Rediscovering Geography New Relevance for Science and Society (1997) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
6 Geography's Contributions t o Decision Making
6 Geography's Contributions t o Decision Making
Pages 109-137
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 109... ...
As such, geographic expertise can be of great importance in helping organizations and individuals operate more efficiently and make better-informed decisions. Geographers contribute to policy and decision making in a variety of ways (Wilbanks, 1985~.
|
From page 110... ...
The following sections illustrate geography's contributions at several scales: regional and local, national, and international. ARENAS FOR DECISIONS Geographers and geographic perspectives have found important application in decision making in both the private and the public sectors.
|
From page 111... ...
use and increased access to georeferenced information, and these roles are becoming strategic as well as operational. A wide range of private companies use geographers and geographic perspectives in their locational decision making.
|
From page 112... ...
Water Resources This nation's water resources are managed through massive public investments. By controlling the supply and distribution of water, reducing flooding, and offering recreational opportunities, the United States has created a partly artificial and partly natural hydrologic system that supports economic development, raising the quality of life for many but also decreasing the quality of life for others.
|
From page 113... ...
GEOGRAPHY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO DECISION MAKING ................ 113 _ ~ ~` P ' 7 1 1 1 t ~ ,` Coon llep~d~ ~ t~ ~'t' ~lane 1 ' ~' '` D _ _ .
|
From page 114... ...
Geographers contribute to the successful management of such far-flung systems by bringing their geographic perspectives to bear on the analysis of regional impacts of water resource decisions (e.g., see Sidebar 6.2~. The various sectors of American society are unequal consumers of water.
|
From page 115... ...
Locating retail and other consumer-oriented facilities is fundamentally a geographic problem, a problem that has been addressed by geographers in both theory and practice. During the 1960s, geographer David Huff adapted spatial interaction models for use in retail location decision making (Huff, 1963~.
|
From page 116... ...
Location-allocation models allow decision makers to optimize the location of all kinds of consumer-oriented facilities, public and private: stores, shopping centers, health care facilities, and schools. As retailing has become increasingly dominated by chains, the use of these models has become commonplace (Ghosh and McLafferty, 19871.
|
From page 117... ...
They have addressed residential segregation in cities for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; dealt with federal land management and environmental damage on Indian reservations in Indian Claims Court; devised busing plans for integration of school systems; and examined the human implications of physical processes such as accelerated erosion, river channel changes, flooding, coastal change, and lake dynamics in a variety of courts and administrative law proceedings (e.g., see Sidebar 6.31.
|
From page 118... ...
In this same period an analytical modeling system, conceived in large part by geographer T.R. Lakshmanan, was one of the nation's major tools for forecasting the environmental consequences of different energy policy options.
|
From page 119... ...
Both of these concerns are integral to national economic "competitiveness," defined as the ability to combine rising living standards with increasing flows of trade and investment. Many geographers have argued that viewing competitiveness in terms of national interest and national-scale policy making is overly narrow and can lead to bad decisions.
|
From page 120... ...
Technological Hazards Building on a tradition of research on risks associated with natural hazards such as floods and droughts, geographers contribute both in theory and in practice to risk assessment for technological hazards. Many technological hazards, such as toxic waste disposal, chemical and nuclear accidents, and advanced weapons proliferation, are quite place specific.
|
From page 121... ...
GEOGRAPHY'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO DECISION MAKING and spatial flows, past, present, and future (see Sidebar 6.51. For instance, airborne releases of contaminants from manufacturing facilities and from atmospheric tests of weapons are defined largely by the physical processes of atmospheric motion, but the health risks are related to the demographic characteristics of the SIDE ~ ~_ ~ ....................
|
From page 122... ...
Risk assessment of air releases therefore must account for human and physical geography in an integrated regional analysis. An important aspect of the safe disposal of high-level nuclear waste is the design of safe transportation systems to connect waste generators with disposal sites.
|
From page 124... ...
124 REDISCOVERING GEOGRAPHY to make recommendations to the federal government for floodplain recovery and management. The task force is chaired by Brigadier General Gerald E
|
From page 125... ...
Ackerman for the President's Water Resources Policy Commission (1950) and by Gilbert White for the Bureau of the Budget Task Force on Federal Flood Control (1966)
|
From page 126... ...
The hierarchical database structure developed for EMAP now serves as a basis for much of EPA's environmental monitoring and analysis activities. · The USGS's National Digital Cartographic Database sunnorts the ~roduction of paper and electronic maps (see Sidebar 6.7~.
|
From page 127... ...
In contrast, agricultural impacts in the developed world, while important for individual farmers and local areas, are embedded in systems that provide far more latitude for adjustments (Parry, 1990; Appendini and Liverman, 19941. Geography remains central in setting the agenda for scientific research to address the complexity and integrativeness of human and social behavior related to global environmental change.
|
From page 128... ...
and of research agendas for various international global change science programs, including the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Programme (IHDP)
|
From page 129... ...
Agency for International Development (USAID) have been active in applying geographic perspectives and tools (particularly GISs)
|
From page 131... ...
What threats do subnational regional inequalities pose for democratic regimes? To what extent does environmental change affect the emergence and
|
From page 132... ...
Technology, Service, and Information Transfer The spread of ideas from place to place is a focus of geography, and potentially one of its most direct applications is to international trade. Here, geography's contributions could include helping decision makers understand the local context for trade with international partners and the importance of long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability within this local context.
|
From page 133... ...
In collaboration with researchers in other disciplines, geographers are working to help policy makers understand the structure and root causes of hunger. They have identified three distinctive hunger situations: regional food shortages in which there is not enough food available in bounded areas; household food poverty in which there may be sufficient food available in an area but some households do not have the means to obtain it; and individual food deprivation, in which there may be adequate food, but food may be withheld from individuals, their special nutritional needs may not be met, or illness may prevent proper absorption of their diet.
|
From page 134... ...
In times of regional food shortages, a cascade of troubles plunge food-sufficient households into food poverty and adequately fed individuals into food deprivation (see Figure 6.71. This understanding has led to major improvements in the conceptual basis for famine early warning systems.
|
From page 135... ...
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS This chapter has illustrated a wide range of issues in which geographers contribute to decision making in both the public and the private sectors. The chapter has also illustrated areas of concern where geography is not now contributing in any significant way but could be given increased attention, resources, and access to policy makers.
|
From page 136... ...
Harlan Barrows participated in numerous New Deal national planning boards for river basins. Carl Sauer worked with the Soil Conservation Service during the New Deal era to improve land management, and C.W.
|
From page 137... ...
Consequently, the United States lags behind the rest of the developed world in its geographic sophistication in many aspects of decision making. To borrow a Cold War expression, there is a "geography gap" that may cost the nation dearly in terms of competitiveness and ability to achieve the twin goals of economic prosperity and environmental stability.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.