and Earth historian, she has tracked the continent’s past from the relics of deep time; but the paths of ancestors toward her—paths of free and enslaved Africans, colonists from Europe, and peoples indigenous to this land—lie largely eroded and lost. A provocative and powerful mosaic that ranges across a continent and across time, from twisted terrain within the San Andreas Fault zone to a South Carolina plantation, from national parks to burial grounds, from “Indian Territory” and the U.S.–Mexico Border to the U.S. capital, Trace grapples with a searing national history to reveal the often unvoiced presence of the past. In distinctive and illuminating prose that is attentive to the rhythms of language and landscapes, she weaves together human stories of migration, silence, and displacement, as epic as the continent they survey, with uplifted mountains, braided streams, and eroded canyons. Gifted with this manifold vision, and graced by a scientific and lyrical diligence, she delves through fragmented histories—natural, personal, cultural—to find shadowy outlines of other stories of place in America. "Every landscape is an accumulation," reads one epigraph. "Life must be lived amidst that which was made before." Courageously and masterfully, Lauret Savoy does so in this beautiful book: she lives there, making sense of this land and its troubled past, reconciling what it means to inhabit terrains of memory—and to be one.

Natural Landscaping

Natural Landscaping
Author: Sally Roth
Publisher: Rodale Books
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2002-04-20
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 9780875968858

Now Create a Landscape that's Naturally Beautiful, Naturally Inviting, Naturally Easy to Care for! Natural Landscaping shows you how to create your own woodland gardens, shade gardens, wildflower meadows, prairie gardens, water gardens, songbird gardens, hummingbird gardens, and butterfly gardens! It includes: - 9 detailed, full-color plans to provide plenty of inspiration. - 234 easy-care plant ideas to take the guesswork out of plant-work! - Plenty of projects and techniques that let you build in structure at your own pace! - Plus scores of finishing touches to help you achieve just the look you want! It's packed with real-life examples, garden plans, colorful combinations, at-a-glance plant charts, expert tips, related projects, and custom options, with lavish color photos and illustrations.

Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change

Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change
Author: David B. Lindenmayer
Publisher: Island Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2013-02-22
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 159726606X

Habitat loss and degradation that comes as a result of human activity is the single biggest threat to biodiversity in the world today. Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change is a groundbreaking work that brings together a wealth of information from a wide range of sources to define the ecological problems caused by landscape change and to highlight the relationships among landscape change, habitat fragmentation, and biodiversity conservation. The book: synthesizes a large body of information from the scientific literature considers key theoretical principles for examining and predicting effects examines the range of effects that can arise explores ways of mitigating impacts reviews approaches to studying the problem discusses knowledge gaps and future areas for research and management Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change offers a unique mix of theoretical and practical information, outlining general principles and approaches and illustrating those principles with case studies from around the world. It represents a definitive overview and synthesis on the full range of topics that fall under the widely used but often vaguely defined term "habitat fragmentation."

Ecology of Fragmented Landscapes

Ecology of Fragmented Landscapes
Author: Sharon K. Collinge
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2009-06
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0801891388

Ask airline passengers what they see as they gaze out the window, and they will describe a fragmented landscape: a patchwork of desert, woodlands, farmlands, and developed neighborhoods. Once-contiguous forests are now subdivided; tallgrass prairies that extended for thousands of miles are now crisscrossed by highways and byways. Whether the result of naturally occurring environmental changes or the product of seemingly unchecked human development, fractured lands significantly impact the planet’s biological diversity. In Ecology of Fragmented Landscapes, Sharon K. Collinge defines fragmentation, explains its various causes, and suggests ways that we can put our lands back together. Researchers have been studying the ecological effects of dismantling nature for decades. In this book, Collinge evaluates this body of research, expertly synthesizing all that is known about the ecology of fragmented landscapes. Expanding on the traditional coverage of this topic, Collinge also discusses disease ecology, restoration, conservation, and planning. Not since Richard T. T. Forman's classic Land Mosaics has there been a more comprehensive examination of landscape fragmentation. Ecology of Fragmented Landscapes is critical reading for ecologists, conservation biologists, and students alike.

Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing

Essential Techniques of Landscape Drawing
Author: Suzanne Brooker
Publisher: Watson-Guptill
Total Pages: 210
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0399580662

This beginner's guide to drawing in graphite pencil uses step-by-step exercises to teach fundamental methods for rendering all aspects of the natural landscape, with additional lessons on using charcoal, colored pencil, pastel, and other media. Following in the footsteps of author, artist, and art instructor Suzanne Brooker's previous title The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting, this book pairs the most universally-pursued topic for artists (drawing) with the popular subject matter of the natural landscape. Brooker breaks down landscapes into their various elements--including the earth, water, air, and trees--to convey how the fundamentals of drawing are applied to capture each aspect. Using the graphite pencil as her baseline instrument, Brooker provides you with step-by-step lessons that help you improve your rendering skills and re-create the beauty of the world outdoors. Examples from art history and contemporary masters supplement these lessons. The end result is a drawing instruction book that provides artists with everything they need to render landscapes no matter their skill level.