Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography (Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences) 9819966035, 9789819966035

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Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences

Jerzy Bański Michael Meadows   Editors

Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography

Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences Series Editors Yukio Himiyama, Hokkaido University of Education, Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan Subhash Anand, Department of Geography, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences synthesizes series diagnostigation and prognostication of earth environment, incorporating challenging interactive areas within ecological envelope of geosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and cryosphere. It deals with land use land cover change (LUCC), urbanization, energy flux, land-ocean fluxes, climate, food security, ecohydrology, biodiversity, natural hazards and disasters, human health and their mutual interaction and feedback mechanism in order to contribute towards sustainable future. The geosciences methods range from traditional field techniques and conventional data collection, use of remote sensing and geographical information system, computer aided technique to advance geostatistical and dynamic modeling. The series integrate past, present and future of geospheric attributes incorporating biophysical and human dimensions in spatio-temporal perspectives. The geosciences, encompassing land-ocean-atmosphere interaction is considered as a vital component in the context of environmental issues, especially in observation and prediction of air and water pollution, global warming and urban heat islands. It is important to communicate the advances in geosciences to increase resilience of society through capacity building for mitigating the impact of natural hazards and disasters. Sustainability of human society depends strongly on the earth environment, and thus the development of geosciences is critical for a better understanding of our living environment, and its sustainable development. Geoscience also has the responsibility to not confine itself to addressing current problems but it is also developing a framework to address future issues. In order to build a ‘Future Earth Model’ for understanding and predicting the functioning of the whole climatic system, collaboration of experts in the traditional earth disciplines as well as in ecology, information technology, instrumentation and complex system is essential, through initiatives from human geoscientists. Thus human geoscience is emerging as key policy science for contributing towards sustainability/survivality science together with future earth initiative. Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences series publishes books that contain novel approaches in tackling issues of human geoscience in its broadest sense — books in the series should focus on true progress in a particular area or region. The series includes monographs and edited volumes without any limitations in the page numbers.

Jerzy Ba´nski · Michael Meadows Editors

Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography

Editors Jerzy Ba´nski Institute of Geography and Spatial Organization Polish Academy of Sciences Warszawa, Poland

Michael Meadows School of Geography and Ocean Sciences Nanjing University Nanjing, China Department of Environmental and Geographical Science University of Cape Town Rondebosch, Cape Town, South Africa

ISSN 2198-3542 ISSN 2198-3550 (electronic) Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences ISBN 978-981-99-6603-5 ISBN 978-981-99-6604-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Paper in this product is recyclable.

Preface

Modern science is characterized by a trend towards deep specialization and increasing interdisciplinarity. Studies are carried out by research teams whose members often represent very diverse scientific disciplines. At the same time, new fields of science are being created, combining the achievements of previously classic disciplines. The organizational structure of science at universities is also changing, offering, among other things, new fields of study to their students. Dynamic processes in the formation of new research topics and organizational structure also included geography. Its research fields have expanded and its relations with related disciplines (e.g. geology, geophysics, sociology and economics) have deepened. There is a discussion among geographers about the contemporary state of the discipline and its future, but there is no clear opinion on the subject. Pessimists speak of the twilight of geography, whose range of research topics is being taken over by other disciplines, and the number of students willing to study geography at universities is decreasing. Optimists, on the other hand, point to the development of geography drawing on the resources of other scientific disciplines enabling it to expand its theoretical and methodological framework. Geography is a research discipline that spans the social and natural sciences, combining issues of empiricism and rationalism, physicalism and humanism. This determines the unique character of the discipline, whose practitioners possess the ability to describe space holistically, considering both its environmental and socioeconomic components. Geography is therefore a science that synthesizes knowledge concerning the modern world in the form of a comprehensive view at the entire planet or its arbitrarily small fragment. The increasing specialization of research today poses serious challenges to geography as a consequence of the aforementioned dualism. The links between physical and social geographers are often weaker than their relations with representatives of other sciences. However, in a socio-institutional sense, geographers still comprise a unity. This is evidenced by geography departments at universities and geographical societies (e.g. the International Geographical Union, associations of Geographical Societies in Europe and Asia, and countless national geographical societies), uniting representatives of the discipline. Therefore, on the one hand, the separation and v

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research specialization are observed, while on the other the formation of a community together with the quest for geography’s place in the system of sciences. The International Geographical Union (IGU) is the only truly international body that represents geographers globally. Established in 1922 as a founder member union of what is today known as the International Science Council, the IGU has more than 80 full, associated and observer member countries. Under the auspices of an Executive Committee, the core operation of the IGU’s work in promoting the discipline is conducted by its more than 40 “Commissions”-research groups of geographers with interests in a specific thematic field that cover the wide range of issues that constitute the contemporary. The activities of these Commissions cover the whole range of academic enterprise: hosting conferences and workshops (often jointly with other Commissions), conducting targeting research projects, publishing books and special issues of scholarly journals, distributing newsletters and generally maintaining a network of active academic geographers to ensure that the IGU achieves its goal of promoting the study of geographical problems and initiating and coordinating geographical research through international co-operation. The basic aim of this book is to discuss the research directions and achievements in contemporary geography and their relations with other disciplines based on the activities and their results carried out by selected IGU Commissions. The purpose of the volume is to document the most current theoretical and methodological issues undertaken by scientists representing various specializations in geography and to identify their internal relations and common fields of research with representatives of other sciences. It has been assumed that the research interests of the currently active IGU Commissions correspond to the most relevant and up-to-date trends in world geography. Therefore, representatives actively involved in the work of the Commissions were invited to contribute to the individual chapters of this book. The main advantage of the publication is that it examines geography from different perspectives, expressed in three main parts. This approach provides the reader with a complete overview of contemporary research issues in human geography. The first part discusses contemporary research problems, issues related to scientific methodology and achievements of selected geographical sub-disciplines (e.g. agricultural geography, urban geography, political geography, etc.). The second part is focussed on the interdisciplinarity of geography and the topics of global dimension undertaken by geographers (e.g. global change, water sustainability, marginalization and globalization). Chapters of this part also discuss internal relations between geographical specializations and their links with other related sciences (geology, sociology, economics). Meanwhile, the third part discusses the holistic approach of geography to regions or particular territories (Africa, coastal systems, local development).

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The idea of compiling this book was spawned in 2020 and was originally intended to be co-edited with then IGU Secretary-General, Prof. R. B. Singh, who sadly passed away in July 2021. In honour of a lifetime devoted to the discipline of geography, the enormous influence he had on the geographical community in India and beyond, and his tireless commitment to internationalism, we respectively dedicate this volume to Prof. R. B. Singh. Warszawa, Poland Nanjing, China/Cape Town South Africa

Jerzy Ba´nski Michael Meadows

The Legacy of an Exceptional Geographer: Prof. R. B. Singh

In the contents of the Gita summarized in the second chapter of the Bhagavada Gita, Lord Krishna instilled his teachings to the Arjuna in the following metaphysical words:

Lord Krishna preached to the Arjuna that ‘...you have a right to perform your prescribed duty but you are not claimant for the fruits of action. You never need to consider yourself as the factor of the results of your activities, and never be attached to not doing your duty’. It’s very comforting to know that these teachings of Krishna were also very explicitly followed by the scintillating gem of modern Indian Geography discipline, Prof. R. B. Singh, who left us and departed for his heavenly abode on 22 July 2021. He was an erudite and prolific social scientist who ix

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was constantly in pursuit of his duty but without any actual attachment to its result. Because of his generosity, gentle but determined nature and devotion to his work, he was known as Karmaveera, or ‘the one who is the hero of his actions’. The prophet of modern India, Shri Swami Vivekananda Ji, writes: ‘I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy’. The late Prof. R. B. Singh undoubtedly followed these lines of the Vivekananda and it is no exaggeration to state that he was also a Karmayogi (one who has insistence for his work). The famous Jewish sage and scholar, Rabbi Hillel, once mentioned that “I have learned much from my teachers, still more from my colleagues, but from my pupils more than from all of them”. Similarly, it was an enduring feature of Prof. R. B. Singh’s approach that even as his career soared, he found time to recognize and absorb the thoughts of his pupils. Professor Ram Babu (R. B.) Singh was born on 3 February 1955 near Majnhi in the Saran District of Bihar alongside the incessant streams of the Sarayu, just a few kilometres upstream of its confluence with the Ganges, where the Gangetic dolphins play in the swirling currents. Among the tranquil glades along the Sarayu riverfront, with its sacred bullrush groves, there are several small hermitages of the Vaishnavite as well as of the Tantric saints. Here, in the midst of the lush green riparian vegetation, the young and inquiring mind of R. B. Singh was inspired in a way that laid the foundation for his lifelong appreciation of the intrinsic spirit of place (genius loci). His profound drive to break the geographic code was galvanized in his master’s class at Banaras Hindu University (BHU), where he collaborated with his teacher and elder brother Prof. Rana P. B. Singh. This is exemplified in their study of the native village, Majhanpura, Bihar (Singh & Singh 1981: Changing Frontiers of Indian Village Ecology. In his foreword, Prof. R. L. Singh (1917–2001), the Dean and the doyen of modern Geography in India noted, ‘I am sure that this study will promote a greater inter-disciplinary approach in integrated rural development programmes in the developing countries with similar environs; at the same time, fellow workers and country planners will not be slow to pursue similar research, and also to implement the measures suggested by the authors in village level planning’ (p. 10). R. B. Singh’s doctoral dissertation (1977–1981) was entitled: Geographical Dimensions of Integrated Rural Development: a Study of Siwan District under the supervision of Prof. S. L. Kayastha (1924–2018). This doctoral research work was revised in 1986 and published under the title: Geography of Rural Development. During the span of his doctoral research, he also received a Diploma in Statistics from Banaras Hindu University in 1979 and this assisted him greatly in his research work. Based on these foundations, Prof. R. B. Singh evolved into a prolific and erudite scholar of the diverse and multi-faceted wings of geography, including rural development, geoecology, environmental studies, urban environment, health and well-being, tourism, remote sensing and GIS, regional science and livelihoods and climate change.

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In 1982, he joined the Department of Geography, Banaras Hindu University as a CSIR pool officer, and continued in this post until taking up the post of Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of Geography, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. He became a focal point for geographical research and the leafy campus of the Delhi School of Economics gave him the much needed research ambience that he had been seeking. He was a pioneer in developing a unique identify for geography in India as he opened the doors of his mind to set the subject anywhere and in any domain. His inter-disciplinary research crossed traditional geographic boundaries and his work was well received by those from other disciplines. Although trained in conventional geographic theories, empirical models and statistics, he trod a distinct path to approach geographic phenomena and associated landscapes from a technocratic perspective. Notably, he harnessed his capacity to observe, understand and interpret geographic phenomena to make seminal contributions that integrated research across traditional disciplinary boundaries, for example, in the relationship between water resources and sustainability. He travelled extensively across all the States and Union Territories of the country of his birth and this in turn acted as the much needed catalyst to carry out geographical research. He was an adamant believer in the value of travel and field experience in acting as a lens for research and encouraged his students accordingly. For him, field surveys and excursions were the most robust means of practically achieving the objectives of a study. Indeed, it was his geographical foresight that led him to be one of the founding members of the Himalayan Study Centre at the University of Delhi in 2020. Throughout his entire research lifespan, he argued that policies and programmes cannot be formulated and implemented without considering the geographical elements of the region where they are planned to be executed. His work explored and analysed interrelationships and argued that geography is one of the most exigent components of governance. During his lectures too, Prof. Singh often insisted that places speak for themselves and that overall development of places can only be achieved by understanding the geographical diversity in that area. His work, particularly that associated with rural development, integrated planning, and regional planning, explicitly echoed that of Carl Sauer and Richard Hartshorne in highlighting that the facts encompassed by geography are a manifestation of the facts of places themselves. The necessity of considering geography in formulating policies and programmes is strongly represented in his work, and he consistently inspired and guided his students to opt for inter-disciplinary themes, contemporary issues and challenges, and to design dynamic sustainable policies as an output of research. As Project Director, R. B. Singh led a number of collaborative major research projects, for example: Livelihood Security in Changing Socio-Economic Environment in Himachal Pradesh, India, a Shashtri Applied Research Project (SHARP). He was member of the highest think tank of the country ‘NITI AAYOG’ Government of India in preparing Vision India: 2025, Member UGC in preparing National Learning Outcome-based Curriculum Framework (2018) and member NCERT Social Science Education to contribute in National Education Policy (2020). Further, he was invited by the University Grant Commission (UGC) for the preparation of a National Level

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CBCS Syllabus for Undergraduate Geography in 2015. He was also the Chair of the UGC prestigious committee for preparing the Learning Outcome-based curriculum framework since July 2018. He also served as an expert on several prestigious Committees of the Government of India–Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Department of Science and Technology, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), ICSSR, CSIR, etc. He was also the chair of the Department of Geography, University of Delhi during 2013–2016 when the department was ranked as one of the foremost Geography Departments in India. Professor Singh was an ardent advocate of the vision of a ‘Future Earth’ which is inclusive, equitable, ethical, healthier, happier, prosperous, sustainable and ecofriendly. He steadfastly promoted the collaboration and interaction of students of various universities, both nationally and internationally. He established a weather station on the premises of the Department of Geography, University of Delhi, with the prudent vision of developing climate data sharing platforms. Several Springer volumes emerged under his leadership that encompassed a wide range of topics related to geography and inter-disciplinary domains such as Climate Change and Biodiversity, Glacial Response and Vegetation Dynamics in the Himalayas, Extreme Events and Disaster Risk Reduction, Environmental Geography of South Asia, Stimulating Climate Change and Livelihood Security. As a staunch proponent of the complementarity of science and social science and that an integrated approach is needed to address the grand global challenges of today, his perspective was to combine the investigation, explication and extracts of physical environmental parameters with the socio-economic that manifested in edited works on livelihoods and disasters, health, water availability, agriculture and land-use. His books on climate variability, climate change and livelihoods, among others, incorporate a deep theoretical academic understanding with an empirical approach to address problems while offering valuable policy perspectives. R. B. Singh was a phenomenon in terms of his work rate and output. He travelled extensively in the Himalayan Mountains in India under the aegis of the CIDA-SICI Partnership Project 1 and 2 Sustainable Development of Mountain Environment in India and Canada and Urban Development and Environmental Impacts in Mountain Context (University of Delhi and University of Manitoba, Canada: 1994–1997; 1998– 2002). The CIDA-SICI project oriented his research towards mountains and the urban environment. Building on this, between 2003 and 2005 he continued collaborative work with colleagues at the University of Manitoba and the University of Winnipeg, Canada. He also participated in the ICSSR-Indo-Dutch programme on Environmental Implications and its Socio-Economic Implications in Rural-Urban Fringe of Delhi (2012). Prof. Singh’s in-depth interpretation of the mosaic of geographical complexities underpinned the award, by the prestigious Japan Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS), of a research fellowship at Hiroshima in 2013. There were many other travel fellowships/support from, for example, UNEP, UNITAR, IAP, UNU, UNCRD, WCRP, IAHS, IGU, NASDA, INSA, UGC, SICI, MAIRS, University of Delhi etc. He has presented his research and participated in countless research projects across more than 39 countries including Luxembourg, Sri-Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore, Italy, Nepal, Bhutan, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Russia, Georgia, USA, Canada,

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Mexico, Japan, Australia, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Mongolia, Egypt, Thailand, China, Israel, Tunisia, Sweden, South Africa, South Korea, etc. The United Nations (UN) invited him as moderator, in January 2016, of a working group on Exposure and Vulnerability at the UNISDR Sendai Framework of Disaster Risk Reduction. He was a vehement supporter of the use of big data, open data, open cloud computing platforms and open-source models and climate studies. He and his research team extensively used open data sets such as Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), Tropical Monsoon Measuring Mission (TRMM), Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), CHIRPS and PERSIANN-CDR, providing regional climates for impact studies (PRECIS) data, Landsat Series, SRTM DEM, Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) stations and grid data, APHRODITE, NASA POWER, Cordex and Giovanni data sets, etc. Professor Singh’s research outputs and outreach work are testimony enough of his eminence as a scholar, but he also exerted enormous influence on his dear students. In an academic journey of more than 30 years, he successfully supervised 33 Ph.D. and 80 M.Phil. students, all of whom adored him. During his classes he frequently drew on the works of those who had influenced him most, for example, Bruno Messereli, who had coined the term ‘Highland Lowland Interaction’, and Gurnar Myrdal, whose ‘Asian Drama’ had a great impact on his thinking. He was a great admirer of Confucius, in particular, in the view that ‘If you have a plan for one year, plant rice. If you have a plan for ten years, plant trees. If you have a plan for hundred years, educate your children’. Professor Singh vision was well acquainted with the root causes of the developmental interlude in the subcontinent of India. One statement in particular stands out: ‘There is a gap between academician, policy makers and policy implementing organizations. Successfull implementation of any programme and policy across landscape requires bridging this gap in a harmonised manner’. For him, achieving sustainability lies in the ‘we feeling’ rather than in an ‘I existence’. In his words, the concept of sustainability is a wholesome package and it directly or indirectly addresses the elements prevalent in society that hinder its growth. At the time of his death, R. B. Singh was the Secretary-General of the International Geographical Union (IGU), indeed he was first Indian to occupy that prestigious position. He was also Chair, Research Council, CSIR-Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore; Member-Research Council-CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Lucknow. He was playing lead role in preparation of Definitional Dictionary of Climatology in Hindi for the Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology of the Ministry of Education, Government of India. Professor R. B. Singh was a visionary architect of modern geography, he laboured unrelentingly day and night for the discipline of geography and for the major global programmes: IPCC Climate Change assessment, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Future Earth initiatives of International Science Council (ISC). He will be fondly remembered for his wisdom, scholarship and dedication to the expression of geography as a science in India and

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internationally. I write this, a humble tribute to a visionary and legendary geographer who has left us an extraordinary legacy to take forward. With his simplicity and humility, he was deeply loved by his students, and known as “Guruji” (the Teacher), as well as among the international community who knew him as their beloved “RB”.

Other Tributes Singh, Rana P. B. (2022) Foreword and Appraising the Contributions of Prof. R. B. Singh, In: Kumar, Pankaj, et al. (eds.) Water Resources Management and Sustainability. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-981-16-6573-8%2F1 Himiyama, Yukio (2022) Memoirs of Academic and Educational Contribution of Late Professor R. B. Singh, In: Kumar, Pankaj, et al. (eds.) Water Resources Management and Sustainability. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/bfm%3A978-981-166573-8%2F1 Kumar, Pankaj (2021) The Memorial Tribute for Professor R. B. Singh, IGU Newsletter Commission on Climatology- December 2021. http://www.klimat.geo. uj.edu.pl/www%20CoC/Newsletter_2021.pdf Roy, Shouraseni Sen (2021), Professor R. B. Singh (1955~2021). In: Pandey, Bindhy Wasini and Anand, Subhash (eds.) Water Science and Sustainability (pp. 13). Sustainable Development Goals Series (ISSN 2523-3084). Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-57488-8_1 Singh, Rana P. B. (2021), Professor R. B. Singh (1955~2021), an icon of Indian Geography: A Passage on the Path of Lineage, Legacy and Liminality. Space and Culture, India (ACCB Publishing, England; Open Access on-line ISSN: 2052-8396), vol. 9 (2), September: pp. 06~49. Fully © the author. https://doi.org/10.20896/saci. v9i2.1204 Singh, Anju (2021), Obituary: Prof. R. B. Singh (1955–2021), Indian Journal of Spatial Science, Vol.12, No. 02, ISSN 2249-3921. Pankaj Kumar University of Delhi Delhi, India

Contents

Research Issues and Challenges in Geographical Disciplines 1

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(Re-)Thinking Cities and the Urban: From the Global to the Local . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . María José Piñeira Mantiñán, Markus Hesse, and Javier Delgado Campos From The New World to Multiple Possible Worlds: Political Geography, Geopolitics, and Border Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Virginie Mamadouh and Adriana Dorfman

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New and Emerging Pathways for Transport Geography . . . . . . . . . . . Frédéric Dobruszkes, Chia-Lin Chen, Julie Cidell, Ana Condeço-Melhorado, Andy Goetz, Tim Ryley, and Thomas Thévenin

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Geography and Geographers in Place and Time: A View from the International Geographical Union’s Commission on the History of Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jacobo García-Álvarez, Marcella Schmidt-Muller di Friedberg, Elizabeth Baigent, Andre Reyes-Novaes, Federico Ferretti, Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier, and Bruno Schelhaas

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Innovative Development of Modern Agricultural Geographic Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liu Yansui, Feng Weilun, and Li Yuheng

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Contents

The Interdisciplinary Nature of Modern Geography 6

Integrating Geography for Global Sustainability and the Earth’s Future: The Role of International Geographical Union Commission on Geography for Future Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Xutong Wu, Yiming An, Shan Sang, Yan Li, and Wenwu Zhao

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Global Change and Human Mobility in the Anthropocene . . . . . . . . 121 Josefina Domínguez-Mujica, Dušan Drbohlav, MarIa Lucinda Fonseca, Daniel Göler, Zaiga Krišj¯ane, Wei Li, Cristóbal Mendoza, Gábor Michalkó, Comfort Iyabo Ogunleye-Adetona, Susana M. Sassone, and Barbara Staniscia

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Contribution of Geography and Geospatial Technology to Cope with Hazards and Risks: Implications of GIS Development in Japan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Takashi Oguchi

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Marginality Issues in a Time of World Reorganization . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Steve Déry, Walter Leimgruber, Borna Fuerst-Bjeliš, and Etienne Nel

10 Land Use and Land Cover Changes in a Global Environmental Change Context—The Contribution of Geography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Monica Dumitras, cu, Yukio Himiyama, Matej Gabrovec, Monika Kopecká, Lucie Kupková, and Ivan Bicik Territorial Dimension of Geographical Topics 11 Coastal Systems: The Dynamic Interface Between Land and Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Colin D. Woodroffe, Niki Evelpidou, Irene Delgado-Fernandez, David R. Green, Anna Karkani, and Paolo Ciavola 12 Advances in Karst Geomorphology and Hydrogeology Research in the Last Decade and Its Future Direction for Karst Land Use Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Eko Haryono 13 Achievements and Challenges of Geographical Research in Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 Innocent MOYO 14 Issues and Dilemmas of Local and Regional Development in Geographical Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Jerzy Ba´nski

Part I

Research Issues and Challenges in Geographical Disciplines

Chapter 1

(Re-)Thinking Cities and the Urban: From the Global to the Local María José Piñeira Mantiñán , Markus Hesse , and Javier Delgado Campos

Abstract This chapter aims to analyze the complex challenges and problems faced by cities and urban regions at the beginning of the twenty-first century and to present the IGU Commission on Urban Geography. The economic, social, and health crises of recent years have redrawn the socio-political and economic logics of the global, resulting in a process of transition and a search for new directions in the way cities are viewed, understood, and governed. Urban futures call for a more inclusive direction, a sustainable development strategy that aligns urbanization with territorial and social cohesion, inclusive economic growth and the environment, and that also helps to reduce social inequalities. Throughout this chapter, we will analyze the challenges currently faced by cities, and then present the IGU Commission on Urban Geography, whose current theme is (Re-)Thinking Cities and the Urban: from the global to the local. We will take stock of the main topics that have defined its strategy and present the themes that have been the focus of its conference debates since 2000. Keywords Urban geography · Cities and urban regions · Challenges · Policies · IGU Urban Geography Commission

M. J. Piñeira Mantiñán (B) University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain e-mail: [email protected] M. Hesse University of Luxembourg, Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg e-mail: [email protected] J. Delgado Campos National Autonomous University of México, Mexico City, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_1

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1.1 Introduction The twenty-first century was envisioned as the century of cities (Messner 2019). Since 2007, more than half of the world’s population was already living in cities, and forecasts predicted that 60% would do so by 2030 (United Nations 2022a, b). Cities were conceived as hyperconnected spaces, very attractive for their economic ecosystem—they were centers of innovation and wealth, social, cultural, and for offering unlimited opportunities. They were the triumphant scenarios of hegemonic capitalism, free trade, and globalization, the latter characterized by the geographic dispersion of economic activities and the subjection of companies to agglomeration economies. However, what we perceive to be urban reality is that the twenty-first century has started as a very convulsive one, in which cities have been at the forefront of the economic, environmental, and health crisis (UN-HABITAT 2020; Fernández and Abdullah 2020). The financial crisis of 2008/2009 highlighted the negative impacts derived from a neoliberal (urban) development model, characterized by deregulation and a model within which economic interests prevailed over sustainable planning (Lois et al. 2016). While the societal and political awareness has risen that the phenomenon of neoliberal economic globalization helped to create bridges (through trade, growth, and telecommunications) between different countries and social strata, it also helped to demolish traditional economies deepen the subordination of economies of the Global South and contributed to the hyper-indebtedness of a large number of countries (Sassen 2014). For its part, the health crisis brought to the table the weaknesses of our world as we have it organized and has redrawn certainties that were hitherto unquestionable. With COVID-19 we were able to see how the great world capitals, well connected (by international airports and high-speed trains), and centers of large companies that maintain commercial relations around the world were the epicenter of the pandemic (Wuhan, Milan, New York City, Sao Paulo, Melbourne). They became fragile and ghostly spaces, showing us the reverse side of the world city (Lois 2020). Cities and urban areas that were more compact, densified, and linked to a higher level of population mobility were the most affected by COVID. Thus, it was highlighted that cities were not only spaces with serious environmental problems resulting from high building densities in concert with high intensities of social contact, traffic, and polluting activities (poor environmental quality, noise, heat islands, lack of green infrastructure), but also facilitated the spread of the pandemic (Cartenì et al. 2020), thus starting its downward trend. As a result, cities are facing unprecedented urban challenges and the administrations in charge of designing, planning, and managing cities have to move from the agenda to action. Based on this premise, this chapter discusses what these challenges are and how they are analyzed in the context of the IGU’s Urban Geography Commission. To do so, first we will analyze the challenges for urban areas to ensure that they are inclusive, sustainable, innovative, and learning based (European Commission 2020). We will then briefly introduce the IGU Urban Geography Commission,

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analyze how the different management teams that have been in charge of it since 2000 have managed to introduce the challenges that have prevailed in each period in the topics that have defined its strategy, and conclude by assessing the extent to which these have been addressed in its annual conferences.

1.2 Urban Geographies in Transition The economic, social, and health crises of recent years indicate the need to develop new ways of seeing, understanding, and governing cities, from a multi-scalar, interrelated, and global perspectives. There is an urgent need to rethink urban models, which stop theorizing about smart, sustainable, livable, equitable, and healthy cities and move into action by addressing their challenges with systemic and holistic approaches that address various factors simultaneously (sustainability, livability, health, equity) (Abdelrazek et al. 2018). In this context, the concept of Regenerative City (Schurig and Turan 2022) gains special attention. It refers to rethinking the way our cities are redesigned to promote future-proof model. In the medium-term future, cities will have to learn to provide comprehensive responses to their problems, learn to be resilient and manage uncertainties. But they will only succeed if they go through a transition period (Parreño et al. 2021) in which they rethink the concept of the global city (Sassen 2003), reorganize the urban system, define a new model of city and urban governance, review production models, define how to guarantee access to goods and services, care for the vulnerable population, and guarantee environmental quality by designing sustainable mobility systems and drastically reducing emissions (Table 1.1). Thus, the regeneration is not only aimed at regeneration of resources and efficiency of ecosystems, it also has to regenerate the urban space in a human-centered fashion. Now, when it appears that the impact of the pandemic has been partially mitigated, it is time to turn the health crisis into an opportunity to create smart, sustainable, livable, equitable, and healthy cities (Nieuwenhuijsen 2020; Nikolaeva and Nikolaev 2021). Some changes introduced during the pandemic may already be irreversible, since during the time of confinement our perception of our living patterns, the housing we live in, the public spaces around us, the means of transportation we use, etc. has changed. But there is still much to be done. It is true that initiatives such as the 15-min city, the superblocks of Barcelona, the compact city, the carfree city have been emerging, but administrations should strive to rebuild an urban environment favorable to the existence and strengthening of the community, considering people, their weaknesses, and capabilities (MartMartínez and González 2020; Editorial 2021). The Urban Geography Commission of the International Geographical Union (IGU-UGI) seeks to analyze the challenges and problems that cities and urban regions are facing. It is designed to encourage geographical research on the new Urban Challenges emerging in the world, and to further the exchange of findings among urban geographers from many countries (IGU Urban Geography Commission 2022).

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Table 1.1 (Re-)think the city: points of reflection Perspective

Points of reflection

Power

Local governments are once again at the forefront (Mohd and Saiz 2020). They are regaining their protagonism on the global game board, even though their regulatory, competence, and budgetary framework is still weakened (Estela 2020)

Global city

The transformation of glocal conditions determines the repositioning of cities at different levels (Curtis 2021) A new geography of centrality emerges (Sassen 2003) The concept of trans-territorial center built in part in the digital space, through intense economic transactions between global cities, is gaining strength (Sassen 2003) The idea of polycentrism defended by Geddes (1915) is taken up again (Hall 2009) In the reorganization of some regional urban systems, medium and small cities acquire greater relevance as spatial and creative centers and as scenarios of quality of life (Estela 2020) New actors have acted in a context in which the pandemic scenario has served to accentuate the inertia of central states with respect to the use of forms of health management and thus consider possible reflections in the field of global governance and in the strategic framework of paradiplomacy (Rei 2021)

Urban form

Return to urban planning, which should take greater account of sociability spaces (Lois 2020) Recover the links between urban planning and public health Promote a new urbanism based on classical hygienist recipes already applied (lost for decades) (Estela 2020) that will now benefit from technical advances in energy efficiency, smart designs, participatory planning, etc. Design new urban legislation. In many countries, the current one is obsolete and zoning laws prevent diverse land use, a precondition for achieving active mobility and better health Transform the current urban patterns of infrastructure development, housing construction, and transportation into more environmentally friendly patterns (Satterthwaite 2007) Bet on the city and not on diffuse growth. While density and clustering stimulate the productivity of companies and professionals (Florida 2020; Satterthwaite 2007), dispersed settlements imply a greater artificialization of space and generate excess mobility, with its consequent environmental impact (Lois et al. 2016). The objective is to conserve the advantages of density by managing it in another way, while the advantages and limitations of high densities need to be considered

Production model

Rethinking the economic model to promote the transition to an inclusive, regenerative, and sustainable economy Invest in innovation and technology Consider new global market conditions (Shetty 2020) Decentralization and deconcentration of investments for greater resilience. In this sense, a more balanced economic geography is a must (Florida 2020) Promote industry, but clean, efficient, and sustainable in a relocation scenario Promote proximity production Adapt production to needs (continued)

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Table 1.1 (continued) Perspective

Points of reflection

Society

Mitigate the existing duality and social fragmentation in cities and focus urban recovery policies on the vulnerable (Moore 2020; Piñeira et al. 2019) Recover the standing of the population so that it is no longer invisible (Sassen 2003) Guarantee access to basic services. In this sense, initiatives such as basic income and access to affordable housing should be promoted (Vianello and Krabbe 2021)

Lifestyle

To meet the new needs derived from a change in consumption patterns, in the way of moving around the city and in the way of working

Mobility

Promote sustainable mobility, dignifying public spaces, promoting the walkable city, and rethinking public transport Resolve the processes of social exclusion associated with transportation, since during the pandemic people living in more vulnerable environments have been able to reduce their mobility less and more slowly than the rest of the population (Jiron et al. 2010)

1.3 The IGU Urban Geography Commission There has been a long tradition of productive work being done by urban commissions within the IGU. The current sequence dates back to the Moscow meetings of 1976, when Professor Kasimierz Dziewonski of Poland initiated a Commission on National Settlement Systems that emphasized comparisons between capitalist and socialist countries. Subsequent commissions have extended the urban interests to incorporate the variety of problems originating within cities, and have recruited commission members from countries throughout the world. They were chaired by Larry Bourne (Canada, 1984–1992), Denise Pumain (France, 1992–2000), Gerhard Braun (2000–2006), Christian Matthiessen (2006–2012), Céline Rozenblat (2012– 2020), and María José Piñeira (since 2020) (IGU Urban Geography Commission 2022; Rozenblat and Piñeira 2022). According to data from the IGU Urban Geography Commission’s official website for its annual conferences (IGU Urban Geography Commission 2022), from 2001 to the present, the IGU Urban Geography Commission has organized and/or participated in 37 conferences, of which 15 have been held in Asia, 12 in Europe, 7 in America, and 3 in Africa (Fig. 1.1). Moreover, since 2006 (the year for which data are available), 1,333 people have participated in the 17 annual conferences that have been held (7 in Europe, 5 in Asia, 2 in America, 1 in Africa, and 2 online coinciding with the pandemic). Reviewing the participation data for each commission conference, it can be seen that before the financial crisis of 2008/09, the number of participants in the annual conferences of the IGU’s Urban Geography Commission had achieved an average of about 66 people, a figure that dropped radically in 2008 and then went up again, reaching its zenith in 2016 when it was held in Shanghai, where the number of attendees increased significantly (Fig. 1.2). The level of participation was maintained in the following years, and when the upward trend seemed to recover, the COVID-19

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Fig. 1.1 Organization and participation in conferences

Pandemic radically halted it again. Nevertheless, we continued to hold our conferences online for 2 years, until we were able to restore some kind of normality in 2022, by holding the annual meeting in person in Paris, alongside with the Centennial IGC. If we analyze the countries that occupy the top 20 positions according to the volume of participation (Table 1.2), we realize that only three countries (Spain, Japan, and France) have remained consistently in this range during the entire period of observation. The case of China is quite particular, because with the pandemic the participation of researchers from this country was considerably reduced. The fact that China, South Africa, or France occupies the top positions is due to the fact

Fig. 1.2 Evolution of the number of participants in the annual conferences of the IGU Urban Geography Commission

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that the conferences held in these countries attracted a large number of participants from this country. On the other hand, in recent years, a greater participation of Latin American countries is being observed, as Mexico—present since the beginning—has been joined by Brazil—thanks to the holding in 2017 of the conference in Salvador de Bahía—and more recently by Argentina, Colombia, and Chile, from Mediterranean Europe with the incorporation of Greece, and from Eastern Europe with Lithuania and Latvia. Since 2008, the different management teams of the IGU Urban Geography Commission have been in charge of defining the topics that would guide the themes to be discussed at the conferences (IGU Urban Geography Commission 2022). Thus, for the 2008–2012 period, seven thematic areas were established in accordance with the current urban reality: Table 1.2 Top 20 countries by period and number of participants 2006–2010

2011–2015

2016–2020

2021–2022

Spain

44

South Africa

72

China

100

France

28

India

44

Spain

36

Brazil

36

Mexico

8

China

34

Japan

33

France

24

Lebanon

7

Japan

33

Poland

25

Spain

23

South Africa

6

France

25

Brazil

22

Japan

18

Spain

6

Poland

21

Germany

17

Switzerland

18

Switzerland

6

Israel

18

France

16

Canada

17

Germany

5

Germany

16

Canada

14

Lebanon

17

Israel

5

Switzerland

14

China

12

South Africa

15

Italy

5

Portugal

12

Ireland

11

United Kingdom

11

Luxembourg

5

Lebanon

12

Mexico

11

Luxembourg

10

India

4

United Kingdom

10

Mexico

10

Japan

4

South Africa 12 USA

9

India

8

India

8

Australia

3

Denmark

9

Switzerland

7

Russia

8

Brazil

3

Netherland

9

Lebanon

6

USA

7

Greece

3

United Kingdom

9

Israel

4

Germany

6

Latvia

3

Mexico

9

Portugal

4

Poland

5

Romania

3

Canada

8

Luxembourg

3

Israel

4

Portugal

2

Czech Republic

4

Russia

3

Italy

4

USA

2

Ireland

4

Belgiuma

2

Netherlands

4

Argentina

1

Source Own elaboration a Tied with Denmark, Italy, New Zealand, and the USA

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• Complex urban systems: how are the various national, continental, and global urban systems changing—in such features as city size, economic specialization, migration, interaction, and control functions? What processes and differential development paths are involved and how have different government policies affected these changes? • Contested social spaces, in reference to intricate life spaces within cities and potential conflicts among the various groups. Comparing them on an international scale, knowing in which urban spaces they occurred, the actors involved and how the communities were empowered were the main topics discussed. • Creating sustainability, paying special attention to new programs and policies to create more environmentally and socially sustainable cities, their impact and best practices. • Dilemmas of aging cities, analyzing what are the effects of this trend upon the functions and character of these cities, especially their infrastructures and levels of social provision, and what policies are emerging in cities around the world affected with this problem. • Increasing insecurity, since in many contemporary cities crime rates, anti-social behavior, and ethnic conflict threaten to make them less liveable, despite higher levels of surveillance, and apparent solutions such as gated communities, which create more private spaces and hence segregation. • Urban heritage and its conservation, as it shapes the distinctive identity of many cities and societies. Analyzing the policies that support the preservation of these heritages, as well as the processes of gentrification and touristification associated with them were the topics addressed. • Urban governance to explore the spatial issues that affect urban governance, and investigate the utility of emerging administrative solutions seen in many countries, such as the “new regionalism” that seeks to provide a solution to the provision of services. For the 2012–2020 period, new thematic areas would be added, since these were years of great changes in urban spaces in the common development model, aiming to design more sustainable, intelligent, and cohesive cities: • Technological innovations; creative activities in cities focusing on “service” sectors; and new activities in science, technology, commerce, communication, media, art, and design. • Innovative, smart building, and transportation in cities analyzing if “smart” growth benefit the entire city or does it increase polarization and fragmentation, as well as if it alters the morphology and structure of urban areas. • Polycentrism, small and medium size cities which have different issues depending on their proximity to large cities. Reflections focused on how to make them more dynamic and analyze their future and to see to what extent new polycentric patterns are emerging and what is the likely impact on sustainability and spatial equity. • Subjective/objective well-being in cities, in order to identify which indicators determine the quality of life in each country, and what good practices are being promoted to mitigate the social and urban fragmentation of the cities.

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• New concepts and methods in urban studies, for while big data can help our understanding of many urban problems, there is also a need for increasing conceptual and methodological sophistication to deal with these changes. Consequently, new theories, approaches, methods, and techniques were needed. However, in order to ensure continuity in the research and encourage participation, the themes of the previous period were maintained, but with the addition of new concepts that responded to a new social and political reality. Thus, for example, urban governance was discussed, but now linked to citizen participation; the topic of sustainability was continued, but now related to the concept of resilience to orient urban policies. But at the same time, they introduced new topics of analysis that would enrich the debate on the complex reality of cities. For the 2020–2024 period, the lines of research are focused on five topics that are in line with the challenges that cities had to face to recover from the economic and environmental crises (IGU Urban Geography Commission 2022): • Cities as drivers of, and driven by, transformational change: While the underlying planetary perspective on urbanization is shared by many observers (Rickards 2016; Brenner and Schmid 2014), the interpretation of what this means to us seems to be more contested. Based on theories of agglomeration, some observers have argued that there would be an associated triumph of dense, clustered city areas as an economic model (Glaeser 2011). Others have pointed at the many difficulties of the once strong industrial cities when adapting to recent economic and technological changes (OECD 2019). A closer inspection reveals a rather differentiated view of today’s urbanization processes and outcomes—one that approaches cities as being ambivalent, both subject to prosperity and growth, and also undergoing trajectories of decline, both as drivers of transformation and driven by related processes. The polarized pattern that was inherent to the rise of the industrial city (polarized between city and countryside on the one hand, and within the urban system on the other) now seems to be a feature that also accompanies the rise of “tech cities” (Ismail 2013). These developments render cities and the archipelago of city-regions extremely well suited as subjects of research, a view that is also increasingly applied to urban networks and urban– rural partnerships. Moreover, urban regions play a major role as entry points of global migration flows. • Cities, urban systems, and nation states: Current urban changes are reinforced by ongoing socio-economic dynamics at global scale. For decades, globalization was considered to be the main driver of a new urban hierarchy to emerge in different regions of the world (Glaeser 2011). Most notably the rise of services capitals as part of the financialized global economy has shaped the traditional urban system. The once familiar setting of global cities and mega cities (or city-regions) has been accompanied by an accelerated urbanization in East and Southeast Asia and in the Middle East (United Nations 2018). Such processes were an outcome of market-driven processes and also pursued by deliberate state power, particularly by practices of the developmental state. Emerging from new practices of

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multi-level governance, such processes have widened our understanding of urbanization, and they have also brought about new urban images and imaginaries. As globalization seems to have reached peak levels by the end of the 2010s (Nussbaum 2010), trade policies based on open markets are increasingly challenged by a return of the national sentiment. It remains open as to what this will mean for cities which were always considered to be forerunners of globalization. • Urban areas under pressure of transformation: Dynamic changes also apply to the internal organization of cities, which had long been driven by urban growth, spatial expansion, and related differentiation. Urban shrinkage became a familiar pattern recently (Haase et al. 2014), as did the urbanization of suburban areas and the rise of polycentric, multi-nuclear patterns of urban development. These transformations have happened against the background of historical trajectories of cities. It is also obvious that urban polarization and the related social and economic inequalities emerge in the shadow of a city’s success—simply when economic prosperity ensues as a consequence of rising attractiveness of a city and an associated increase in the cost of living, most notably in rents, which affects wider sections of the residential population (UN-HABITAT 2022). Consequently, the growing financial costs to individuals of urban life are no longer confined to the margins of academic debate and urban activism, and have become a common political and governmental focal point in disparate polities globally. Some of the related problems are labeled by popular terms such as gentrification or “touristification” of urban areas (Miguez et al. 2019; Sequera and Nofre 2018). However, the challenge of urban inequalities and segregation of class, race, and associated conflicts (social vulnerability, insecurity and urban violence, feminicides, social vulnerability, forced displacement, coexistence with indigenous peoples) has been reproduced in urban development patterns for decades which remains high on the agenda of current urban studies and also (urban) politics. • Climate change, resilience, urban health, and well-being: Until recently, one of the most pressing concerns of urban policy has been the issue of longer term sustainability and climate change. A special focus was put here on cities for two reasons: first, urban areas are specifically affected by climate change, simply due to the high share of the population that would be exposed to extreme weather conditions such as heatwaves, flooding events, and the like. Second, cities were also perceived as major sites of mitigation and adaptation—given that the urban constellation was thought to be beneficial for sustainable ways of living, and also with respect to the traditional role of cities as motors of innovation (Dodman 2022). Not coincidentally, a broad range of experimental settings and policies have emerged at local levels that aim at supporting green transformations. While this is appreciative, it must be acknowledged that cities are not per se good for the environment, as they are not necessarily economically successful compared to other areas. This depends very much on the local conditions, as regards land use patterns, the provision of open space, transport infrastructure, and the like, and also the user behavior that is made possible in related contexts. The basic claim of sustainable development, which is to provide a balance between environmental, social, and economic aspirations, is still valid. Hence “green” and, more precisely,

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sustainable development approaches and strategies for cities and urban regions have always been, and still are, at center stage of the Commission’s work. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has put another strain on urban life and urban developments and renders them specifically vulnerable. Both the disease and the associated lockdown are about to challenge some fundamentals of urbanization: concentration and mobility. While it is clear that a mere territorialist perspective on the contagion is limited (for example, given the important role that institutions play here), it seems important that cities will develop a new balance between density and concentration on the one hand, and dispersion and flows on the other (Desay 2020). Moreover, the Virus and the associated measures to lock down cities and societies could also be a game changer in more general societal and political regards: While there is good reason for caution, it could be argued that after decades of a neoliberal political mainstream, the recent crisis has recalled the important role that common goods and public services play for both cities and societies (Crouch 2022). This will also have ramifications for the urban arena. • Governance, institutions, urban policy: Cities and city-regions have become more and more integrated into global economic networks as hot spots in the emerging services industries, and re-configured as strategic, competitive locales for cognitive-cultural capitalism. The associated consequences for urban governance were a shift from managerial to entrepreneurial urbanism, an increasingly competitive positioning of urban politics, and a rise of corporate power within the specific power constellations of cities and nation states. The territorial limits of the new urban region governance pose many questions of core-peripheries integration and equality for taxes and rights to the city. Civil society actors also seem to play an increasing role in urban decision-making, with participation becoming a standard practice particularly in urban planning (Haindlmaier 2016). This somehow contradictory pattern is complemented by populist developments that have recently started to rise in many countries, thus challenging established routines of the democratic process. Cities are also considered to play a role next to, and presumably also as a follow-up of, the once predominant nation states. In climate change policy, for example, cities are expected to be more pro-active in international affairs, as national governments proved to lack effective policy-making. In response to a rising awareness for urban issues at global or transnational levels, the development of a set of New Urban Agendas also became popular in recent years. This applies, for example, to the Quito Declaration presented by the United Nations Habitat Programme or the Urban Agenda pursued by the European Union. It remains to be debated as to what extent a genuinely urban policy exists, or whether decision-making for cities and in cities is still determined by higher levels of politics and policy-making. Also, the tendencies of these urban agendas to collect so-called good or best practice—often without addressing the specific contexts they have evolved from—make the resulting “urban solutions industries” a questionable endeavor. In more general terms, however, urban governance as the collective term for understanding formal and informal decision-making in urban

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regards remains on high on all research agendas, and will thus also continue to be of particular interest for the Urban Commission.

1.4 An Approach to the Debates If we take stock of the topics discussed during all these years, based on the papers included in the programs of the annual conferences of the IGU Urban Geography Commission (except for the 2007 and 2008 conferences in Guangzhou and Tunisia because we do not have the documentation), we can see that among the more than 900 papers presented, some 30 topics stand out (Fig. 1.3) (IGU Urban Geography Commission 2022). If we focus on the ten thematic blocks that account for 50% of the communications, we find that among the first are those related to the urban economy and vulnerability and segregation. In the early years of the twenty-first century in the field of urban economy, the focus was on specialization, relocation of economic activities, creation of special economic zones, trade, and malls, to give way after the economic crisis to aspects related to the impacts derived from it, the need to transform and restructure the economic base, analyze market niches, promote creative activities, spillover and coworking spaces, all with the aim of achieving economic recovery and increase competitiveness. Related to the latter is the block that analyzes global cities, in which the processes of conformation of megacities, their capacity of attraction for multinational firms’ networks, and the advantages/impacts derived from agglomeration economies and globalization processes are analyzed. Regarding social vulnerability and segregation, if at the beginning the most discussed topics were social differences, unequal access to goods such as food, poverty, or the situation of children according to family income, after the economic crisis the debates focused on urban segregation and fragmentation, homeless people, and contested cities. The fact that the umbrella of vulnerability covers economic, social, and residential aspects leads us to relate this block to two others: housing and

Fig. 1.3 Main topics presented at the conferences of IGU Urban Geography Commission

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the real state, population and urban society. In relation to housing, although aspects such as ownership, size, and market have always been of interest, the bursting of the real estate bubble brought to the table other aspects that previously went unnoticed, such as evictions, the increase in housing prices, and the difficulty of access to housing, issues that speak to us of residential vulnerability. Regarding population and urban society, demographic changes, aging, migratory movements toward urban spaces, multiculturalism, or communities have been topics of permanent interest. However, in recent years, we have been analyzing aspects related to social differences that are reflected in urban space, income inequality, segregation and social fragmentation, vulnerable neighborhoods, and contested cities, which tell us about the traces that the crises of the twenty-first century have left on the pieces of the urban mosaic that makes up the city. Complementing the ten outstanding themes are the blocks related to sustainability, transportation and infrastructure, urban growth, urban renewal processes, and governance. The first two are directly related, especially in recent years, when aspects such as metropolitan transport and the construction of large infrastructures have been put on the back burner to focus the debate on how to promote sustainable public transport that reduces atmospheric and water pollution, with a view to having more sustainable and cleaner cities. Precisely related to the latter, communications that address the effects of climate change, water management, garbage collection, and highlight initiatives such as urban farming stand out. Urban development and its impacts are also a block that has been maintained over time, as well as urban renewal processes, and urban governance models. Numerous papers have also focused on new urban policies that seek to mitigate the impacts of the crises and direct their focus to neighborhoods, where the majority of the population resides. Finally, we cannot fail to mention the other topics that have been dealt with in our conferences although they have a smaller representation. Among them we find the analysis of urban systems and the configuration of metropolitan regions and areas. These spaces are in continuous transformation and need a governance model that goes beyond administrative boundaries. This topic is closely linked to the planning of urban growth, especially in sensitive areas. Attention has also been given to the urban form, urban landscape in terms of its consolidated urban spaces, as well as those in transition with the countryside; the right to the city, to enjoy public space, urban commons, resilience initiatives, social movements; the reconfiguration of port areas and waterfronts as well as green areas to improve the quality of life and the sustainability of our cities; the shrinking cities and alternative economic models to promote a smart city in which innovation prevails. Special attention to processes such as gentrification and the impact of tourism in our cities. Cities are places where we can find culture, art, heritage, shops, and a wide range of leisure activities. All of them support tourist activity whose economic impact is indisputably positive, but which can generate tensions with residents, both in terms of rental supply and the nuisance generated by mass tourism, mainly in historic centers, where the main heritage resources are located. To avoid these tensions, to manage and plan in the most efficient way, the cities require to have information and

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data, to internalize them, to map them and to promote the development of modeling, to make the impact of the promoted initiatives on the territory visible, as it has been demonstrated in some of the papers presented.

1.5 Conclusion Cities are complex spaces. They are dynamic spaces, but at the same time in distress as a result of the challenges imposed by the economic, environmental, and health crises of recent decades. They are consolidated spaces, but at the same time they are affected by changes in the dynamics of the global scale that have repercussions on the local scale. The COVID-19 pandemic has once again highlighted the fragility of urban spaces, the challenges they face and the need to re(think) how cities are made, planned, and managed. There is an urgent need for further reflection on urban spaces in the IGU Commission on Urban Geography, on those dynamics that seem to be chronified in time, and others that are emerging in the face of the progress of urban space, its economic development, its repositioning, and strive to be a competitive, sustainable, intelligent, and creative city. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the topics addressed have varied in their degree of representation in the Commission’s annual conferences, without ever disappearing. If at the beginning aspects such as global markets, urban systems, polycentrism, the incidence of Information and Communication Technologies, smart cities, or aging acquired greater weight; as the impacts of the crisis left their mark, issues such as governance, the right to the city, resilience, vulnerability, or climate change have become stronger. In the coming years, marked by the thematic conference of the IGU in Mexico in 2023, the annual conference of the Urban Geography Commission in Cork and that of the IGU in Dublin, both in 2024, these latter issues are expected to continue to maintain a greater relative weight, as they are the key aspects included in framework documents such as The New Leipzig Charter, the Urban Agenda 2030, and World Cities Report 2022. Moreover, they are topics that generate great interest among researchers around the world. A fact that we can confirm both by the participation of colleagues from the five continents, with an increase in recent years of those from Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe, and by the progressive increase of junior researchers, more and more present in the annual conferences we hold. This is how the IGU Commission on Urban Geography has definitively consolidated its global dimension with a presence in all continents and regions of the world.

References Abdelrazek S, Ragheb A, Makram A (2018) Knowledge as a holistic, integrated approach to future urban development. Int J Curr Res 10(10):74582–74587

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Martínez M, González R (2020) Acción colectiva durante la crisis pandémica en España (2020– 2021). Anuario de Movimientos Sociales 2020. Fundación Betiko, Vizcaya. https://www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:1648422/FULLTEXT01.pdf Messner D (2019) El siglo de las ciudades. Vías para la sostenibilidad. Concilium 13–25 Miguez C, Piñeira M, Fernández Tabales A (2019) Social vulnerability and touristification of historic centers. Sustainability 11(16). https://doi.org/10.3390/su11164478 Mohd M, Saiz E (2020) Local governments are in the frontline of coronavirus response. Foundation TR (ed). https://news.trust.org/item/20200327112921-ucwz7/. Accessed 5 Feb 2022 Moore N (2020) Urban redevelopment, governance and vulnerability: thirty years of ‘regeneration’ in Dublin. Boletín de la Asociación de Geógrafos Españoles 87. https://bage.age-geografia.es/ ojs/index.php/bage/article/view/3004/2806 Nieuwenhuijsen MJ (2020) Post-COVID-19 cities: new urban models to make cities healthier. https://www.isglobal.org/en/healthisglobal/-/custom-blog-portlet/post-covid-19-cities-newurban-models-to-make-cities-healthier/4735173/0 Nikolaeva L, Nikolaev S (2021) The impact of the pandemic on the implementation of the Agenda 2030: aggravating problems or a signal for action. Iberoamérica (2):35–59. https://iberoamerica journal.ru/sites/default/files/2021/2/nikolaeva_2.pdf Nussbaum B (2010) Peak globalization. Harv Bus Rev. https://hbr.org/2010/12/peak-globalization OECD (2019) Regions in industrial transition. Policies for people and places. OECD, Paris. https:// www.oecd-ilibrary.org/urban-rural-and-regional-development/regions-in-industrial-transition_ c76ec2a1-en Parreño J, Piñeira M, González J (2021) Urban geographies in transition. A vision from Spain. Urban Sci 5(4) Piñeira M, Lois R, González J (2019) New models of urban governance in Spain during the postcrisis period: the fight against vulnerability on a local scale. Territ Polit Gov 7(3):336–364 Rei F (2021) The COVID-19 pandemic and the action of new international actors in the area of global governance and paradiplomacy. Direito da Cidade 13(2):753– 774. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA685609188&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it= r&linkaccess=abs&issn=23177721&p=IFME&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7Ee8ca4279 Rickards L (2016) Urban studies after the age of the city. Urban Stud 53(8):1523–1541 Rozenblat C, Piñeira M (2022) From the “urban challenges in a global world” to “(re-)thinking cities and the urban from the global to the local”. Retrieved from Conference The IGU Urban commission. IGU Excellence Award 2019. https://www.igu-urban.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ 2019-Award.pdf Sassen S (2003) Una visita guiada a la Ciudad Global. Dispersión, centralidad, nuevos movimientos políticos, culturas alternativas, y una pregunta: ¿de quien es la ciudad? Café de las ciudades. Conocimiento, reflexiones y miradas sobre la ciudad (10). https://www.cafedelasciudades.com. ar/tendencias10_1.htm Sassen S (2014) Expulsions: brutality and complexity in the global economy. Belknap Press, Cambridge Satterthwaite D (2007) The transition to a predominantly urban world and its underpinnings. IIED, London. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David-Satterthwaite-2/publication/275035204_ The_Transition_to_a_Predominantly_Urban_World_and_its_Underpinnings/links/553282450 cf20ea0a07482ce/The-Transition-to-a-Predominantly-Urban-World-and-its-Underpinnings. pdf?_sg Schurig S, Turan K (2022) The concept of a ‘regenerative city’: how to turn cities into regenerative systems. J Urban Regen Renew 15(2):161–175 Sequera J, Nofre J (2018) New debates on touristification and thelimits of gentrification. City. https://doi.org/10.1080/13604813.2018.1548819 Shetty G (2020) COVID-19 and global commerce: an analysis of FMCG, and retail industries of tomorrow. Int J Curr Res Rev 12(17):23–31 UN-HABITAT (2020) UN-Habitat COVID-19. Response plan. https://unhabitat.org/sites/default/ files/2020/04/final_un-habitat_covid-19_response_plan.pdf

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Chapter 2

From The New World to Multiple Possible Worlds: Political Geography, Geopolitics, and Border Studies Virginie Mamadouh and Adriana Dorfman

Abstract Political geographies engage with the relations between space and power, between geography and politics. It is one of the oldest subdiscipline of human geography. The chapter introduces political geography and the plurality of approaches in the discipline which have ranged from the scrutiny of the impact of physical geography on the politics and international relations of specific states, through the political aspects of regional science to the spatial analysis of elections and conflicts and the political economy of the state. More recent developments echo the broader turns in geography: the cultural turn with critical geopolitics and critical border studies, the feminist turn with feminist political geographies and feminist geopolitics, the material turn with more-than representational and more-than-human approaches and ethical ones. Keywords Border · Bordering · (Critical) geopolitics · Multiterritorial/decolonial turn · Territory

2.1 Introduction Political geography is an old subdiscipline of human geography that has remarkably blossomed in the past 40 years. It amounts to an explosion of issues that have been addressed, concepts that have been elaborated, and approaches that have been deployed to examine and make sense of the evolving political geographies of our world. This diversity is so important that it can’t be caught in a short chapter. Instead we focus on territory as a key political geographical concept, and more specifically V. Mamadouh (B) Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] A. Dorfman Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_2

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on geopolitics (referring to strategical actions about territorial claims and notably to relations between political institutions controlling different territories) and on borders (referring to discontinuities between political territories). The chapter aims at showing the dramatic changes in the way geographers and scholars in proximate disciplines study geopolitics and borders. To stress the magnitude of the change, we briefly discuss two landmark studies contrasting Território e Descolonialidade the recent publication on the multiterritorial character of the decolonial turn in geography by Brazilian geographer Haesbaert (2021) with The New World the seminal book published by American geographer Bowman (1922) after the Paris Peace Conference after the First World War.

2.2 Territorial Conflicts and the American Century: The New World: Problems in Political Geography (Bowman 1922) Isaiah Bowman was the Director of the American Geographical Society (based in New York) when he published in 1922 an extensive overview of the postwar political map of the world after the Peace Conference in Paris (1919–1920) and resulting international treaties. The revised and enlarged edition I have used was published in (1926). It is a massive work: 630 pp, 238 maps, 65 photographs, and is followed by a supplement featuring a chapter on the United States and notes about treaties adopted between the editions, most notably the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) about the successor states of the Ottoman Empire that replaced the never ratified Treaty of Sèvres (1920), as well as additional maps and a separate index (112 extra pages). Contra customary usage in English, the New World Bowman is writing about does not encompass the parts of the world “discovered “ by the Europeans since the end of the fifteenth century, nor the Western Hemisphere on their planispheres. It is not a new world located overseas from the perspective of the Old World of Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean and their known history of conquests and wars. It is a new political map with new principles to regulate international order and new borders in many parts of Europe after the territorial dismantlement of the Central Powers by the winners of the War and the creation of new political entities based on the self-determination of nations and the transfer of their colonies to powers mandated by a new institution of global governance, the League of Nations. The American President Wilson was the political leader touting this new world order; Bowman was his geographer at the 1919–1920 Peace Conference in Paris and as such tremendously influential and popular (making it to the cover of Time magazine in March 1936). He remained the most influential geographer in US politics for decades and served other presidents. Neil Smith titled his book about his influence on the global world order shaped by US hegemony American Empire: Roosevelt’s Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization after Wilson’s successor F.D. Roosevelt (Smith 2003).

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Bowman’s stated aims with The New World was to provide proper education for the US foreign-office staff urgently needed to match the new role of the US in global politics. It is grounded in the expertise collected by the Inquiry and the American Geography Society. The Inquiry had been established by President Wilson in 1917 to prepare the peace negotiations. It consisted of 150 academics and it was chaired first by Walter Lippman (the influential political commentator, credited to have given currency to the term Cold War three decades later), then by Isaiah Bowman who went to France with a team of 21 experts with President Wilson in January 1919 for the Peace Conference in Paris. The book opens with a chapter on major problems: “the effects of the Great War are so far-reaching that we shall have henceforth a new world. […] after each crisis humanity has set itself vigorously to work recasting its world” (p. 1). Rheims cathedral is presented as a symbol of the world. Located in the middle of a region heavily destroyed by the trench warfare, the famous gothic cathedral and its renowned windows were destroyed by shelling. With hindsight the symbol is particularly well chosen: the renovation started in 1919 supported financially by the Rockefeller foundation while other American philanthropists contributed to the reconstruction of the city and was opened in 1938, just before the start of Second World War and a new round of destruction. In the new world emerging from the First World War, Bowman looks for order. The new problems pertained to “the new boundaries, concessions, colonies, mandataries, spheres of influence and protectorates”, to the new democracies, to the people composing new states and to their economic strength and weakness (p. 2). Pressing questions are many: How will the great powers meet their new responsibilities? “Will strong states administer their colonies and protectorates in the interest of the natives?” (p. 2) Can the burden of armaments been reduced? Minorities been protected? Can the strong nations realize their commercial and political ambitions without the prospect of war between them? “In short, will the changes in the political and economic geography of the world spell peace or war, strength or weakness, in the years immediately before us?” (p. 3). Borders and religions are presented as “Basic causes of the complex problems of the world”. New international boundaries are new zones of frictions. Twilight zones are zones of mixed population that breed conflicts. Religion is identified as a cause of conflict because it may become a political force “from its nature or through its use by ambitious rulers […] Mohammedanism, for example, has always been feared in this respect” (p. 5). Bowman argues that “the old causes of trouble, which had their roots in the unequal geographical conditions and the jealousies of different dynasties are complicated by a general desire for better living conditions and by a universal unrest and dissatisfaction with present social and political forms” (p. 7) pointing at the Russian revolution, and “labor demanding shorter hours and larger pay, peasants taking possession of larger estates” (no mention of women, colonized people, or other major emancipatory movements that the twentieth and twenty-first century will bring). He also stresses that confusion is enhanced by the fact that there are divergences of opinions about the objects of war and the objects of peace. Finally, he discussed the practical values of existing peace agreements and cooperative plans.

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Although dated in many ways (too many to be discussed here), the core concern of his musing sound surprisingly familiar: complex disorder. The rest of the volumes consist of geographically delimitated chapters addressing the problems of specific states, groupings of states, peoples, or regions. 34 chapters in the main volume, from Ch2 Problems of Imperial Britain to Ch34 Latin American trade and boundary dispute: relations to the US (plus a 35th chapter on The situation of the United States in the supplement and notes to 15 of the original chapters). There would be a lot to comment about the chosen groupings and labeling. Striking is the large and detailed attention paid to European states. The world Bowman presents is new because the age of European “discoveries” reached its limits: since there are no “empty” spaces left on the planet, competition between European states amount to direct confrontation and war. The text focuses on problems and difficulties (past, present, and future) and foreground historical and geographical explanations, covering demographic, physical, economic, cultural, and political aspects. Chapters are richly illustrated with maps and pictures. The book has definitively a US outlook. It is clearly written for a US readership, comparing areas and population size and density with states and regions of the USA and tellingly originally no chapter on the USA. This was not part of the world out there to be documented. The supplementary chapter published originally in 1923 opens with a candid observation: “In preceding chapters we have frankly described the situation of other powers—their geographical and historical setting, their handicaps, their problems, their dangers. With equal frankness let us turn the light of criticism upon ourselves. What are some of the greatest weaknesses in the structure of our domestic life that affect our unity and our foreign relations? What are our problem areas and zones of frictions? Where do we stand in the esteem of the world?” (p. 1)

The chapter consists of four parts: the internal situation, foreign relations within the Americas, American interests in the Philippines and the Pacific, and foreign relations imposed by civilization. In the first Bowman discusses “the Negroes problem” (both in the Southern states and in the cities of the North) as well as population growth and changing immigration flows are a concern, but no attention whatsoever for indigenous peoples displaced by settlers. In the last the limited outlook of American state persons and voters on global issues: Bowman deals with the growing importance of oil (1926 supplement p. 59) and the need to develop a better foreign policy to get access to it and the effort to establish a major merchant marine. Bowman also stresses the unpredictability of American voters about foreign policy (pp. 70–71) (a large share of foreign born “some naturalized but it does not mean they have taken a fresh view of international problems and that this view is distinctively American” p. 70). The last additional notes concerned the treaties and resolutions adopted at the Conference on the limitation of armament in Washington DC in 1921–22 and the protocol of arbitration (by the USA) between Peru and Chile about the Tacna-Arica District. Two examples of the potential of diplomatic solutions to conflicts between states.

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Overall reading The New World in 2022 is a confrontation with the enduring importance of international boundaries and territorial conflicts and the enduring unequal power relations shaping the struggle for cooperation or other conflict resolution. These have remained key themes in political geography over the past century even if the subdiscipline of human geography deals with a broader array of issues concerning the relation between space and politics (see Jones et al. 2015). Two themes have been particularly topical: geopolitics and border studies. Both subfields have not only been very prolific, but they have also witnessed an impressive diversification of ontological and epistemological approaches, moving away from a state-centric conceptualizations. Old and new research agendas will be contrasted in the next two sections about geopolitics and borders, respectively, to illustrate this evolution.

2.3 Geopolitics: From Geopolitik to Critical and Feminist Geopolitics, and Beyond Geopolitics is a neologism introduced by the Swedish academic and politician Rudolf Kjellén at the beginning of the previous century to label the physical geographical characteristics of a state and their influence on its politics (Kjellén 1916). It had been particularly successful and is widely used in political and media discourses, mostly to refer to power relations between bigger states and their influence on neighboring smaller states. In geography, the concept has been reclaimed to analyze geographical imaginations and geopolitical representations at work in foreign policy-making or in other claims on space. All conceptualizations now coexist—albeit uneasily. In the early twentieth century, political geography was mostly concerned with the evolution of states and their relations with each other. From Ratzel’s Politische Geographie (1892) to Mackinder’s geographical pivot to history (1904) or Kjellén’s geopolitik in the early twentieth century, political geography was mostly concerned with the evolution of states and their relations with each other, and how physical geographical features were influencing those. In his seminal Politische Geographie (1897), the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel explored the spatial characteristics of states and the spatial factors impacting on their growth and decline, dealing with the role of the soil, location, space, borders, and the interface between land and sea. Kjellén elaborated this conception of the state as an organism, stressing the centrality of the relation between the state and its territory (geopolitik) consisting of its topopolitik (i.e., geographical position); its morfopolitik (i.e., territorial shape); and its fysiopolitik (i.e., relief and landscapes). Another influential thinker was the British geographer and politician Sir Halford Mackinder and his ideas about the changing relation between land and sea powers at the end of the age of European discoveries (because of the closure of the world (competition meant from now on competing territorial claims) and technological innovation regarding transportation (Mackinder 1904).

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No wonder Bowman was focusing on these topics when dealing with the states and regions of the world in his attempt to improve the diplomatic skills of American civil servants and foremost their knowledge about the historical and geographical background of conflictual situations so that American foreign policy-making would be up to its new position in global politics. After the First World War, geopolitics became a contentious issue between geographers regarding the influence of physical geographical features such as location, access to the sea, navigable rivers, relief, and climate. But while they could debate determinist versus possibilist conceptions of these influences, most of them agreed on putting their geographical expertise at the service of their national state and their colonial ambitions. Even the most deterministic thinkers were convinced that policies would make a difference and that geographers should formulate policy recommendations to strengthen the territorial and foreign policies of their own state (in that case to change its physical geographical features through territorial claims and colonial conquests). In postwar Germany Geopolitik was particularly popular under the leadership of Karl Haushofer and other German geographers publishing in the Zeitschrift für Geopolitik (1924–1944), as a scientific justification of revanchist and revisionist campaigns against the Peace settlement and more specifically a scientific justification for territorial claims and expansion eastward. It was also popular in new states feeling constrained by established Great Powers due to their late arrival in the global race for colonies and spheres of influence (Germany and Italy in Europe, Japan in Asia) or dealing with territorial integration (construction of infrastructure and reinforcement of borders) in lands depicted as empty (internal frontiers in Brazil and Argentina in South America). During and after the second Cold War, geopolitics as an academic school of thinking was tainted by its association with the Nazi movement and regime (although this relation was much more complex than the enormous influence credited to the geographers during the War especially in American policy and media circles). The term was hardly used in academia (neither in the Soviet nor in the American block) even if geostrategic thinking remains prominent in military circles during the Cold War. Nevertheless, South American schools of geopolitics survived this period, thanks to its links to national development projects. The term geopolitics itself was brought back into public discourse in the Western states by the American Secretary of State Kissinger in the early 1970s. His geopolitical thinking was geostrategic and synonymous with realpolitik, foregrounding American interests over ideological concerns (Hendrikson 2003). Geopolitics was invoked to justify the peace negotiations with the Communists to end the Vietnam War and a rapprochement with Beijing leading to the recognition of the People’s Republic as the legitimate Chinese government (instead of the Taipei government) and eventually as the legitimate holder of the Chinese seat in the United Nations Organization and its Security Council. In 1982 when the academic journal Political Geography Quarterly was launched, marking the revival of political geography as a discipline, politics and external state

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relations were listed among the main topical cluster for new research agendas formulated for the 1990s (Editorial essay 1982: 9). The editors introduce three themes: the revival of geostrategic studies, dependence and political actions, (neocolonialism and informal imperialism) and world economy effects on political actions. The first is explicitly linked to Mackinder’s work, highlighting the importance of geostrategic considerations and the world distribution of key raw materials (implicitly oil in the Middle East, echoing some of the concerns already signaled by Bowman in the 1920s). In a review of the first 75 issues published in the journal Waterman (1998: 379) notes that the revival of geostrategic studies is one of the themes attracting a lot of attention (almost 10% of the articles and pages published), only “political parties and elections” was more popular. Most notably in the 1970s the French geographer Yves Lacoste combined geostrategic thinking with a Third-Worldists agenda and developed a bottom-up and emancipatory form of geopolitical analysis around the journal Hérodote (since 1976). Geopolitics is not reserved to the states anymore. It had great impact in places such as Brazil, where it came to be mainstream geography under the title of “critical geography”, heavily influenced by Marxist analysis (and opposing authoritarian governments). It took another decade, the so-called second Cold War with a new arm race between the US and the Soviet Union and the poststructuralist moment in the humanities and social sciences and more specifically the cultural turn in geography for Englishspeaking geographers to reclaim geopolitics (Mamadouh 1999). By then geographers reinvented geopolitics as a critical analysis of geographical imaginations and representations used to mobilize people and resources and justify policies. Originally geographers developing critical geopolitics revisited geopolitical thinkers like Mackinder (for example, Ó Tuathail 1996a) and geopolitical code discourses and visions of state persons and policy-makers (for example, Dalby 1990). These two branches were later called formal and practical geopolitics, respectively, while more attention was paid to public discourses, to citizens, and to the media, that is, popular geopolitics Sharp (1993, 2000). Some geographers have studied national specificities (Dijkink 1996; Van der Wusten and Dijkink 2002; Dodds and Atkinson 2000), others have signaled general evolution in the modern geopolitical imagination with different hegemonic geopolitical discourses in different eras (Agnew 2003): a civilizational geopolitics justifying European colonialism in the late nineteenth century, a natural geopolitics justifying nationalist wars in the early twentieth century, and an ideological geopolitics justifying the Cold War between communist states and liberal democracies. Popular geopolitics (the study of geopolitical representations in popular culture, ranging from news media and photojournalism to fiction movies and cartoons) has become a particularly important research agenda, expanding also beyond the analysis of the content, to the production, the circulation, and the reception of geopolitical representations (Dittmer and Bos 2019). Moreover, geopolitics has been applied to new actors and objects and across scales of analysis (both the supranational and the subnational, the local and the body). It is not limited to relations between states anymore (Dodds et al. 2013). Indeed,

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feminist approaches to political geography have radically questioned the top-down perspective dominating critical geopolitics and refigured geopolitics (Smith 2001; Dixon 2015; Sharp 2020) foregrounding the embodied experiences of geopolitics and the everyday and highlighting resistance anti-geopolitics (Ó Tuathail 1996b) and alter geopolitics (Koopman 2011). Ethnography has become a more commonly used method (Kuus 2014; Firat 2022). The material turn in geography with more than representational theory, actor network theory, and assemblage thinking (Dittmer 2014), all foregrounding relational aspects and the importance of non-human elements in their own ways, has also inspired new research agendas, including the built environment and urban geopolitics (Graham 2004; Rokem and Fregonese 2017); subterranean geopolitics (Woon and Dodds 2021), climate change; and the geopolitics of the Anthropocene (Dalby 2020), speciesism, and carnism (dell’Agnese 2021) and more-than-human geopolitics (Dodds 2021), the digital transformation of society (infrastructure, software, access, content, extended reality…) and digital geopolitics (Crampton 2018). Last but not least, postcolonial and decolonial research agendas (Slater 2004 resp. Radcliffe and Radhuber 2020, see also Moosavi 2020 for their limits) have been met with attempt to decolonize geopolitics: foregrounding indigenous geopolitics (Gibson 2013) and acknowledging other alternative geographical imaginations and multiplying geopolitical representations (Sharp 2011, 2013). In the past decades, geographers have thus developed a much richer engagement with geopolitical and geostrategic discourse, both narratives and actions. The Anthropocene and digitalization raise new geopolitical puzzles about global interdependence and responsibility, while old ones are still pertinent (as the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 demonstrates). Moreover, epistemological debates and the ambition to decolonize knowledge production also point at alternative geographical imaginations that could effectively challenge hegemonic geopolitical representations. One of the foci of attention is that of the conceptualization of borders.

2.4 Borders: From International Boundaries to Multidimensional Bordering Processes At the fundament of the relation between space and politics, often expressed through territoriality, lies the delimitation of territory by political institutions and when it comes to the modern territorial state the creation recognition and management of international boundaries. Most of the negotiations at the Peace Conference in Versailles following the First World pertain to agreements about new international boundaries: both in Europe and in the Middle East (mandates for territories previously ruled by the Ottoman Empire), and in Africa and in the Pacific (mandates for former German colonies). With the emergence of modern territorial states and the consolidation of their territories, the location of borders as lines separating the territories of neighboring

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states (instead of the outer limits of lived territories) had become more and more prominent. Although international boundaries were evidently the results of political negotiations (through war and diplomacy), the justification of their location was often presented in a scientific rationale arguing the superiority of one line over another. In Western Europe, a prominent controversy lasted for centuries regarding the Rhine as a natural border between France and German political entities (Pounds 1951, 1954; Smets 1998). In academic geography, where environmental determinism was attractive at the time, a lively debate evolved around the superiority of so-called natural borders over other delimitations, deemed “artificial” and therefore less stable. Although many geographers since the early twentieth century have disputed the very notion of natural borders (see Kristof 1959; Minghi 1963; Claval 1974; Foucher 1991; Fall 2010; Puente-Lozano and Garcia-Álvarez 2022; Dutta 2022 for overviews), stressing the contingency of any agreed border (Sahlins 1989; Gonon and Lasserre 2003; GarciaÁlvarez and Puente-Lozano 2017 for case studies), the notion remains appealing up to these days. Natural borders are generally defined as borders following a striking physical geographic element in the landscape, for example, a seashore, a river, a desert, or a mountain range. These borders are naturalized by stressing the topographic element supporting them (Fall 2010), as if they were a given and therefore less prone to contestation and conflict. Natural borders were supposed to be easier to locate, easier to legitimate, easier to delimitate, and easier to defend. While the first might often be true, the second is undermined when the natural border element divides people closely connected by historical ties. The third is tricky when it comes to the details: the exact delimitation of a mountain ridge (and the exact location of a pass between two peaks and between two valleys), of a border at a river (on one of the shores, or equidistant to the shores, or in the middle of the thalweg), or of a maritime border is a particularly complicated technical matter. Countless complications for seemingly clear agreements were caused by changes of the stream of a river and influence on the riverbanks (including abandoned meanders and new ones, or the change of the river bedding after flooding, think of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo between the USA and Mexico) or by later exploration (think of the border disputes of Suriname with both its neighbors to decide which upstream affluent of the Marowijne and Corantijn Rivers discovered ulteriorly should count as the agreed border). Likewise regarding the exact delimitation of the agreed border between Argentina and Chile further exploration of the region showed that the line of crests and the watershed diverged and generated disputes. As for the military reasoning, assessments differ about the defensibility of mountain ridges and thalwegs: mountain passes are particularly vulnerable to ambush. Navigation in the thalweg is easily threatened from one of the shores. After the development of airborne weapons (especially nuclear ones), the physical defense of the state territory qualitatively changed and the border itself lost its relevance (Taylor 1994). At Versailles self-determination became a leading principle, advocated by the American President Wilson and his administration, justifying the creation of new states for nationalities in Central and Eastern Europe through the dismantlement

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of the empires that have lost the war: especially the multinational Habsburg and Ottoman empires. Geographers were consulted to assess which nations should be entitled a nation-state and what a fair delimitation of their homeland and the territory of their new state would be. Evidently both were highly disputed because there are no objective criteria to delimitate a nation (it is fundamentally a political process encompassing the mobilization of individuals that conceive of themselves as members of that nation and is largely shaped by political entrepreneurs articulating and mobilizing these feelings of belongings and organizing people along national identities). Even if there is some agreement about the existence and the distinction of different nations, for example, due to clear-cut linguistic, religious, or other cultural differences, the delimitation of their respective territories is no easy process, since national groups do not inhabit neatly separated areas while shared homelands do not sit well with the national principle of one nation, one state, and one territory. In addition, interpretations clashed, for example, between ethnic and civic definition of nations, the first foregrounding common origin and shared cultural traits, the second membership of a political community and a common project for the future. Typically, the contested position of Alsace Lorraine, a territory lost by France to the new German Empire at the end of the Franco-Prussian war and returned to France at Versailles, was extensively discussed by geographers in the interwar decades. German geographers were generally defending the reunification of German speakers with the German Empire, while the French geographers (most notably Vidal de la Blache 1917) stressed the political ties with France to advocate its return to the French Republic. Strikingly it was one of the disputed borderlands in Europe where no plebiscite was organized, the same applies to the creation of the Free City of Danzig (separated from Germany but not incorporated to Poland). By contrast plebiscites were organized at other German borders, with Denmark in Schleswig, with Poland in Upper Silesia and East Prussia, and much later in 1935 with France in the Saar, or in Carinthia (border between the new states of Austria and Yugoslavia). Plebiscites showed that ethnic characteristics are important but other factors also matter. Moreover, borders were delimitated with attention to territorial rationale such as territorial continuity and the avoidance of enclaves and exclaves. Finally in other instances, the disputes witnessed a clash between the logic of national borders and the logic of national identity and selfdetermination: the border between Austria and Italy was eventually fixed at Brenner Pass and firmly incorporated South Tyrol to Italy (as secretly agreed with Italy and the Allied Powers during the war) while the treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye established the shared control of the pass between Italy and Austria. In the former Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, the Allied Powers merged existing administrative entities (sanjaks) into new disputed territories: the British mandates for Palestine and for Mesopotamia, respectively, and the French mandate for Syria. Mandates in Africa went to Britain, France, Belgium, and South-Africa, with the division of both Togoland and Kamerun between a British and a French mandate and of German East Africa between a Belgian and a British mandate. Namibia was ruled as part of the South African territory. In the Pacific German

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New Guinea was divided into a British, and Australian, and a Japanese mandate, and German Samoa went to New Zealand. No wonder Bowman was particularly concerned with the new international boundaries and border corrections and potential border conflicts that would need mediation in the near future and potentially could escalate into new conflicts. In 1982 when the academic journal Political Geography Quarterly was launched, borders were listed among the main geographical themes on a new research agenda formulated for the 1990s (Editorial essay 1982: 6), ranked under themes that pertained to the de jure spatial organization of the political institutions. They signaled a move from boundary drawing and boundary conflict to “landscapes contrasts and trade impediments”. It meant a departure from the classical pairing and contrast formulae: the discussion about the advantages of natural over historical borders or the distinction between living or dead borders (as in Jacques Ancel’s Géographie des Frontières, published in 1938, see also 1936) became less important. Theories gradually turned to the analysis of processes (integration, securitization, expansion); functions (contact, separation, filtering, difference); and legal standing (international, internal, urban borders) of borders. Gradually, borders became seen as situated objects that combine zonal and linear features that generate their own territoriality and play an important role in the regulation of international networks of trade and human mobility. Forty years later geographers and scholars in proximate disciplines have developed an extensive research agenda pertaining to bordering. While economic globalization was boosting narratives of a borderless world, geographers demonstrate time and again how borders matter but develop a wide array of research topics and methods. After World War II, decolonization processes in different parts of the globe together with the Cold War strongly linked border issues to the territoriality of states. The borders of the new states were heatedly discussed and frequently the conclusion was that the discussion could lead to long-lasting conflict—thus, many colonial borders became national borders (as it happened in South America in the nineteenth century). National identities were perceived as central to political and spatial processes. Some decades later, the end of the Cold War and the multiplication of regional blocs gave visibility to other geographical scales, identities, and projects both sub- and supranational and even transnational. The connection between the state, the territory, and the border became a fruitful object of discussion, sometimes in reaffirming, others denying its bond. Many disciplines other than Geography participate in these debates, such as Anthropology, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and International Relations. Situation was also important in the development of the theories, since border studies have long been dominated by two clusters of scholars, those working in North America and focusing on the US–Mexico borders and those working in Europe focusing first on internal borders of the EU and cross-border cooperation and later on the external border of the EU and migration. Recent efforts to decenter these experiences have brought border geographies in South America, Africa, and Asia more firmly on the agenda. In different parts of the world, processes that take place at borders are studied, recognizing borderlands as relevant places and regions, going beyond its political

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dimension and emphasizing its experiences and identities. Geographers such as van Houtum and van Naerssen (2002) and Anderson and O’Dowd (1999) foreground economic flows and cross-border interactions in “border regions” to describe these processes. At the same time, Paasi (1999) directed the attention to sociocultural interactions among border dwellers, as well as the symbolic senses produced in these places, highlighting the process of distinguishing between insiders and outsiders, us–them, and other ordering dualities. This frequent use stretches the content of the border concept in at least two directions. On the one hand, the territory stays in connection to the bordering process— thus we can employ the concept in different scales such as urban segregation, rural–urban (dis)continuities, markets in contact, economic blocs, and so on. On the other hand, borders are firmly linked to sovereignty and control—i.e., to state attributes, at the expenses of territorial contiguity. This gives birth to interpretations grouped under expressions as borderities, externalization of borders and such, especially after September 11, 2001, and the enfolding securitizing trend. French geographers Amilhat Szary and Giraut (2015) argue that it is through borderities that these processes occur: documents, computer microchips, biometric control, and other technological tools are used to mark bodies and goods as belonging or not to a territory, thus extending control of bodies and objects circulating in an information network. This dissociation between function (regulation of movement) and form (the geographical object at the limit of state territory) is construed as mobile borders (Amilhat Szary and Giraut 2015). It is not by chance that this concept resonates with another trend in border studies, having to do with human mobilities. In fact, border studies and mobility studies are converging. The changes undergone in the study of borders are also present in the conceptions of territories. Multidimensional, situated, and decolonizing interpretations are strongly represented in contemporary political geography. Many researchers employ methodological resources such as analyses of representations or geographical imagination, qualitative research, art and science methods, and such. Micro- and local scales prevail, at the same time recognizing state and global influences. The focus are human groups with identity projects and social movements articulating networks in varied territorial strategies such as occupy and retomadas (occupation or repossession of public or private spaces to press for the recognition of claims, such as those for small-farmers and indigenous rights, agrarian reform, and demarcation of territories). This gives birth to the concept of network-territory, to frame the simultaneous existence of zonal and rhizomatic territorial logics—instead of opposing territories and networks (Haesbaert 2007)—together with the proposition of multiterritorialities. Rogério Haesbaert, a Brazilian geographer, argues that we need such concepts to analyze our current experiences: we live in and are interrogated by multiple scales, simultaneous events, and multiple territories; our territorial practices and identifications are multiple, as are the powers to which we relate; territories themselves are conceived as plural (Haesbaert 2021) and appear in literature as the (multi)territorial turn.

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These theories echo the territorial turn in Latin America, detected both in public policies as in social movements resisting (r-existing) expulsion from their original territories by mining companies, agribusiness frontiers, and other projects. In this situation, territories are conceptualized, first and foremost as intrinsic to the existence and permanence of native, subaltern, and peripherical populations. The struggle for land is understood as the struggle for the preservation of community ties, autonomous forms of political organization and regulation of territory, resources, and social life, in addition to the proper ways of using and caring for nature. These are autonomous, alternative, emerging territories—among other more specific formulations—and depart from the territoriality of the state (since it delegitimizes other forms of territoriality) (Dorfman and do Rego Monteiro 2022). The (multi)territorial turn is part of a much wider effort to decolonize Geography (and society in general), renewing space, knowledge, and power. Haesbaert states that this is a bottom-up dynamics: the “counter-hegemonic (multi)territorial paradigm” pulls away from “hegemonic conceptions and practices of power, which replicate modern-colonial Eurocentric views” (Haesbaert 2021, p. 131). It is the reverse of the historical–geographical process of occupation of Latin American lands, depicted by the colonial imagination (still today) as the civilization of no-man’s lands. Therefore, to conclude this sketchy overview of the evolution of the geopolitics and borders studies we turn to a recent Brazilian publication exemplifying these new approaches.

2.5 Other Possible Worlds: The Multiterritorial Character of the Decolonial Turn in Latin American Geographies: Território e descolonialidade (Haesbaert 2021) In 2021 Rogério Haesbaert published Território e descolonialidade a book sponsored by CLACSO, the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, a very important network of almost 900 centers of research in over 55 countries, mainly Latin American. The virtual library of CLACSO is open access and holds over 500,000 texts, with 121 million accesses in 2021 (biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/estadisticas). Geography in Brazil is a relatively large field, with more than 30,000 professionals registered at the national researcher’s directory and professional association (and a similar number of geography school teachers and university students). Rogério Haesbaert is a recognized Brazilian geographer who studied under the direction of Bertha Becker, a political geographer that was internationally influential and active in the IGU. He studied also with Milton Santos, Heinz Dieter Heidemann, Jacques Lévy, and Doreen Massey, and worked with Lia Osório Machado, all prominent in our field. He has been publishing intensely since 1988, and his books include “O Mito da Desterritorialização” (The deterritorialization myth, published 2004 and in its 11th edition in Brazil and in Mexico); “Regional-Global” (2010, published in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia); “Viver no limite” (2014, Brazil and México); and, more recently, “Território e Descolonialidade” (Argentina and Brazil). All these

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works stress that power relations (and, thus, territories) are multiscalar and might be both zonal and/or reticular, expressing our present experience. This last book (subtitled “on the (multi)territorial/decolonial turn in “Latin America””) has almost 400 pages (but no maps or illustrations) dedicated to developing the concept of “territory as a category of practice in Latin American context”, i.e., “in common sense, as used in everyday life of social groups” (p. 130). As for the expression “(multi)territorial/decolonial turn”, Haesbaert explains that the spatial turn is not new to Anglo-Saxon Social Sciences; in Latin America, it is connected to decolonial thinking and to the concrete aspects of territorialization of social movements, their geo-historical context and their continued struggle for territory (implying autonomy, identity, and preservation of nature). He stresses also that the territorial and the decolonial turn coincide as both understand territories and territorialities as multiple (p. 24). Coherently, the book examines Latin American theories about geographical concepts such as space, region, and territory and then analyze territorial practices of several indigenous groups in the continent. Recurrently, Haesbaert concludes, the most important territorial practices are resisting or re-existing against the state “that never ceased to be colonial, strengthened in the violence of its ethnocidal character, diluter of multiplicity and difference in favor of one and totality” (p. 330). Of course, Haesbaert’s book is not an isolated work. It represents several recent trends in Brazilian and Latin American geography: their convergence, overcoming the language divide that has been separating Spanish and Portuguese theorization; the relevance given to decolonization, understood as disengagement from coloniality of power (Quijano 1989), knowledge (Lander 2006) and being (Castro-Gómez 2007) which survives in society and space after the end of colonization; a strong commitment with subaltern groups, real people who demand solidarity, theory, and concrete action toward other possible worlds. Other authors of importance include the Brazilians Carlos Walter Porto-Gonçalves (2009), Cruz (2017) and Zaragocin (2018) among many. How far apart are Bowman and Haesbaert books? The one embraces the state, his state, as the vehicle to control the new world and create order. The other acknowledges the importance of social movements and their territorial links and sees the state as the perpetrator of violence that destroy worlds. Surely, a century of geographical thinking brought about a deep commitment with diversity, with multiple possible worlds. As Haesbaert concludes: It is important that not only the “center” thinks its combination with the “peripheries”, so often imposing its interpretation of the world, but also that the so-called peripheries think about the center and its globalized articulation. It is not, then, a question of looking for the “authenticity” of the periphery, but of recognizing the pertinence and relevance of its own world view. (p. 343–our translation)

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2.6 Research Agenda for Political Geography At the beginning of the twenty-first century, old and new political geographical problems (wars, contested territories, competition for raw materials, but also population growth and climate change) coexist and reinforce each other. To understand them, old and new political geographical conceptualizations and old and new political geographical approaches offer a dazzling and somewhat uncoordinated body of knowledge. Similar explosions of creativity can be seen are other political topics identified in 1982 such as electoral geographies, collective action, administrative geographies, policy responses to inequalities, and the many new research agendas brought forward since by feminism, anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-speciesism, and the new material turn (more-than-representative and more-than-human) and the ethical turn. Current calls for the decolonization of knowledge production are in danger of transplanting and imposing readymade categories, repeating the same mistakes of neglecting time–space-specific circumstance, but remain inspiring sources to create new spaces of knowledge production and sharing, locally, regionally, and globally. With this impressive and ever-growing diversity of sensitivities and approaches, geographers are collectively better equipped than Bowman a century ago to explore contemporary problems in political geography, but whether they are better equipped to help bring about more equitable and meaningful social relations remains to be seen. Let us work to welcome the many possible geographies that pursue social justice.

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Chapter 3

New and Emerging Pathways for Transport Geography Frédéric Dobruszkes , Chia-Lin Chen , Julie Cidell , Ana Condeço-Melhorado , Andy Goetz , Tim Ryley , and Thomas Thévenin

Abstract Transport geography has become more diverse in terms of research themes, methods, and sources considered. New pathways for transport research have been initiated not only within the field but also by scholars from other disciplines, for instance, sociology and environmental science. In addition, the advent of the big data era has offered new research opportunities while also raising new methodological concerns. These new directions have sometimes shaken up transport geographers and forced them to change their perspective. In this context, this chapter considers advances, opportunities, and, sometimes, risks and disappointments induced by the following topics to transport geography: epistemology and social theories; urban transport; long-distance travel and the environment; the relationships between transport and spatial planning; linking spaces, places, and time; new (big) data sources; and visualising transport geography. Keywords Transport geography · Mobilities · Urban transport · Long-distance travel · Environment F. Dobruszkes (B) Brussels Free University ULB, Brussels, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] C.-L. Chen University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK J. Cidell University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA A. Condeço-Melhorado Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain A. Goetz University of Denver, Denver, USA T. Ryley Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia T. Thévenin Université de Bourgogne, Dijon, France © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_3

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3.1 Introduction About two decades ago, transport geography was introduced as “quiet” if not “moribund” (Hanson 2000: 469) after other scientists had found it too much “ghettoized” (Johnston 1998) and having more connections with engineers and economists than with other geographical fields. These statements have been challenged to some extent by arguments (see, e.g., Goetz 2006) but also by the launch of the Journal of Transport Geography in 1993 and the revival of a genuine IGU Commission named “Transport and Geography” from 2009 onwards,1 both under the leadership of Prof. Richard Knowles. This journal appears to be broad in scope, even though quantitative research remains dominant over qualitative and theoretical approaches. As for the Commission, it has sponsored a quite large number of themed sessions organised within conferences as diverse as IGU/IGC, AAG, RGS-IBG, ERSA, EUGEO, and NECTAR. As an example, the Transport and Geography Commission supports no less than 12 themed sessions that require 33 slots to accommodate 136 papers within the 2022 IGU Centennial Congress in Paris. In addition, the pace of transport geography publications and citations has dramatically increased from the early 2000s onwards (Liu and Gui 2016). So at least the discipline is certainly not “moribund”. Beyond numbers, maybe “insularity” remains partly true but is this peculiar to transport geography? And is this really an issue? Is knowledge gained from other disciplines less valuable than knowledge from other geographical subfields? In any case, at a time when scientific research is very specialised and scholars are urged to publish as much as possible in order to build a “strong” curriculum vitae and survive competition, it is probably more difficult to engage in holistic approaches which take more time. However, the fact is that several developments in other (both geographical and non-geographical) (sub)disciplines, as well as the advent of new (big) data sources and software capabilities, have encouraged transport geographers to consider new topics and approaches. Methodological developments have given a new legitimacy to transport geography through their generative character (Schwanen 2017). In addition, non-transport geographers have increasingly integrated transport and mobilities into their own perspectives (Schwanen 2016). This chapter proposes some examples of this across transport geography, although it is acknowledged the material is based on each author’s interests and there is not the scope within a book chapter to be comprehensive across the discipline.

1

A transport geography IGU commission first existed from 1968 to 1980, then became a working group until 1988.

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3.2 Epistemology and Social Theories Transport geography largely began as a subfield of economic geography, focused on the movement of people and goods within larger economic systems while overlapping to some extent with transport engineering. As a result, its methods were mainly quantitative, and its epistemologies mainly positivist or realist, with a goal of developing generalizable findings in relation to movement across space. Over time, geographers incorporated new understandings about how such a movement differs within the population, such as how commuting patterns vary by race or by gender (or by both at once) (McLafferty and Preston 1992, 2019). This approach is still a fundamental part of transport geography, as new technologies and sources of data are developed, as we seek to reduce our dependence on carbon-based travel, and as we continue to link transportation and economic development. For example, it has been noted that such studies make it easier to connect with policymakers and politicians in order to affect change in the world, even if the results are sometimes simplified. This approach also means that transport geography serves as a central point within transport studies more broadly, connecting engineering, urban planning, and economics in a way that emphasises the importance of an integrative and spatial perspective. At the same time, transport geography has brushed up against other subfields of geography and come away with new approaches and new theories. For example, there is political geography and its focus on how relations of power are constructed and maintained across space. To a large extent, infrastructure studies sit at the intersection of these two geographical disciplines, looking at how the physical infrastructure that enables the movement of both people and goods creates territory and reinforces or challenges power relations. Geopolitics has a mobility component, as in the “infrastructure diplomacy” of the Belt and Road Initiative (Lin 2019). On a more local scale, making cities more friendly for neoliberalism can include major transportation projects such as the Grand Paris extension of the Metro system (Enright 2016) or the development of tram/streetcar projects in U.S. central cities (Culver 2017). Examining the power relations behind these projects contributes to both a better understanding of the politics at play behind transport geographies, and how transport matters to broader political-economic processes. Transport geography has also benefited greatly from encounters with mobilities, the multidisciplinary field only a couple of decades old which has approached movement and mobility more from a humanities perspective. Travel and mobility have social and cultural meanings above and beyond their economic value, including imagined and virtual travel as well as mundane mobilities like the daily commute or the everyday stroll. The epistemologies introduced from the mobilities literature are more humanistic as well, particularly focusing on interpretivist approaches and largely using qualitative and even non-representational methods. Studies of bodies in motion as cyclists, wheelchair users, or runners give us a better understanding of how relationships and identities are constructed through movement—or the lack thereof (e.g., Spinney 2006; Pyer and Tucker 2017; Cook et al. 2016). At the same time, transport nodes such as train stations or airports that have long been considered

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as only abstract spaces of flows can instead be recognised as vital places that shape cities and people as much as any other urban space. Finally, while transport geography brings a material component to mobilities, mobilities have brought greater awareness of how stillness matters as much as movement. More recently, transport geography’s longstanding concern with equity has come together with the area of mobility justice to produce a new set of questions and methods. Mobility justice looks deeply at the power relations involved in the movement: who is allowed to move freely, who is forced to move, who is allowed to remain still, and who is forced to be immobile (Sheller 2019). Such movements range from refugees to jaywalkers, with immobilities ranging from working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic to would-be migrants stopped at the border. Here, the meaning of mobility is not just cultural, but political, and it is deeply intertwined with broader processes such as urbanisation and climate change. Seeking more equitable means of movement is of benefit to everyone, especially as part of a comprehensive understanding of how mobility, place, and power are connected. As transport geography has expanded its objects of study, its epistemologies, and its methods of study, it has become more diverse in terms of researchers and topics involved. Perspectives from the Global South have not only filled in the gaps of traditional Anglo-American transport geography but also have argued for decolonial approaches to producing knowledge about transport (Schwanen 2020; Wood et al. 2020). Starting from the Global South to develop theories of transport is a move which inverts traditional power relations, while at the same time it grows the discipline by incorporating scholars from a wider range of regions. Increasing attention to the diversity of our own subfield—including race and ethnicity, spectrums of gender and sexuality, neurodivergence, and physical disability—will help us develop new theories of transport and mobility that better explain the world in motion.

3.3 Urban Transport Cities are the focal points of transportation systems and serve as crucibles for new technologies, services, and policies. Today, urban agglomerations house most of the world’s population, particularly in the expanding suburbs, and they are projected to account for 60% of the global population by 2030. Many urban areas throughout the world, especially in the Global South, are experiencing rapid growth and facing significant transportation challenges. This includes increased congestion, delays, total travel time, financial costs, pollution, health impacts, accidents, and loss of life (Goetz 2019). Adding to these concerns is urban transportation’s continuing reliance on petroleum-based fuels, and its increasing share of greenhouse gas emissions, which contributes to global climate change (Banister 2019). Geographers have been sounding the alarms related to urban transportation for quite some time. Traditional urban transportation topics such as network analysis, modelling, spatial interactions, and the spatial form of cities have been augmented by increasing research on sustainability, technology, accessibility, equity, and policy. A

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scan of recent research in the Journal of Transport Geography reveals that geographical research in urban transportation has expanded greatly in terms of both a variety of topics and geographical contexts. The remainder of this section discusses these recent areas of focus. Active transportation includes walking, cycling, and various forms of micromobility (scooters, skateboards, etc.). Many cities around the world are encouraging more active transportation through infrastructure improvements. This includes more and better footpaths/sidewalks, bicycle paths, and lanes, as well as services such as docked and dockless bike and micromobility sharing systems (Lazarus et al. 2020; Yang et al. 2021). Linking active transportation with mass transit systems has also received an increase of attention by helping to address transit’s first/last mile problem. Cities are reliant on mass transit systems including local buses, express buses, bus rapid transit, commuter rail, subways, light rail, trams/streetcars, jitneys, paratransit, shuttles, gondolas, ferries, and other modes. Geographical research has focused on transit system expansion, ridership, accessibility, and station area development. Declining transit ridership due to the COVID-19 pandemic has been a recent topic. Ride-Hailing/Ride-Sharing and the growth of transportation network companies, such as Uber and Lyft, have led to research on their increasing ridership as well as impacts on travel behaviour, personal mobility, and mass transit systems. The relationship between transportation and urban land use continues to be a major theme in geographical research. Impacts of transportation on urban land use have focused on transit-oriented development, transit station area place-making, and airport area development. Likewise, researchers have studied the effects of the urban built environment on pedestrian, cycling, and transit activity (Li et al. 2020). The role of transport infrastructure in the evolution of cities and regional economic development continues to be an important topic (Pokharel et al. 2021). Another theme that received increased attention is the (in)equitable distribution of transportation amenities, benefits, and costs. Researchers have discovered geographical patterns of social exclusion and transport inaccessibility for population groups based on income, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and disability. As the average age of residents increases in cities, especially in the more developed regions of Europe, Asia, and North America, researchers have increased their interest in elderly travel behaviour (Yang et al. 2021). Changes in overall trip-making, driving capability, transit use, and the possible increased use of ride-hailing are among the principal topics (Ravensbergen et al. 2022). While receiving less attention than passenger transport, urban freight has continued to be an important topic within transport geography. The location of logistics operations in cities, traffic and environmental impacts on neighbourhoods, and delivery of packages and supplies in congested urban settings are among the chief concerns of geographical researchers (Rodrigue 2020). The rise of e-commerce, amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, has created a greater demand for goods deliveries in urban areas.

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Another long-standing concern of urban transport geographers has been the growth and geographical patterns of congestion in cities. Aided by GPS technology and real-time traffic data, researchers have been able to assist transportation departments in helping to identify and alleviate bottlenecks in urban transport systems. As part of efforts to improve sustainability, cities have encouraged policies and practices that limit the use of cars, especially single-occupancy vehicles. Reducing speed limits, creating complete streets, implementing traffic calming, eliminating minimum parking requirements, and limiting private vehicles along selected streets and in residential neighbourhoods are among the steps being taken. Emergency measures during the COVID-19 pandemic to eliminate car use on selected streets and to encourage walking, cycling, and gathering have been popular and may be extended on a permanent basis. Improvements in vehicular technology related to improving transport sustainability are important contemporary topics. Auto manufacturers are increasing the production of electric vehicles (EV), while cities and countries propose ambitious goals to increase EV use. Research and development of automated vehicles (AVs) continue despite setbacks in testing.

3.4 Long-Distance Travel and the Environment Long-distance travel can have a range of definitions (see Mattioli and Adeel 2021), for example travel over 50 miles (Dargay and Clark 2012), or over 3 h (Zanni and Ryley 2015), but certainly for transport modes it would typically cover shipping and aviation, and longer trips by car, bus, and rail. Another perspective is to consider international travel as long distance. Given the typical distances covered and the environmental impacts, the primary focus of this discussion is on aviation. Aviation arguably provides many economic and social benefits, but it is not environmentally sustainable. Alongside the underlying long-term growth in long-distance transport have been increasing concerns surrounding the associated environmental externalities. The act of travelling produces pollutants and greenhouse gases that can have local air quality impacts as well as global climate change implications. Noise from motor vehicles and aircraft is an environmental impact that can be a major concern for residents living near major roads or airports. There are impacts from the life cycle aspects of transport, from the construction of infrastructure, such as road and railway development, to the disposal of scrapped vehicles and associated waste oil and tyres. Furthermore, environmental impacts have an ecological dimension, as transport can impact the biodiversity of a particular area, for instance, affected animal habitats. Finally, there are health concerns associated with some of the environmental impacts, including casualties from transport accidents, local pollutant impacts, and noise disturbance. The transport industry often has to trade-off between the environmental impacts. For

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instance, there is the choice for aircraft take-off paths between local aircraft noise implications for the surrounding communities and global carbon emissions. Climate change has taken increasing prominence within environmental impacts. The aviation sector is a significant contributor to climate change (Lee et al. 2021), and the proportion attributed to aviation is set to increase as it is one of the hardest sectors to achieve emissions reductions (Gössling and Lyle 2021), particularly from the likely increase in air travel demand in return of widespread international aviation following the period of COVID-19. The air transport industry is one of the most difficult sectors to reduce emissions, particularly given this insatiable demand and the difficulty in finding alternative transport modes for long-distance journeys. There have been many aviation mitigation measures proposed and implemented in response to the climate change challenge, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) scheme, and various national aviation taxes. Other solutions typically focus on airlines (e.g., aircraft performance, electric aviation) and airports (e.g., energy usage, surface access, and system efficiency). Much will come down in the implementation of the extra costs. If they are put to passengers, either directly or indirectly, then we could return to air travel being the preserve of the wealthy elite. However, there is a counter-argument that once people have been given air travel for low fares, then they are unwilling to give it back and will prioritise their air travel over other parts of their lifestyle. Perhaps moving forward there will be a greater discussion over perceived necessary versus discretionary travel, and whether they should be taxed or affected accordingly. One of the other long-distance passenger modes that has received increasing attention is high-speed rail. China has led the way in high-speed rail development with more than 38,000 km in operation as of June 2021, more than twice as much high-speed rail trackage as all other countries combined. Based on kilometres per area, however, other countries have higher densities of high-speed rail. Since highspeed rail is powered by electricity, and an increasing share of electricity worldwide is being produced with renewable and lower carbon fuels (although coal remains dominant in several countries, including China), high-speed rail is being promoted as a cleaner alternative to aviation in comparable markets. If, however, more long-haul flights replace short-haul flights because of increased high-speed rail substitution, overall GHG emissions would rise (Dobruszkes et al. 2022).

3.4.1 Summary with Geographical Aspects Many of the environmental issues associated with long-distance travel are embedded in transport geography across the spatial scales. For example, aviation is locally situated in airports, represents regional interests through national airlines which operate across geopolitical boundaries, and is overseen by international policy and management frameworks. Another spatial challenge is the difference between international top-down policy, which has typically been the response, versus bottom-up

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public uprising, for example, through the recent flight-shaming movement, which is beginning to influence and affect air travel behaviour in some locations. There is an aligned temporal dimension of the problem. A viable plan is required moving forward for decarbonising the air transport industry, a proposal with high public and political sensitivities. Any solutions will need to be increasingly radical in order to respond to growing climate change concerns, and so the tension will remain between longer term strategic planning and immediate action.

3.5 Rethinking the Link Between Transport Geography and Spatial Planning Transport geography, as a discipline within geography, explores the factors and spatial movement of goods, people, and information. During the last decade, new developments including innovation of transport services/choices, big data sciences, and infusion of new perspectives as illustrated across this chapter have advanced deeper insights into the complexity of geographical patterns. Transport geography and spatial planning are closely interrelated. A close link between knowledge and action has been manifest throughout history (Friedmann 1987). The point is not simply to have a better understanding of the world but, as Karl Marx famously said, “the point… is to change it” (Hall 2017). One might wonder: To what extent could the new knowledge produced in the widening field of transport geography research potentially contribute to spatial planning supported by a seemingly much more extensive pool of evidence? However, the two disciplines are increasingly differentiated and often divergent in practice. Geography disciplines augment the understanding of patterns while spatial planning refers to the utilisation of knowledge to make changes for a better future. Spatial planning, which is context-dependent and interactive across multiple levels, adopts a long-term strategy by integrating different fields of specialisation and knowledge, including land use, transport, landscape, sociology, economics, justice, etc., to deliver comprehensive yet often conflicting objectives, such as sustainability, liveability, spatial quality, inclusiveness, and social justice (Haselsberger 2017). As Albrechts (2017) highlights, spatial planning is strategic and should deal with values and meaning (equity, social justice). Critical judgements underlying preferred choices are ethical in correcting wrongs for the good of society (Friedmann 1982) and for betterment (Campbell and Marshall 2006). As such, transport is integrated as a critical component of spatial planning strategy. It is important to highlight that transport alone will not solve the problem. Although the importance of integrating land use and transport planning is widely recognised, its implementation within spatial planning is often difficult. Instead of addressing distributional issues with a holistic and interactive vision, the role of transport tends to deal with, and satisfy, the dominant patterns of demand and thus provide infrastructure largely based on cost–benefit analysis without necessary consideration of other urban development issues.

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Recent new developments in relation to transport have posed serious concerns for worsening uneven development and injustice, which demonstrates a stronger need for rectifying with strategic spatial planning. Firstly, climate change/decarbonisation has dominated the research agenda of transport, while conflicting values give rise to the challenges of implementing strategic spatial planning, such as finding the right balance between sustainability and social equity. The wide-ranging choice of transport innovations in cities that are integrated via capitalist operation systems—for instance, online hailing systems, carpooling, e-bike and e-scooter rental systems, and driverless/electric cars—creates an even more difficult situation for equity planning. Several modes of transport and inter-modal services are in high demand across wider spaces and borders, yet these green and convenient transport options do not necessarily guarantee affordability or spatial justice in the allocation of space for different users (including vulnerable and voiceless ones). Moreover, these new innovations tend to focus on large and medium-sized cities and city-regions, rather than considering the needs of rural and peripheral areas in wider regional territories. Secondly, established epistemologies have been critically challenged by big data and new data analytics which have led to paradigm shifts across different disciplines including transport geography. The Internet of Things (IoT) enables instant and more extensive data on movement and transport usage. Accordingly, new advanced methods, such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, are developed to handle the unprecedented scale and variety of data which was not possible in the past. Moreover, the role of big data in spatial planning has been widely claimed for its potential for geodesign (Yamagata et al. 2020). However, Kitchin (2014) has contested that such development is data-driven rather than knowledge-driven, which might lead to reinforcing the uneven development trends with insufficient awareness of rectification. A potential approach instead is suggested to be situated, reflexive, and contextually nuanced (ibid.). Thirdly, new perspectives and disciplines, such as political sciences, mobility studies, and social justice, have been productive in recent years and enabled a better understanding of the causes and factors of complex and uneven patterns. However, the perspective of planning culture in relation to transport geography and spatial planning has rarely been explored. Knieling and Othengrafen (2015) highlight a need to understand the cultural norms (such as traditions, attitudes, and value) and specific socio-economic patterns for spatial planning as an operational system in formulating territorial policies. The knowledge of planning culture could facilitate better knowledge of complex transport geography and therefore lead to more integrated spatial planning actions. Unexpected events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, remarkably caused a normalisation of the “working-from-home” (WFH) practice, which has, to a large extent, influenced the conventional relationship between workplace and residence. The direct and indirect impacts of changing travel patterns and transport requirements result in greater uncertainties and an unprecedented challenge to transport and society as a whole. Disadvantaged places and people struggle more and have been harder hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Similarly, Russia’s war on Ukraine has had a devastating impact on the internal and external transport infrastructure, causing

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serious disruptions that brought economic and social life in many areas to a halt. The extent to which any contingency plan is in place to cope with high-level crises on all fronts (EPRS 2022) is still an open question. To expand the dominating agenda of sustainability and efficiency, it is necessary to consider various scenarios, such as contingency recovery and resilience plans, look beyond the immediate actions, rethink the link between transport geography and spatial planning, and implement a vision of holistic and equitable intervention at the centre of the paradigm shift.

3.6 Linking Spaces, Places, and Time Space and time are indissociable components in the study of transport systems. While infrastructure performance is typically analysed over several centuries, human dynamics are considered on much shorter space–time scales ranging from a daily to a yearly basis. The scientific literature has been driven by the massive dissemination of space–time data. Yuan (2018) has identified more than 2,000 contributions on the subject since 2014. Despite this prolific output, the author deplores the piecemeal character of the work that makes it difficult to generalise and build a sound theoretical framework. Starting from this observation, we will see how the new space– time data opportunities will require a comprehensive rethink of the conceptual and methodological frameworks used in transport studies.

3.6.1 Transport Studies Challenged by Ubiquitous Data Over the last 20 years, ubiquitous data have made their way into transport. The development of open data in the public transport sector has been a minor revolution. General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data can now measure and map the performance of transport networks in many cities in the world in just a few clicks. The increasing use of smartphone sensors provides valuable knowledge to supplement household surveys. Furthermore, social networks make it possible to extract patterns of activity in both real and virtual spaces. In addition to data sets, technological developments are helping to renew the subjects of study. The advent of autonomous vehicles leads us to consider not only absolute space (streets, buildings) but also relative space and time in the form of other moving vehicles. The generalisation of online sales is transforming our relationship with time and space for shopping. These examples show that analyses in absolute space–time are no longer sufficient for an understanding of spatial dynamics. In a modern world in which human interactions are permanent, it becomes essential to place the conceptual framework of transport studies in virtual spaces and relative temporalities.

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3.6.2 Renewing the Conceptual Framework The most generic conceptual framework for space–time representations has been devised by Peuquet using a four-dimensional factorial graph (Peuquet 2002). At the top of the vertical axis, continuous space–time contains all objects and their evolution, while at the bottom of the axis, discrete space–time treats each object-event as independent of the others. On the horizontal axis, the “absolute” extremity refers to an abstract and isotropic space–time whose dimensions are purely geometrical. The other end of the axis considers “relative space–time”, defined by topological or functional relationships. Thus, in general, the two dimensions of absolute and relative space–time play an essential role in studying different forms of interactions, including in the domain of transport. To consider the space–time of everyday life on a disaggregated scale, time geography is certainly the conceptual framework that has been most widely disseminated over the last 50 years. Hagerstrand conceives the movement of an individual according to three key concepts (Hagerstrand 1970): (i) The space–time path of an individual is conditioned by (ii) a set of three constraints (capacity, coupling, authority) with the whole being integrated into (iii) a space–time prism to define potential path areas. This conceptual framework has contributed to renewing questions and approaches in transport research, notably through spatio-temporal accessibility, travel-related behaviours, and the understanding of human dynamics. However, this conceptual framework is often limited by a collection protocol that is difficult to implement. Thus, the applications are often very localised and difficult to replicate. To tackle these limitations, Yuan (2018) has suggested a new conceptual framework based on combining Montello’s four classes of psychological space with Thelen’s four frames of reference, in order to better consider the analysis of human dynamics in space and time. Despite these different conceptual frameworks, the empirical work remains mainly focused on absolute space–time. In this context, how can we better integrate the relative dimension in the analytical framework of GIScience?

3.6.3 Expanding the Methodological Framework Significant progress has been made in conventional GIScience with a view to analysing dynamic objects in space and time. Nevertheless, the methodological framework needs to be adapted to deal with space and time in its absolute and relative dimensions. To this end, Shaw and Sui (2018) suggest a multi-spatial framework of GIScience for studying human dynamics (Shaw and Sui 2018). For these authors, relational, relative, and absolute spaces need to be supplemented by the perceptual and cognitive dimensions of mental space. This proposal opens up stimulating issues for transport research and psychology studies. However, unlike other researchers, we believe that the single framework of GIScience is insufficient to

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cover all the needs of spatio-temporal analysis. Advances in the field of geocomputation, in particular cellular automata and agent-based models, point to a promising methodological outlook. Finally, in an era when big data is exploding, it is essential to expand the area of the competence of geographers by mobilising the latest advances in machine learning and geovisualisation. In short, the renewal of transport studies in space and time will involve bringing GIScience and data science closer together.

3.7 New (Big) Data Sources Nowadays, transport planning and management are increasingly taking advantage of new sources of data that complement traditional mobility surveys and traffic counts. These include sensors installed at different locations and vehicles, mobile phones, and applications installed on our phones. These (big) data sources are frequently geolocated, meaning that they contain the temporal coordinates of the moment in which the data is generated (year, month, day, hour, minute, and second) and the spatial coordinates of the place where it was created (latitude and longitude). These data sources usually contain information about users in such a way that it is possible to follow their spatial location over time and therefore analyse their mobility patterns. Some examples include social networks such as Twitter, whose data can be freely obtained. Thanks to the user’s digital “footprint”, it is possible to determine the places visited over time and to use this source to analyse the mobility patterns of the population (Wu et al. 2014), estimate origin–destination matrices, both on an urban scale (Osorio-Arjona and García-Palomares 2019) and on a national or international scale, and analyse the degree of social mix in the use of space, tracking the movement of social groups in different cities (Lamanna et al. 2018). On the other hand, the content of tweets can be further exploited, providing real-time information on traffic conditions and accidents. Another promising data source is mobile phones. The activity of mobile phones is collected through the network infrastructure of the telephone operators, made up of a set of towers that provide coverage to a geographical area. The spatial resolution of this data is more aggregated, if compared to data located by GPS systems, as is the case of social networks. This can be especially problematic in less populated environments, where the coverage area of the towers is larger. However, this source is considered one of the most representative, given the widespread use of mobile phones by all segments of the population. Therefore, mobile phone data is increasingly used by transport authorities and statistical institutes to estimate origin–destination matrices and register other mobility patterns. If merged with other data sources, it can be used to determine travel purposes (Romanillos et al. 2021), the routes followed by users (Wang et al. 2018), the modes of transport used (Peng et al. 2021), or the social segmentation of the population (Östh et al. 2018). For transport geography studies, an interesting data source are transport smart cards. Smart cards provide comprehensive information on public transport trips, particularly in cities where their use is mandatory. These cards collect data relating

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to all user trips and can be used to calculate trip length, generate origin–destination matrices (Munizaga and Palma 2012), compare the information with the socioeconomic data of travellers (Pelletier et al. 2011), or determine the load in each section of the network (Tao et al. 2014). Nowadays, many vehicles circulating in cities are equipped with GPS devices, including urban buses, taxis, new shared mobility service vehicles (bicycles, motorcycles, electric scooters, cars, etc.), and connected private vehicles, among others. All of these vehicles generate millions of route data (tracks), of great value for managers and planners of public infrastructures, for company fleets, or for user information systems. These data provide information on real speeds and travel times along the networks and allow the buses’ routes to be monitored (Cortés et al. 2011), or to analyse modal competition by comparing the travel times of different modes of transport (Romanillos and Gutiérrez 2020). Companies such as TomTom or Google Maps use the tracks of different vehicles to feed their digital transport networks with very detailed temporal information on vehicle speeds in each road section. These data allow dynamic analysis of accessibility considering the effect of congestion (Moya-Gómez and García-Palomares 2017). The use of extensive data sets is expected to increase in the future as advancements towards sustainable mobility require informed and more efficient policies. The use of new sources of (big) data has a great potential to improve the management of transport infrastructure, towards more efficient and sustainable mobility. It represents an opportunity for new transport geography studies.

3.8 Visualising Transport Geography Maps play a significant role in most geographical research. They help to unveil spatial structures and investigate the crossed relationships between a topic or an object under investigation and spaces or places, in order to uncover potential factors and impacts. Maps are also a means of thinking beyond econometric models, thanks typically to mappings models’ residuals, which enable geographers to investigate issues from a geographical perspective, when economists and engineers think the research is over (see, e.g., Dobruszkes and Vandermotten 2022). One can expect a similar role in the case of transport geography, considering this sub-discipline is all about the investigation of the complex relationships between places and flows, as well as between places as interlinked by transport facilities/services and as concretely expressed through flows of people, of goods, and of information. However, surprisingly, it seems mapping or visualising transport geography has received limited interest from our community. Navigating the four most recent transport geography books (see Table 3.1), we can derive the following conclusions. Firstly, these books are rich in visualisations, including many maps and photographs (other figures being mainly cartographic diagrams and graphs). On average, Hoyle and Knowles (1998) produce a map every 8.3 pages. In contrast, Cidell (2021) favours photographs, with one piece every 2.6 pages on average. This

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Table 3.1 Transport geography books and the visualisation issue Authors

Pages

Figuresa

Key words into the indexa

Hoyle and Knowles (1998)

374

104, of which 45 maps and 28 photographs

None

Knowles et al. (2008)

293

54, of which 22 maps and 8 None photographs

Rodrigue et al. (2017)

439

167, of which 48 maps and 14 photographs

Cartography, GIS, GIT-T

Cidell (2021)

252

122, of which 20 maps and 98 photographs

Map, maps, mapping

a

Cartography, GIS, GIS-T, map, mapping, thematic mapping and visualisation

is arguably an original means to visualise transport geography. This extensive use of visualisations contrasts with Marxist and postmodern geography books which sometimes include virtually no maps or other kinds of visualisation. Obviously, many (although not all) transport geographers have made intensive use of the new horizons offered by the advent of the GIS in the 1990s and, maybe more importantly, of new spatial databases which have become available, possibly for free (Dobruszkes 2012). The result is that it has become easier and faster to draw thematic maps and consider spatial analysis techniques to examine spatial data. This has also been made easier through the advent of new open-data sources and open source/free GIS (such as QGis). Within the Journal of Transport Geography, the Visualising Transport Geography series offers a glimpse of these new developments, opportunities, and stakes.2 In addition, Fig. 3.1 shows an example of an accessibility map that relies wholly on open data and open-source software. However, this move does not seem to have induced much in the way of writing or debate within transport geography books. Among the four aforementioned books, only Rodrigue et al. (2017) explicitly include a methodological chapter, although this is restricted to a few pages on Geographical Information Systems for Transportation (GIS-T). For the remainder, it looks like transport geographers were not really interested in discussing methodological challenges and difficulties related to mapping their findings. Of course, there are exceptions (see, e.g., L’Hostis 2010; Moser et al. 2022; Bahoken 2022), especially in France.3 These prospective research works offer us original maps (see Fig. 3.2, for example). Yet mapping flows has nothing evident, especially for small-scale maps and the whole globe. Indeed, it raises the debate of displaying relationships between places versus pathways actually followed; the fact that longer flows are more visible all other things being equal; and, of course, selecting the most appropriate cartographic projection, having in mind this choice 2

See https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-transport-geography/special-issue/10D DXX26RFZ. 3 Where the seminal work of Jacques Bertin (1983) on (geo)graphic semiology remains influential. For instance, the 2021 French Transport Geography conference over three days was devoted entirely to cartographical approaches of mobilities, flows, and trips.

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Fig. 3.1 Valuing new open-data sources and open-source/free software: Travel times by urban public transport to the Brussels Free University’s main campus at the stop level. The inputs come from OpenStreetMap (walkable public spaces) and STIB-MIVB (network topology and timetables). They were processed through OpenTripPlanner, and the results were mapped with QGis

will affect the reader’s perception. It is striking that progress made by psychologists in the cognitive perception of network maps (see, e.g., Roberts et al. 2017) has not encouraged transport geographers to also engage in such research. Conversely, books on thematic maps have usually not developed the issue of mapping flows, which is basically the main specific cartographic technique that is of

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Fig. 3.2 Relations as springs: the 2020 main rail network in Germany. The more waves and the higher the amplitude, the more time per distance on a relation. Multiplier for wavelength: time per distance/the fastest (Kassel–Fulda). Multiplier for amplitude: time per distance. Source Moser et al. (2022) (published by courtesy of the authors)

interest to transport geographers (other items to be mapped can usually be addressed by traditional choropleth or punctual symbol maps). More interactions between transport geographers, cartographers, and psychologists interested in maps would thus be welcome.

3.9 Conclusions This chapter confirms that contemporary transport geography has become more diverse in terms of foci, approaches, and interactions with other disciplines. However, while a wider range of social theories can be detected within transport geography, this arguably does not prevent it from remaining mostly quantitative and positivist in

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nature, as can be found when navigating the volumes of our flagship Journal of Transport Geography. Obviously, transport geography research is also published in other journals, which are linked to specific approaches (e.g., from Mobilities to Antipode), to cousin disciplines (e.g., Urban Geography) or to reflexions around human geography (e.g., Geoforum). However, the Journal of Transport Geography is a strong reflection of mainstream transport geography. There are two main reasons for quantitative and positivist approaches being still dominant. First, the diversification of potential approaches is counter-balanced by the advent of new big data sources and a dramatic increase in personal computer calculation power. This has clearly induced a flood of new research pieces which could only be quantitative in nature, even though they could start from critical research questions (on transport justice for instance). The second reason is the recent increasing involvement of many scholars from China, and some other countries in Southeast Asia, who mostly favour positivist approaches over more political and epistemological considerations. A typical paper published by these researchers would start from accessing an original, large data set (the equivalent being mostly unavailable or even inexistent in other areas), then a series of quantitative analyses would be performed and a large number of tables and figures would be generated (see Su et al. 2022, as an example among many others). The point here is not to criticise the approach of these transport geography scholars, and most authors of this chapter would be happy to access similar data sets for their own research. Rather, one can argue scientific approaches should always be diverse to guarantee plurality and more debate around the social/political nature of knowledge production by scholars. Most of the dialogues engaged with other disciplines and/or new epistemologies introduced in this chapter have arguably generated new ideas and new means of “doing” transport geography. However, big data may have the opposite effect to some extent. Indeed, while big data covers flows previously untracked, it is also poor in terms of social/human content. In many cases, even basic social attributes such as age and gender are not included, let alone income, social-occupational groups, education, ethnicity, and all of the other characteristics that shape mobility patterns and places/flow interactions. Schwanen (2017) alerted us such research “often denies the fundamental importance of context, situation and place, and there is little sign of the reflexivity that is customary in post-positivist geography”. In other words, research based on big data challenges transport geography as a social science, since it tends to carry it towards “social physics” or “network sciences” to the detriment of being a genuine social science. In addition, modern transport geography based on big data contributes to the idea that “well-informed” governments could at least set up “smart” policies to “optimise” flows, like if “all transport problems [were] essentially mathematical problems” (K˛ebłowski and Bassens 2017) and would prevent public authorities to make non-neutral political choices. This debate also interferes with the “insularity” debate. On the one hand, one may argue that the various new interactions with other disciplines—several of them being highlighted in this chapter—should be valued exactly as within the discipline. On the other hand, one may also argue that more interactions with other geographical

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sub-disciplines would make transport geographers more inclined to remain aligned with the themes, methods, and sources used by the geography discipline as a whole.

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Chapter 4

Geography and Geographers in Place and Time: A View from the International Geographical Union’s Commission on the History of Geography Jacobo García-Álvarez, Marcella Schmidt-Muller di Friedberg, Elizabeth Baigent, Andre Reyes-Novaes, Federico Ferretti, Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier, and Bruno Schelhaas

Abstract This chapter considers the evolution and significance of the study of geography’s history and philosophy from the perspective of the International Geographical Union’s Commission on the History of Geography. Following a short introduction (Sect. 4.1), the chapter presents a brief history of the Commission (Sect. 4.2) focusing on its efforts to broaden and renew the study of the history and philosophy of geography from an international approach, which transcends national borders. Section 4.3 examines Geographers Biobibliographical Studies, the serial published J. García-Álvarez (B) Carlos III University of Madrid, Getafe, Spain e-mail: [email protected] M. S.-M. di Friedberg University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected] E. Baigent University of Oxford, Oxford, UK e-mail: [email protected] A. Reyes-Novaes Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil F. Ferretti University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy e-mail: [email protected] M.-V. Ozouf-Marignier School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] B. Schelhaas Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, Leipzig, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_4

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under the auspices of the Commission since 1977, paying particular attention to its role in stimulating as well as recording research into geography’s history using the biographical method. Section 4.4 identifies significant themes in and approaches to the history and philosophy of geography since the creation of the Commission in 1968, devoting special scrutiny to tensions between international and national approaches to geography’s history, the links between geography and other historical disciplines, and the impact of the cultural, spatial, and global turns. The final section summarises the chapter and flags issues and areas of research that may enrich the Commission on the History of Geography’s research agenda in the near future. Keywords History and philosophy of geography · International Geographical Union · Biography · Internationalism

4.1 Introduction In the course of almost 55 years of existence, the International Geographical Union Commission on the History of Geography (CHG) has made a significant contribution to the historiography and philosophy of the discipline. At the research level, it has advanced our understanding of the past and present of geographical knowledge, academic, and otherwise, and examined how this knowledge may be used to tackle important social and environmental challenges. As a forum for the exchange of ideas, it has been driven by a truly international and transversal perspective: being open to the plurality of cultures, languages, and national traditions; and, uniquely among the Commissions of the International Geographical Union (IGU), focusing on the discipline as a whole, rather than on its different branches and specialties. Finally, through its participation in the International Union of History and Philosophy of Science and Technology (IUHPST), the CHG acts as a channel for disseminating the achievements of the international geographical community among other disciplinary communities. The main body of this chapter comprises four sections. The first of these, Sect. 4.2, presents a brief history of the commission, focusing on its efforts to broaden and renew the study of the history and philosophy of geography from an international approach, which transcends national borders. Section 4.3 examines Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies (GBS), the serial published under the auspices of the CHG since 1977, paying particular attention to its role in stimulating as well as recording research into geography’s history using the biographical method. Section 4.4 identifies significant themes in and approaches to the history and philosophy of geography, devoting special scrutiny to tensions between international and national approaches to geography’s history, the links between geography and other historical disciplines, and the impact of the cultural, spatial, and global turns. Section 4.5 summarises the main conclusions of the chapter and flags areas of research that can inform the CHG’s future agenda.

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4.2 A Brief History of the Commission on the History of Geography The CHG was founded in December 1968, within the framework of the 21st International Geographical Congress (IGC), held in New Delhi. Originally “The Commission on the History of Geographical Thought”, it was renamed at the 31st IGC, held in Tunis in August 2008. It is one of the longest standing commissions in the IGU. During nearly 55 years of almost uninterrupted activity, it has been reconfirmed at 13 IGCs (although from 1980 to 1988 it operated as a Working Group) and has been served by an international cast of officers (Table 4.1). In addition to belonging to the IGU, the CHG has been a member of the IUHPST Division of History of Science since 1976, as one of its Inter-Union Commissions. The history of the CHG has been told in several works (Pinchemel 1973a; Hooson and Takeuchi 1992; Buttimer 1998; Berdoulay 2003–4, 2010) and is also recorded in the materials from the IGU’s physical archives; the annual newsletters published by the CHG between 1980 and 2011; and the activity reports sent periodically by the CHG Steering Committee to the IGU Executive Committee, which since 2008 have been published online, both on the CHG’s website, along with most of the CHG Newsletters (https://ugihg.hypotheses.org/), and in the IGU’s valuable digital archive which is curated by Giuliano Bellezza (https://www.homeofgeography.org/). The reports, which are mandatory for all IGU Commissions, provide a detailed account of the CHG’s membership, meetings, networking activities, publications, and archival contributions and, in the years in which IGCs are held, of the CHG’s proposed work plans for the following four-year period. We outline here a selection of the main objectives, concerns, and achievements of the CHG over its long history. Table 4.1 Officers of the commission on the history of geography Dates

Chair

Secretary

1968–1980 Philippe Pinchemel: France, University of Paris I

Thomas Walter Freeman: UK, University of Manchester

1980–1988 David Hooson: UK, University of California, Berkeley

Thomas Walter Freeman: UK, University of Manchester

1988–1996 Keichi Takeuchi: Japan, Hitotsubashi University

Anne Buttimer: Ireland, University College Dublin

1996–2004 Vincent Berdoulay: France, University of Pau

Mark Bassin: UK, University College London

2008–2016 Jacobo García-Álvarez: Spain, Carlos III University of Madrid

Jean-Yves Puyo: France, University of Pau

2016–

Marcella Schmidt Muller di Federico Ferretti: 2016–2021, Ireland, University Friedberg: Italy, University of College Dublin; 2021–, Italy, University of Milano-Bicocca Bologna

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The main purpose of the CHG is to be a forum for the fostering and exchange of ideas about the history of the field and, more broadly, the history of geographical knowledge, experiences, and practices, and their impact and usefulness for the contemporary world. As such, it provides the IGU with a reflective outlook on the practices and meanings of geography. Some of its aims are common to all IGU commissions: promoting international scientific exchange in its field, for example, or stimulating new research from a transnational and comparative perspective, disseminating innovative approaches, and contributing to the lines of work prioritised by the IGU. In this respect, over its 54-year history, the CHG’s fruitful output has included some seventy scientific meetings (organised within the framework of IGU Regional Conferences, IGCs, and ICHSTs, or as independent symposia), twenty-five newsletters, forty volumes of the annual GBS series, and twenty books and special journal issues on the outcomes of its meetings. It has thus contributed significantly to knowledge of a wide range of geography topics, such as the life and work of leading national and international figures in the field (see Sect. 4.3 in this chapter); the formation of the leading “national schools” of geography (Katona 1974; Babicz 1978) the academic, professional, and popular processes underpinning the institutionalisation of the discipline, as well as its public image and social construction (Stoddart 1981a; Berdoulay and Van Ginkel 1996; Buttimer, Brunn and Wardenga 1999); the relationships between geography, colonialism, and imperialism (Godlewska and Smith 2004; García-Álvarez and Garcia 2014), and those between geography and nationbuilding processes (Hooson 1994); the exchange and circulation of geographical ideas at different scales (Berdoulay and Gómez-Mendoza 1998; Lamego et al. 2015); conceptualisations and representations of landscape and territory, and their connections with collective identities (Ortega-Cantero et al. 2010); and the contribution of geography to territorial policies, as well as to modern theories and practices of sustainable development (Berdoulay and Soubeyran 2000; Reyes-Novaes and Nunes 2015). The CHG played a leading role in the books which commemorated respectively 100, 125, and 150 years of the IGCs (coinciding respectively with 50, 75, and 100 years of the IGU) (Union Géographique Internationale 1972; Robic et al. 1996; Kolosov et al. 2022), as well as a bibliographical monograph edited by Kish in 1979. These volumes are invaluable guides to understanding the institutional history of geography as an international science, and assessments of the challenges facing the global community of geographers (Kolosov et al. 2022). Over the past two decades, the CHG has made noteworthy contributions to a history of geography that fully acknowledges the work of geographers from beyond Europe and Anglo-America. To this end, the CHG has deployed an intensive networking strategy, organising a series of symposia in collaboration with local scholars in East Asia (Human Geographical Society of Japan’s Geographical Thought Study Group; see Shimazu 2014), Western Africa (University of Cape Verde, Department of Geography; see García-Álvarez and Garcia 2014), and Latin America (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Geographic Institute: see Berdoulay

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and Mendoza 2003; and Brazilian Network on the History of Geography and Historical Geography: see Lamego et al. 2015, Reyes-Novaes and Nunes 2015, Schelhaas, Ferretti, Reyes-Novaes and Schmidt di Friedberg 2020). The CHG has traditionally used French and English in its activities and outputs, and openness to the plurality of cultures, languages, and national traditions has characterised it from its birth (Berdoulay 2010), which in turn owed much to close cooperation between several French and Anglo-American geographers (Pinchemel 1973a, 63). Some of the meetings organised over the past decade with Brazilian and other Latin-American geographers are almost unique among current international conferences in being multilingual, since most attenders were familiar with English plus one or more Latin languages, such as French, Spanish, and Portuguese (Schelhaas et al. 2020, IX). While “this is not unproblematic and could not necessarily be replicated in all situations, it is an important demonstration that international scholarly cooperation can challenge all forms of monolingualism and monoculturalism (from dominant English to other languages representing regional imperialisms), which constitute a serious limitation to all the endeavours for effectively decolonising geographical knowledge and practices” (ibid.). This sort of approach fosters a move towards a true world history of geography and away from hegemonic Western-centric approaches (Berdoulay and Mendoza 2003). At least two characteristics of the CHG distinguish it from other IGU commissions (García-Álvarez 2012, 23–26). First, as two former CHG chairs pointed out, among the IGU Commissions, only the CHG “deals with the whole subject of Geography, not just with some branches, but the entire historical record of its scientific research” (Hooson and Takeuchi 1992, 217). In addition, its membership of the IUHPST makes the CHG a vehicle for representation, relationship-building, and dissemination of the achievements of the geographical community within broader international science organisations, while also demonstrating “the value of a bridge discipline among the sciences” (ibid., 216.). To further this bridging work within and outside of the discipline, the CHG has, especially over the last decade, organised joint thematic sessions with other IGU Commissions (such as those on Political Geography, the Cultural Approach in Geography, and Gender and Geography) at Regional Conferences and IGCs. Similarly, the history of geography helps combat professional and epistemological extremism or essentialism, by bringing to light the discipline’s plural, complex, and contested past. The importance of this should not be underestimated, especially because the CHG was established at a time of epistemological turbulence and crisis in the discipline (Pinchemel 1973a, 60). Familiarity with geography’s rich and complex history can stimulate geographers’ theoretical and reflective skills, inspire innovative ideas and concepts, for which detailed knowledge of past ideas is a prerequisite, and foster a spirit of critical inquiry by situating past geographical thought and practice within its socio-spatial context. A second distinctive contribution of the CHG has been the creation, conservation, and dissemination of sources of interest for the history of geography, including the history of the IGU itself. From the outset, the work of the CHG drew heavily on a large and diverse range of sources to document the history of geography, including.

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1. Written texts: published or unpublished; hand- or typewritten, with multiple hybrid forms; in different languages; mostly on paper, but increasingly digitised. 2. Audio and visual sources: images, films, and sound recordings, in various media supports (e.g., paper, glass, tape, film, and digital storage), notably the projects “Geographers on Film” (Maynard Weston Dow 1970) and “Invitation to Dialogue” (Anne Buttimer and Torsten Hägerstrand at Lund University 1978), which recorded interviews with numerous geographers from all over the globe with close connections to the CHG (Ferretti 2019a). 3. Oral history: usually stored on textual, audio, or visual media supports, but also present within the community of geographers as a form of self-experience. Considerable effort has also been made to enhance the archive by collecting and storing documents, and oral testimonies, making them available online, and analysing them. This task remains a priority for the CHG members from each country, and, in the study of the different national traditions, much archival material remains to be explored. Access to the aforementioned sources varies widely. Many key documents are held in national, regional, and university archives, but others are in the collections of geographical societies, academies, and other national or international organisations, or family and private archives. Besides the well-known and important institutional archives, such as those of the Royal Geographical Society in London, the American Geographical Society in New York, the American Association of Geographers and the National Geographic Society (both in Washington), the Russian Geographic Society in Moscow, the Société de Géographie in Paris, and the Società Geografica Italiana in Rome, there are numerous and diverse collections in many other countries. The focus should be not only on “official” geography collections, but also on natural history, neighbouring sciences, and cartographic collections. The CHG’s idea of establishing a “World Directory of Geography Archives” was only partly successful (Martin 1989, 1992a). However, source-based studies remain part of the CHG’s work, and have been presented and discussed at several meetings and in publications. One key source for the recent history of geography is IGU’s own historical collection (Schelhaas and Pietsch 2020), which has an interesting story of its own. Previously held at the Royal Geographical Society in London and the Home of Geography in Rome, the IGU Archives are now part of the Archive for Geography at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig (Germany) and are open to the general public. Selected documents from the IGU Archives feature in recent publications (Roche 2019; Schelhaas et al. 2020; Kolosov et al. 2022).

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4.3 Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies—Mapping Geographers’ Lives and Works “Geographers has unearthed a distinctive and neglected population” declared David Stoddart in his review of the serial’s first three volumes (1981b, 304). Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies (GBS), which has been published annually since 1977, records and critically examines the life and work of geographers through accounts of their personal and professional lives, and lists of their works—complete or selected (Table 4.2). With 40 volumes containing 489 memoirs published to date, we reflect here on the accuracy of Stoddart’s characterisation of geographers and GBS, and assess the serial’s past, present, and future. Do geographers form a distinctive population, as Stoddart suggested, and does GBS accurately reflect that population? GBS was launched in part to free the history of the discipline from the history of discovery and exploration (Pinchemel 1977, vii). It reflected a sense that the discipline had come of age; that its practitioners had a shared understanding of what geography was; and that geographers thus constituted a distinctive population. Quite who were the geographers to be memorialised has, however, been a concern since the serial was first proposed during the IGU’s 1972 meeting (Martin 1992b). In a guide for contributors published the following year, Philippe Pinchemel (1973b, 688), founding chair of the CHG, called for memoirs of all scholars who had contributed to geographical thinking. He suggested including not only “academics officially identifiable as geographers” because they had “occupied geography chairs”, but also the supporting cast, including “cartographers, geologists, hydrologists, economists, explorers, urban planners, philosophers, historians”. This Table 4.2 Publishing and editorial history of Geographers: Biobibliographical Studies Volume number(s) Dates

Editors

Institutions

1

1977

T Walter Freeman Marguerita Oughton Philippe Pinchemel

University of Manchester, UK Geographical Association, UK University of Paris 1, France

2–3

1978–1980 T Walter Freeman Philippe Pinchemel

University of Manchester, UK University of Paris 1, France

4–12

1981–1988 T Walter Freeman

University of Manchester, UK

13–16

1991–1995 Geoffrey J Martin

Southern Connecticut State University, USA

17–25

1996–2006 Geoffrey J Martin Southern Connecticut State University, Patrick H Armstrong USA Edith Cowan University, Australia

26–35

2007–2016 Hayden Lorimer Charles W J Withers

36–

2017–

University of Glasgow, UK University of Edinburgh, UK

Elizabeth Baigent University of Oxford, UK André Reyes-Novaes Rio de Janeiro State University, Brazil

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liberal view was echoed in his introduction to the first volume: “geography has never been the exclusive concern of geographers” (1977, viii). The inclusion of Eratosthenes (c.275–c. 195 BC) in the second volume of GBS knocked on the head the idea that the serial existed to memorialise only recent, academic geographers (though perhaps it left the editors open to the charge that they sought to add the lustre of antique origins, and hence respectability, to their discipline). Geographers occupying academic positions are the group most strongly represented in the serial, but in addition, among the disciplines which Pinchemel suggested should be included, we can point to geographers who were also cartographers (August Petermann, in volume 12 and Georg Joachim Rheticus in volume 4); geologists (Charles Andrew Cotton in volume 2 and Shen Kuo in volume 11); hydrologists (Francis Beaufort in volume 19 and James Edward Church in volume 22); economists (Thomas Malthus in volume 20 and Henry Charles Carey in volume 10); explorers (Hugh Clapperton in volume 28, Ferdinand Magellan in volume 18, and Zheng He in volume 20); urban planners (Sir Peter Hall in volume 36); philosophers (Pierre Teihard de Chardin in volume 7 and Immanuel Kant in volume 4); and historians (Anita McConnell in volume 36; Jaime Vicens Vives in volume 17 and Jaime Cortesão in volume 40), as well as meteorologists (Hugh Robert Mill in volume 1 and Felipe Poey and Andrés Poey in volume 24), sociologists (Patrick Geddes in volume 2 and Sebald Rudolf Steinmetz in volume 24), social reformers (Hull House Geographers in volume 33), and many others. Being catholic, GBS allows us to explore canonicity: the “texts, habits and practices that identify geography” (Powell 2015) or its canonical concepts (Johnston and Sidaway 2015). GBS provides rich evidence for such texts, habits, practices, and concepts, but is itself descriptive rather than prescriptive. Indeed, in its catholicity it anticipates Ferretti’s (2019b) call for the ethical necessity of “Rediscovering other geographical traditions”, outside the canon, and does not adopt a canonical view that shuns “the excluded, the evil, and the anarchic” (Keighren 2018). GBS requires constant editorial vigilance in its attempts to include the excluded, but it has featured anarchists Pyotr Kropotkin (vol. 7) and Elise Reclus (vol. 3) and problematic figures such as Karl Haushofer (vol. 12) and Halford Mackinder (vol. 9); however, the serial’s print format does not allow updating or revisiting of biographies of controversial figures as is routine in digital publications which are thus better able to reflect changing views on difficult or distasteful figures. More generally, the biographical format allows us to identify petty failings, which are far more common than the actual evil that Keighren mentions. While the slothful are unlikely to reach the eminence memorialisation demands, the geographers presented in the GBS are certainly prey to other deadly sins. While obituaries in professional journals focus almost exclusively on the professional lives of dead geographers and are generally relatively hagiographic, GBS gives considerable weight to subjects’ personal lives, and thus to the unattractive as well as the commendable. Lives written in the round reveal us all to be a mix of admirable and shabby, generous and petty, imaginative, and pusillanimous. They help us understand reasons for failings or only modest achievements: ill health, difficult family circumstances, war, or poverty, for example. GBS by its very format, then, enables us to

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paint a humane, as well as human, view of our discipline. Obliging contributors to record the less attractive aspects of their subjects is the duty of editors. Many contributors are reluctant to even record their subjects’ deaths, let alone their shortcomings, and many struggle with superabundant or absent source material (McGeachan et al. 2012) but with vigilance we can make GBS a vehicle for a rounded presentation of the discipline. The point ultimately is not whether we can connaître la géographie par les géographes (know/understand geography through geographers) as Françoise Grivot pondered in her review of the serial’s first volume (1978). Rather it is that a biographical method shows us the lifepaths of many geographers who, while sharing some characteristics and viewpoints, remain disparate, multiple, diverse, and irreducible to a single canonical trajectory (Baigent 2004). GBS can thus help us identify canonical traits but simultaneously challenge that canon. To Stoddart’s second point: do geographers form a neglected population and does Geographers effectively redress such neglect? Certainly, geographers regularly suffer from a sense of inferiority that springs from the youth of their discipline and the breadth of their endeavour: Johnston (2005), for example, felt that academic geographers had been neglected in the British national biographical dictionary. In providing a dedicated vehicle for memorialising practitioners, GBS effectively removes the need for geographers to compete with, say, hard scientists for a place in dictionaries of scientific biography, or with politicians, actors, or business people for a place in dictionaries of national biography. If geographers have been neglected by outsiders, the serial has gone some way to redressing that neglect, albeit unequally. While Pinchemel interpreted the term “geographer” liberally in terms of fields of activity and disciplinary training, his view was constrained by gender expectations. He hoped for memoirs on “great men…university men…men who founded and worked for geographical societies”, for minor figures as well as “founder fathers”, but apparently no women, despite having a female co-editor working alongside him (1977). Along with women, those from the global South, the young, non-white, and Indigenous, and those who lived before the nineteenth century have been overlooked in the serial (Baigent and Reyes-Novaes 2018). Nonetheless, GBS at least provides a vehicle for redressing such neglects, for example, via its recent volumes dedicated exclusively to women (vol. 38) and figures from the Global South (vol. 40), as well as for leading geographers as a whole to a wider view. While reviewing volume 37, historian of science Sarah Pickman anticipated that the book would be “almost comically niche”, but, having read it, she concluded that in fact “the book’s essays demonstrate the many forms a scholarly life can take and different ways of making meaningful contributions to the profession” and that “One need not be an Alexander von Humboldt to deserve a biography” (2021, 631). Stoddart concluded his review of the first three volumes of the serial by proclaiming: “Geographers is a great achievement” (1981b, 304). For all its shortcomings, we believe that he is right. In ensuring that the discipline’s past is recorded, GBS’s editors, contributors, publishers, and supervisory commission, as well as archivists and subjects’ friends and families, have done the discipline a significant service.

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4.4 Key Themes and Approaches in the History and Philosophy of Geography The CHG was founded during a period of tension within and outside the geographical discipline. 1968 was a critical year for social movements and youth protest, which famously led to the rise of Radical Geography and the founding of the journal Antipode in the United States in 1969 (Barnes and Sheppard 2019). Such radicalism was not limited to North America (Berg et al. 2021): in France, where most geographers were politically and/or epistemologically conservative, Paris was the epicentre of the May 1968 protests and some geographers were receptive to the new currents (Orain 2020; Robic et al. 2020). Further tension arose within the discipline where, in the 1960s and 1970s, controversy raged between the proponents of quantitative, radical, and humanistic approaches to geographical scholarship. Ironically, some of the key radical figures, such as David Harvey and especially William Bunge, had previously been leading exponents of quantitative geography (Barnes 2009, 2016). Similarly, humanistic geography was in part a reaction against quantification and geography as “spatial science”—something which Anne Buttimer wryly defined as “The dance macabre of materialistically motivated robots” (Buttimer 1993, 47). Most scholars working in the history and philosophy of geography preferred qualitative to quantitative approaches, as did the CHG itself—unsurprisingly given the key role that individuals such as Buttimer played in framing its epistemological approaches and material instruments, including GBS. Yet, historians of geography were quick to historicise these controversies, including the development of quantitative geographies, as a part of the plural histories of geography (Barnes 2009; Lamego 2014; Cuyala 2014; Gintrac 2015). The history and epistemology of geography initially represented a new approach that needed to earn legitimacy of its own. Its first task was to examine the history of geography’s emergence as a science and as a discipline, from the point of view of contents and contexts. In the case of France, for example, before the pioneering works of Claval, Broc, Pinchemel, Berdoulay, and Meynier, little was known about the beginnings of the French school of geography. Thus, the foundations of the mainstream national tradition were mapped out first, with more recent studies beginning to focus on marginal or non-academic figures (Clerc and Robic 2015; Ginsburger 2016), troubled periods (wars, political movements), and sensitive memories (colonisation, occupation) (Ginsburger, Robic and Tissier 2021). From the 1980s onwards, with the rise of poststructuralism and the so-called “cultural turn”, the history of geography became increasingly concerned with selfreflexion and situating developments in the discipline within broader trends in the history of science. The latter focus prompted context-sensitive readings of geographical histories aimed at making sense of the growth and transformation of ideas in their historical, cultural, and geographical contexts, and challenging purely internalist and disembodied readings of the history of ideas. The work that classically symbolised this shift, The Geographical Tradition (1993), was authored by David N. Livingstone, another of the CHG’s contributors, and has recently been the object of

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collective re-readings and reworkings within the community of historians of geography (Boyle et al. 2019; Péaud 2016). While the (auto)biographical turn to which GBS decisively contributed may be seen as part of this contextual framework, a key complement to contextualistic approaches came from the so-called “spatial turn” in social sciences. While amazingly the ideas of the spatial turn seemed to be assimilated more enthusiastically by historians of science than by geographers (Secord 2004), it was again Livingstone who published one of the key contributions in this field (Livingstone 2003). The key assumption of the spatial turn is that localisation matters to the formation of ideas, which vary between places. Given the intrinsic mobility of knowledge, the focus of the spatial turn is not confined to localisation, but also includes studies on the transfer and movement of ideas across places, languages, and cultures, thus extending the scope of contextual approaches. More recently, new theoretical instruments for this line of inquiry have been provided by the “material turn”, inspired by notions such as Bruno Latour’s Actor–Network Theory (ANT), which also focuses on the importance of material factors, including non-human agency, in the shaping of scientific networks (Latour 1987). More broadly, the history and philosophy of geography are intrinsically interdisciplinary, and therefore by definition concern themselves with broader developments in the historical disciplines, in terms of what have been termed fertilisations and crosspollination between geography and history (Ozouf-Marignier and Verdier 2013). While the incorporation of geographical approaches into geo-historical traditions is nothing new, some of the more recent trends in history appear especially promising for current and future scholarship in the history of geography. One such tendency is the “Global Turn” in history, which implies transcending previous notions of “crossed” or “comparative” histories that remained closely bound up with national frameworks. As an alternative framework, global history is generally based on transnational approaches that help to make sense of knowledge transfers, not only across, but also independently of, boundaries. This paradigm bears crucial implications for geography, because it questions the pertinence of readings based on the existence of “national” schools. A significant body of empirical research now suggests that numerous eminent scholars cannot be exclusively identified with a given national school, and recent studies point to the transnational and multilingual trajectories of many geographers, such as those involved in attempts to build up social networks of geographers on both sides of the Atlantic (Ginsburger 2010; Alves de Lira 2021; Louis 2019), or across the Global North and the Global South in the second half of the twentieth century (Davies 2019; Ferretti 2019b; Ferretti and Pedrosa 2018). This is clearly consistent with the aims of the CHG, many of whose members have fostered transnational and multilingual readings of histories of geography in recent years. More generally, the history of geography increasingly includes research that brings geography into dialogue with other sciences. For example, it questions the place of geography within the human sciences or the humanities (Orain 2021), often bringing interdisciplinary approaches to bear on this endeavour (for example, in France; see Revue d’histoire des sciences humaines and the Société Française pour l’Histoire des

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Sciences de l’Homme). On another frontier, the increased prominence of environmental issues and inquiry into the relationship between nature and culture (Descola 2015) has led historians and philosophers of geography to engage in close dialogue with philosophers, anthropologists, and specialists in the sciences of the Earth and the universe. Last but not the least, while scholars associated with the CHG contributed to geographers’ self-criticism with respect to their discipline’s colonialist and imperialist pasts (and presents), they are now exploring current debates on decoloniality and the rediscovery of different epistemes. Although not limited to a single geographical area, these strands of inquiry are especially prominent in Latin America, thanks to the work of the Modernity–Coloniality–Decoloniality collective (Radcliffe 2017), recent theorising on post-development and the pluriverse (De la Cadena and Blaser 2018), and the rediscovery of alternative geographical traditions, including from nonEuropean cultures, as, for example, approaches that help to supersede dichotomies such as humankind and nature (Ferretti 2020). Growing interest in histories of geography from the South, and the increasing engagement of Southern (especially Latin American) scholars with the work of the CHG are key indicators of these developments. The history and philosophy of geography, which gradually evolved into a distinct area of knowledge over the post-war era, first sought to establish its institutions and its foundations at the national level, while participating in major developments in the history of science and knowledge. Recent changes reflect the rise of more open perspectives. The investigations of scholars in this field continue to be situated in space and time, but with a stronger focus on the transdisciplinary and transnational circulation of objects, concepts, problematics, and methods, and renewed openness to the challenges of our era.

4.5 Conclusions and Prospects From the decisive year of 1968 to date, the CHG has remained firmly committed to investigating the historiographical and philosophical significance of geography from an international and transversal perspective, and to offering, as we have seen, helpful insights into some of the leading dynamics, problems, and challenges of the contemporary world. In parallel, it has contributed, at different scales, to the circulation and dissemination of themes, ideas, theories, and turning points in historical geography, within the broader framework of global history. Given the continuing globalisation of knowledge, the CHG now stands before new prospects for theory and practice within the discipline, towards the dual aims of encouraging innovative research themes and approaches, while critically revisiting some of the hegemonic interpretations of the past. A first emergent focus is the internationalisation of geography and the current role of national and local institutions. Language policies and practices are key concerns here, in terms of the loss of

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linguistic diversity and the prospect that English will occupy an increasingly hegemonic position in the accumulation of knowledge. Scrutiny of geography’s “imperial legacy”—and of the legitimacy of who produces scientific knowledge, where, and according to what dominant paradigms—has informed the decolonial perspective, prompting new lines of inquiry and raising questions about our understanding of the contemporary aftermath of geography’s colonial past. The new framework, to draw on Anne Buttimer’s remarks about the humanistic turn in geography, “could [not only] help broaden our horizons to new areas of intellectual enquiry, but […] could also help us transcend the artificial barriers which our Western intellectual heritage has placed between mind and being, between the intellectual and moral, the true and the good in our life worlds” (Buttimer 1976, 292). Over the decades, the history of geography has expanded to address new research themes, stimulating contact with scholars from countries and regions of the world that had previously remained peripheral to, or absent from, academic channels of exchange. We must now commit to continuing this process of inclusion by receiving the views of under-represented groups, such as ethnic minorities, children, and LGBT people, and exploring non-human agency in our research. Likewise, even greater effort must be invested in incorporating a gender perspective into the historiography of geography, and in attending to scholarly developments in, and contributions from, the Global South. As we have seen, the GBS has already made a key contribution in this regard. Another major challenge for the future, which is shared by cartography, concerns the sphere of communication, representation, and engagement with technology. The Internet and open access journals have already greatly boosted the internationalisation of geography. At the national and local scales, new technologies also enable access to archival sources, unwritten documents, and oral testimonies. In this regard, the public dimension and perceptions of geography outside academic circles constitute another important sphere of action for the CHG. The history of geography is a cross-cutting and integrative field that links different areas of research and different aspects of current global emergencies. One point of contact is environmental crises and climate change, where great scope remains for historical inquiry and deploying indigenous knowledge. Investigation of dynamic change in the relationship between human beings and the environment can advance our understanding of past and future changes in land use and how these may serve the interests of sustainability. Finally, the transversal perspective of the CHG can help us to understand and address current epochal changes by providing theoretical insights into the global nature of these changes. First, the COVID-19 pandemic, which, among other things, has changed our relationship with space, including through virtual communication, with repercussions that go far beyond the realm of epidemiology, in an unprecedented economic, political, and social crisis. And now the war in Ukraine and the urgent need to revisit the geography of peace—a geography theorised early on by Kropotkin and Reclus, and later put into practice by Zonia Baber and William Bunge, among others. In this regard, though written almost 140 years ago, the words of Kropotkin continue to be of the utmost salience today: “In our time of wars, of national selfconceit, of national jealousies and hatreds ably nourished by people who pursue

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their own egotistic, personal or class interests, geography must be […] a means of dissipating these prejudices and of creating other feelings more worthy of humanity!” (Kropotkin 1885, 945).

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Chapter 5

Innovative Development of Modern Agricultural Geographic Engineering Liu Yansui, Feng Weilun, and Li Yuheng

Abstract Agricultural geography is an interdisciplinary field that combines agricultural science and geographical science. Agricultural Geographic Engineering (AGE) represents a deeper and more systematic application of the interdisciplinary study of geography and engineering in the modern agriculture and rural areas. With the innovation and development of modern agricultural science and technology, as well as the widespread implementation of agricultural engineering construction, there is a growing demand for systematic applied research aimed at addressing agricultural development issues and developing agricultural technologies. Consequently, research in AGE has become a critical aspect of agricultural engineering construction and high-quality development. AGE is a pivotal research domain that integrates modern planning concepts of agricultural geography, engineering technical measures of farmland improvement, and systematic management scheme of agricultural economy. Based on a review and summary of the AGE research over the past two decades, this paper expounds the scientific connotation, research content, research framework, research objectives and application pathway of AGE research, and prospects for future research directions. Keywords Agricultural geography · Agricultural geographic engineering · Land consolidation · Human-earth system science · Sustainable development

5.1 Introduction Agriculture is the foundation of national economic development by providing food, raw materials, energy, and other materials for various sectors of the social economy (Liu and Li 2017). With the continuous improvement of people’s demand for L. Yansui (B) · F. Weilun · L. Yuheng Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_5

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quality of life, the agricultural development paradigm has gradually shifted to multifunctional agricultural production modes such as tourism, leisure, and landscape (Ragkos and Theodoridis 2016; Tilzey 2010; Wang et al. 2021). Nonetheless, agriculture on a global scale is currently facing unprecedented challenges within the context of global change and sustainable development (Piao et al. 2010; Stricevic et al. 2018). As per the FAO report, in 2019, 750 million people worldwide experienced severe food insecurity, while an estimated 2 billion people lacked regular access to safe, nutritious, and adequate food. Especially in recent years, a deteriorating global food security situation has emerged due to the confluence of factors, including the escalating regional conflict, global climate polarization, extreme weather disasters, and the COVID-19 pandemic (Behnassi and El Haiba 2022; Mishra et al. 2021). Most countries, especially developing countries, are facing the dilemma of food shortage. Furthermore, land degradation, pollution, abandonment and illegal occupation driven by urbanization and industrialization have also exacerbated agricultural and food security problems (Lesk et al. 2016). The current agricultural model is not sustainable. There is an urgent need to strengthen the innovation and application of agricultural science and technology, establish sustainable systems for soil, land and water management, and cultivate resilient agri-food systems. Land is the main carrier of agricultural production and the important foundation for healthy national economic development (Liu et al. 2014). However, less attention has been paid to land resource protection and optimal allocation of land use. Since the new century began, rapid global urbanization and industrialization have brought about many land-use problems worldwide such as the large-scale occupation of cultivated land, soil degradation, and land pollution (Liu 2021). These issues have severely restricted the sustainable development of the social economy (Chen et al. 2019; Seto and Ramankutty 2016). The Earth’s soil, land, and water ecosystems are under severe stress, with soil degradation affecting 34 percent of agricultural land (1.66 billion hectares). Nearly a third of rain-fed farmland and half of irrigated farmland are now at risk of land degradation. The degradation and deterioration of land resources have seriously impacted both the quality and quantity of global grain production (Foley et al. 2005). The transition of world agricultural development demands more efficient and ecological utilization and exploration of land resources. With the widespread application of modern science and technology in agriculture and land use, large-scale agricultural land consolidation projects have been carried out around the world for degraded, inefficient, and unused land (Allahyari et al. 2018; Janus and Markuszewska 2019). As a tool to promote regional sustainable development, land consolidation is a policy and technology tool widely used to alleviate land fragmentation and other rural issues such as land contamination, ecological risk, poverty, and poor rural development (Pasakarnis and Maliene 2010). Many countries around the world, such as the United States, Germany, England, Denmark, and Israel, have a long tradition of land consolidation (Bazik and Muchova 2015; Crecente et al. 2002; Gielen and Mualam 2019; Hartvigsen 2014; Mihara 1996; Niroula and Thapa 2005; Pasakarnis and Maliene 2011; Ravallion and de Walle 2006). Bavaria, Germany, is a notable example, with a nearly 500 years history of LC resulting in higher productivity from consolidated rural land (Bronstert et al.

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1995). Especially in China, a wide range of land engineering constructions have been carried out across the country, focusing on land improvement, water and soil allocation, ecological conservation, and high-standard farmland construction (Duan et al. 2022; Feng et al. 2019; Wu et al. 2019a). Representative projects include the gully land consolidation project in the Loess Plateau, foreign soil reconstruction project in Three Gorges Reservoir Region, the barren hillside consolidation project in the Taihang Mountains, the comprehensive consolidation project in the Mu Us sandy land, and the rocky desertification control project in the karst area (Fu et al. 2010; Li et al. 2019; Wang et al. 2020; Wu et al. 2019b; Yan et al. 2020). These projects are extremely costly and large in scale, which greatly changed the characteristics of local land use and cover, and have had a significant impact on the local ecological environment (Jin 2014; Wang et al. 2019). In this process, land engineering played an important role in improving land quality and agricultural production conditions. Thus, it is necessary to promote interdisciplinary studies involving subjects such as geography, agriculture, engineering, and management. In the past decade, geographers worldwide have made significant contributions to understanding both the eco-centric and techno-centric approaches to sustainable agriculture. Research has spanned from the environmental sciences to the social sciences (Foley et al. 2011). The techno-centric view rejects eco-centric as being both practically and politically unrealistic. It has no guarantee that it can produce sufficient food to meet the needs of the world’s growing population. Instead, it focuses on a technology-driven approach that regards biotechnology as the best means of meeting both the ever-growing demand for food and the need to make conservation gains from further agricultural development. Examples of this technological focus include the so-called “Green Revolution”, the recent introduction of genetically modified (GM) foods, and new technologies in Agriculture 4.0 (Seufert et al. 2012). Despite rapid development in social economy, science, and technology, current research on land resources still cannot support the key problems of land use (Long 2014). Agricultural Geographic Engineering (AGE) is an important field of coupling research of modern agricultural geography and land engineering. It aims to increase land use amount, improve land use efficiency, and actively achieve a harmonious human-earth relationship. Therefore, it is of great theoretical value and practical significance to give full play to the advantages of agricultural geography and engineering science, innovate, and develop modern agricultural geography and land engineering. The objectives of this study were to (1) examine prominent areas of AGE research over the past two decades; (2) expound the scientific connotation and research content of agricultural geographic engineering (AGE); (3) analyze scientific achievements and challenges faced in AGE research, and outline prospects for future research directions.

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5.2 Research Progress of Agricultural Geographic Engineering 5.2.1 Agricultural Geography Agricultural geography is a branch of geography that focuses on the spatial patterns and processes related to agricultural production and land use. This discipline investigates how agriculture interacts with the environment, culture, and economy across diverse global regions (Sayre 2009). Agricultural geography includes the study of crop and livestock production, land use patterns, agricultural landscapes, rural communities, and the economic and social factors that influence agricultural practices. It also examines the role of agriculture in food security, global trade, and sustainable development (Whatmore 1993). Agricultural geography is an interdisciplinary field that draws on concepts and methodologies from geography, ecology, economics, sociology, anthropology and other related disciplines (Slee 1985). Agricultural geography plays an important role in addressing some of the most pressing global challenges of our time, including food security, environmental sustainability, and rural development. By understanding the spatial and social dimensions of agricultural production and land use, agricultural geographers are able to develop more effective strategies for managing agricultural resources, promoting sustainable agriculture practices, and ensuring that food systems are equitable and accessible to all. In the past twentieth century, the focus of agricultural geography was on the interpretation and analysis of geographical locations affecting agricultural activities and their environmental and regional differences (Whittaker 1986). Amidst the era of globalization, quantification, and specialization, agricultural geography research has expanded and progressively extended into areas concerning arable land and food security (Morris and Evans 1999). In the new century, agricultural geography has gradually shifted to quantitative and systemic research, exploring the development patterns, processes, and dynamic mechanisms of agricultural systems at the elemental, structural, and functional levels, and providing suggestions for the sustainable and efficient development of regional agriculture.

5.2.2 Land Engineering Land engineering is a branch of engineering that focuses on the planning, design, construction, and management of land-based projects and infrastructure. It involves the application of engineering principles and techniques to solve problems related to land use, land development, and environmental management (Han and Zhang 2014; Jiang et al. 2015). By combining theoretical and engineering technology research, it can effectively solve problems in regional agricultural development and support rural revitalization and modernization (Liu 2015). In general, land engineering is a key factor in modern agricultural development, ecological construction, and sustainable

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land use. It can solve land management spatial issues, and is regarded as an indispensable method for spatial restructuring (Long and Liu 2016). At present, most of the exploration of land engineering in the world is focused on land preparation practices, including the organized consolidation of land parcels, adjustment of land tenure, improvement of agricultural production conditions, and provision of land for infrastructure construction (Jiang et al. 2021; Lu 2021). Land engineers work closely with other professionals, such as architects, urban planners, geologists, and environmental scientists, to ensure that land-based projects are designed and constructed in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner. Land consolidation is an important aspect of land engineering research, and its research content includes the following important aspects: (1) enhancing soil fertility through comprehensive management of polluted, degraded, and unused land; (2) optimizing the utilization efficiency of chemical fertilizers, machinery, and pesticides; (3) enhancing the utilization efficiency of water resources and improve soil moisture; and (4) improving the ecological functions of agriculture and soil and improve the regional environment. In the new era, as land engineering continues to expand on a global scale, the comprehensive improvement of land resources through engineering means has gradually become a hot area of AGE research.

5.2.3 Review of Research Direction Since the new century’s coming, in the context of economic globalization and climate warming, scientific application of modern science and technology in agriculture, such as the Internet of Things, big data, and artificial intelligence, has led to dramatic changes in agricultural development models (Mehrabi et al. 2021). Novel concepts like “community of life”, “mountain, water, forest, field, lake, and grass”, and “clear water and green mountains” have infused fresh perspectives into agricultural development. Innovative agricultural development models, such as smart agriculture and high-quality agriculture, have surfaced. In 2015, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed to eliminate hunger, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture, indicating important directions for agricultural development in the new era. The key challenge of modern geographical science research is how to change from quantitative monitoring and evaluation of geographical elements to providing systematic solutions for regional sustainable development. At this stage, domestic and foreign scholars tend to focus on the scientific connotation, research paradigms, evolutionary features, and practical applications of agricultural territorial systems, and extensively carried out systematic scientific research on agricultural multi-functionality, agricultural transformation, land use and engineering, and human health and well-being.

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5.3 Theoretical Analysis of Agricultural Geographic Engineering 5.3.1 Scientific Connotation (1) Modern geographic engineering Modern geographic engineering is a new interdisciplinary subject of modern geography and engineering that strengthens the organic combination and crossintegration of comprehensive geography, regional engineering, and systematic technology. It takes the human-earth system in a certain region as the object and aims to achieve the coupling and sustainable development. It studies how to use the technical measures of system engineering to effectively crack the naturaleconomic-technical process of various regional adverse geographical problems. This discipline applies geographical theories and methodologies to investigate regional engineering challenges and resolve particular issues within humanearth systems. It amalgamates the concepts of complex geographic planning for regional development, engineering technology measures for regional governance, and systematic regulatory mechanisms for modern management. Its goal is to find out the cause law, evolution mechanism, and ecological environmental risks of various geographic system problems under the comprehensive action of natural and human processes, and to study and formulate engineering construction planning, engineering technology system, and comprehensive governance scheme. From the perspective of regional development, modern geographic engineering is actually the optimization of geographic system engineering, highlighting the engineering and technical nature of geographic science. (2) Agricultural geographic engineering (AGE) AGE is an interdisciplinary field that combines principles of agricultural geography and agricultural engineering to address issues related to agricultural production and land management (Fig. 5.1). It involves the use of engineering and geospatial technologies to design and implement sustainable agricultural systems, improve agricultural productivity, and mitigate the impacts of agricultural activities on the environment. AGE aims to solve the double constraints of market demand and production factors faced in agricultural development. It not only theoretically researches the causal laws, evolutionary mechanisms, and ecological and environmental risks of agricultural territorial system problems under the combined effect of natural and human processes, but also formulates engineering construction planning, engineering technology system, and comprehensive management plan for engineering practice research (Liu et al. 2020). By means of land consolidation, soil construction, and soil remediation, AGE follows the principles of land ecological suitability and crop physiological adaptability (Han et al. 2015). It scientifically promotes order-based land consolidation based on the demand of modern agriculture.

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Fig. 5.1 Research orientation and connotation of Agricultural Geographic Engineering

(3) AGE focuses on the coupling relationship between agricultural geography and agricultural engineering and its influence effects. It aims to promote the efficient development of regional agriculture and sustainable land use. AGE uses geospatial analysis, system engineering technology, social research and interviews, and other technical methods for comprehensive integration. Its scientific aims mainly include diagnosis and analysis of regional agricultural development problems, innovation and R&D of land engineering technology, comprehensive benefit evaluation of land engineering, response of regional agricultural ecological security to land engineering, sustainable utilization of land resources after engineering remediation, etc. Based on the principle of matching the ecological suitability of land with the physiological adaptability of crops, AGE introduces agricultural land engineering concepts and technologies into agricultural production systems. It systematically promotes soil creation, soil layer compounding, and soil quality improvement, aiming to fundamentally improve water, soil, air, and biological land conditions necessary for agricultural production. The research on AGE is conducive to promoting the transformation of agricultural structure and production methods, providing scientific and technological support, theoretical guidance, and engineering technology demonstration for regional sustainable agriculture and rural development, modern agricultural transformation and upgrading, and food security guarantee. (4) Agricultural territorial system Agriculture serves as a material production sector that merges natural reproduction and economic reproduction. Natural reproduction denotes the process of cultivating crops, whereas economic reproduction pertains to the trading of agricultural products. Agricultural territorial systems can be categorized into two distinct types based on the composition of elements and production processes: agricultural natural ecosystems and agricultural socio-economic systems. The natural agricultural ecosystem constitutes the agricultural ontology system or

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the fundamental support system, comprising natural resources such as land, water, climate, and various biological components. On the other hand, the socioeconomic system of agriculture represents an agricultural subject system or an operational dynamic system, directly shaped by specific economic objectives, technological proficiency, and the competence of its stakeholders, including the labor force, cooperative organizations, and collective management entities. Despite their shared classification within the same agricultural territorial system, these two systems diverge significantly in terms of elemental composition, structural functions, and regulatory mechanisms. They maintain a cascading relationship within the agricultural production process. (5) Philosophical thinking logic AGE should embrace comprehensive, systematic, and dialectical thinking base on different time and space scales, especially with the utilizing of concept, judgment, reasoning, and other thinking forms, to explore the regulation process of agricultural geographic elements and its engineering operation mechanism from the perspective of connection and change. The cognitive framework of AGE specifically includes the dialectical thinking forms of the unity of opposites, such as causal interplay, quantitative-qualitative, coordination-balance, analysis-synthesis, influence-feedback, phenomenonessence, etc. These cognitive patterns primarily manifest in critical junctures such as defining problems, selecting objectives, analyzing systems, optimizing systems, making decisions, and practical implementation. In the stage of problem definition and objective selection, we should focus on the regional and complex characteristics of agricultural geographic engineering experiments, adhere to the quantitative and qualitative changes, and problem-oriented, conflict-oriented thinking mode, select key engineering technologies to give priority to experiments, and focus on solving the main bottleneck problems restricting regional land use and agricultural development. In the stage of system analysis and optimization, we need to adopt the thinking mode of systems engineering, adhere to the thinking mode of reductionism and holism, analysis, and synthesis, and comprehensively consider the basic configuration, action mechanism, and spatio-temporal evolution characteristics of the internal elements of the agricultural ecosystem, and put forward the optimization scheme of farmland utilization structure and agricultural industry structure.

5.3.2 Research Scope and Content The focus of Agricultural Geographic Engineering is on the agricultural territorial systems at various spatial scales, encompassing six scales ranging from agglomerate, field, and slope to ditch, watershed, and region. Research objects, issues, and experimental approaches in AGE vary with spatial scale. Based on our experimental study in the Loess Plateau of China, AGE must thoroughly account for spatial scales and their associated research objects (Fig. 5.2). At the agglomerate scale, the

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primary focus is on the soil system, with the aim of enhancing soil fertility and quality through physical, chemical, and biological improvements. At the field scale, the research revolves around the soil system, with an emphasis on improving crop quality, selecting appropriate varieties, and implementing agronomic practices to optimize the soil-crop relationship and enhance crop yields. At the slope scale, the object of research is soil and water system, through the implementation of a series of engineering and vegetation slope protection measures to achieve the purpose of soil and water conservation and enhance the stability of soil and water system. At the ditch, watershed, and region scales, the main object is the multi-factor coupled agro-ecosystem of “water-soil-air-biosynthesis” in a specific region. The efficiency of agricultural functions and agro-ecosystem benefits can be improved by adjusting planting patterns and optimizing agricultural structures. The research focus, content, and objectives of engineering experiments vary at different spatial scales. At the agglomerate scale, comparative analysis of soil physical and chemical properties and crop growth and quality indexes are combined with an in-depth investigation of the microstructure, micromorphology, and micromechanism of water-soil-air-borne multi-factor composition and its interaction within the system. It aims to provide a reasonable explanation and verification for the improvement and perfection of engineering technology measures. The slope and field scales are the main scales for conducting agricultural field experiments, focusing on field observation and coupling experiments of different ways of land improvement and different types of crop cultivation to explore engineering and technical

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measures to improve field quality and enhance slope stability. Engineering experiments at the ditch, watershed, and regional scales focus on field research, physical simulation, geospatial analysis, and monitoring to make comprehensive evaluations and feasible suggestions for scientific control and management of regional agroecosystem optimization, sustainable development, and integrated application of engineering technologies. The watershed scale can be considered as an independent natural unit due to its relatively closed and well-defined boundaries and the exchange of materials, energy, and information with the external environment. In the context of agroecosystems, the integrity of the elements, structures, and functions of the "water-soil-air-biosynthesis" within the watershed system allows not only for an in-depth investigation of the system’s internal operation and control measures, but also for a strong extension feasibility at the application level. Therefore, the watershed scale is considered as the bridge between micro and macro in this study, and is also the focus of our agricultural geoengineering experiments. The different latitudes and longitudes of different regions make the elements of agricultural systems have zonal characteristics, mainly reflected in the variability of the combination of moisture and heat conditions. The same zonal range, in turn, causes the redistribution of resource combinations due to terrain, topography, altitude, etc. For different spatial scales, agricultural geographic engineering research should focus on the main bottlenecks and problems faced by agricultural development in that region’s scale, and propose targeted design solutions for experiments to better solve problems in agricultural development and projects while promoting sustainable and efficient agricultural development.

5.3.3 Research Framework and Key Areas Addressing the challenges impeding regional sustainable development, Agricultural Geographic Engineering (AGE) constitutes a comprehensive study that spans from theory and technology to informing decision-making. It centers around the theory of the human-earth system as a guiding framework, with agricultural engineering technology serving as its foundation. AGE aims to develop a coherent understanding of geographic engineering experimental theory and its target system (Fig. 5.3). (1) Human-earth system sciences As the core field of geographical research, human-earth system science is a new interdisciplinary subject studying the coupling mechanism, evolution process, and complex interaction effect of human-earth system (Liu et al. 2007). It is devoted to exploring the interaction of various elements in the system and the overall behavior and regulation mechanism of the system, exploring the function, structure, process, and effect formed by human-earth interaction, as well as the regional differentiation, systematization, and regulation of humanearth interaction (Isendahl 2010). The human-earth relationship is the mainstream of modern geographic thought and the philosophical basis for geography

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Fig. 5.3 Key research areas and outputs of Agricultural Geographic Engineering

theory, which is a comprehensive concept involving natural and social processes (Dearing et al. 2006). To coordinate the relationship between human and earth, it is necessary to understand the structural optimization, coordination, and balance and comprehensive regulation of the territorial system of the human-earth relationship at different scales in terms of time process and spatial structure (Bennett and McGinnis 2008). The core scope is the interaction between human activities and the natural environment, which aims to investigate the functions, structures, processes, and effects of human-earth interaction, as well as the regional differentiation, systematicity, and controllability of human-earth interaction. The human-earth system is the highest system on earth, and the coordination of human-earth relations is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable development. (2) Agroengineering technology Agricultural engineering is a comprehensive engineering technology that serves agricultural production and rural life. It integrates various engineering technologies rooted in the disciplines of soil, fertilizer, agrometeorology, breeding, cultivation, feeding, and agricultural economics. These technologies offer a range of tools, facilities, and energy resource for creating an external environment conducive to agriculture. Agroengineering technology can be viewed as the application of industrial technology in agriculture, involving biotechnology, engineering technology, system science, management, and other domains. It mainly includes agricultural mechanization technology, agricultural biological environment control engineering technology, agricultural system engineering and management engineering technology, agricultural products processing engineering technology, agricultural electrification and automation technology, agricultural soil and water resources utilization technology, rural energy engineering technology, and agricultural construction engineering technology. In recent years, the emergence of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet

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of Things, big data, cloud computing, and cloud services has substantially influenced the trajectory of agricultural engineering research. Presently, research in agricultural engineering technology is developing towards the direction of informatization, automation, and intelligence. The development of efficient and sustainable modern agriculture has become the new direction of discipline research and development. (3) Principle of engineering test The system’s functionality is intricately linked to its structure, and the two elements mutually support and constrain each other. The structure determines the function, while the function affects the structure in turn, only if the structure of the system is reasonable, the system can play the best function. In addition, the function of a system depends not only on the function, but also on the environment in which the system is located and its level of organization and management. In the process of studying, evaluating, and solving problems related to agricultural systems, the first issue that needs to be considered is the structure of agricultural systems. The structure of an agricultural system is a multidimensional and complex structure interwoven by agro-ecological, agroeconomic, and agro-technological structures. At the same time, each subsystem is also a multi-level structure, and each level of structure contains both temporal and spatial directions. (4) Demonstration construction The implementation of engineering construction is a costly and extremely complex engineering practice that involves establishing agricultural technology extension institutions, encouraging colleges and universities, and research institutes to carry out agricultural technology extension services, and supporting professional service organizations and agriculture-related enterprises to participate in agricultural technology extension. In addition, it is necessary to cultivate not only agricultural research teams, but also the ability to apply science and technology to family farms, large professional households, agricultural cooperatives, leading enterprises, and other business entities. In this process, there is an urgent need to form a community of interests through multi-body synergy and multi-departmental cooperation. Industry departments and local government management departments have unique advantages in organization and coordination, management, and effectiveness promotion. Consequently, they should actively organize and coordinate agriculture-related units with business departments to jointly carry out engineering tests, technology research and development, and application and promotion. (5) Evaluation decision system Specifically, it refers to the construction of assessment and decision-making systems by monitoring and evaluation, simulation, and other means to provide policy recommendations for macro-strategic decision-making and local sustainable development. Monitoring and assessment refer to the comprehensive act of checking, supervising, measuring, and evaluating the process of agricultural development and land use change and development results through qualitative

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and quantitative methods. Among them, monitoring favors the process of development of things, and evaluation focuses on the results of the evolution of things. Simulation decision-making refers to the model simulation of different implementation paths under the guidance of the decision-making scheme to check and improve the scheme so that it can be more certain to achieve the expected results in the full implementation process.

5.3.4 Research Objectives and Principles The scientific implementation of agricultural engineering requires a series of engineering technologies, and engineering experiment is an important means of engineering technology research and development, which can provide theoretical guidance and technical support for engineering practice. The focus of agro-ecosystem regulation is to create a good environment for crop growth by eliminating undesirable factors and obstacles within the land environment, and to maximize the comprehensive benefits of agro-ecosystems through the preferential selection and reasonable matching of crop varieties. Soil serves as the fundamental resource for agricultural production, providing essential elements such as water, nutrients, and gases necessary for crop growth. Different soil conditions are suitable for different crops, and different crops have positive and negative reactions to the soil. Crop growth and the external environment interact with each other and have an extremely close connection. Therefore, the ultimate goal of agro-ecosystem regulation is to maximize the comprehensive benefits of economic, social, and ecological benefits by means of natural and artificial regulation base on ensuring the ecological balance of the system. The social, economic, and ecological benefits of agro-ecosystems always have a unified role of opposites between their natural and economic production. Pursuing the maximization of the comprehensive benefits of the system is actually a comprehensive evaluation of multi-level and multi-stage economic, social, and ecological benefits. The crop-soil system is a complex mega-system consisting of the soil environment and crop system interacting, coupling, and interlocking in a certain area of the earth’s surface. The crop-soil system is the core system in agro-ecosystem, and the relationship between crop and soil is the most important relationship between crop growth and the external environment. Hence, the paramount concern in AGE research is the optimal regulation of the crop-soil system. There are multi-level and multi-factor interactions between crop growth and soil environment, and the material cycle, energy conversion, and information transfer between the systems constitute the dynamic mechanism of system changes. A comprehensive understanding of the relationship between crop growth and soil physical and chemical properties can help systematically understand the spatial and temporal evolution of agroecosystems and the principles and methods of system function regulation and optimization. This is significant in realizing the efficient and sustainable utilization of soil and water resources.

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Land reclamation

Optimization test

Crop optimization

coordinate

Optimization type

Climate-crop preference

Soil structure improvement

Terrain-crop preference

Soil quality improvement

Soil-crop preference

Benefit-crop optimization

Spatial dimensions

Watershed

Ditch

Ditch

Field

Field

Region

Technical measures

Rainfall Temperature Illumination

Engineering biological measures

Topography Elevation Slope

Physics Chemistry Biology

Soil chemical and physical properties

Economy society ecology

Functional orientation

Favorable climate

Stable soil structure

Preferred crop type

Soil system health

Structure optimization

System efficiency

Fig. 5.4 Technical principles of crop-soil system optimization

The optimization process of the crop-soil system primarily involves two key components: land reclamation and crop optimization (Fig. 5.4). Land reclamation refers to the creation of a healthy, stable, and efficient soil structure by engineering and biological means, mainly including soil structure improvement and soil quality improvement. Crop optimization refers to the process of selecting crop varieties and planting patterns that are suitable for the regional climate, soil, and other environmental conditions with the aim of maximizing the economic, social, and ecological benefits of regional agriculture. Land reclamation forms the foundation for crop optimization by establishing a favorable soil environment for crop growth. The optimization process of the crop-soil relationship encompasses six key stages, logically sequenced as follows: climate-crop preference, soil structure improvement, terrain-crop preference, soil quality improvement, soil-crop preference, and benefitcrop preference. These six stages exhibit interdependence, with each stage serving as a foundation for the subsequent stages. Additionally, they provide feedback to preceding stages through their responses, thereby imparting positive or negative feedback to the implementation process.

5.3.5 Application and Implementation Path AGE is a complex system engineering involving multi-agent collaboration, multi-discipline crossing, and multi-technology integration, which requires multidimensional design, multi-path advancement, and multi-scale application. Its core task is to deepen comprehensive research, reveal the microcosmic coupling mechanism, and establish the engineering test paradigm. Successful AGE implementation necessitates cooperation across multiple subjects and departments to foster a community of shared interests. Industry departments and local government administrative

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departments have unique advantages in organization and coordination, operation and management, effectiveness publicity, and promotion, so they should actively organize and coordinate agricultural units and business departments to jointly carry out engineering tests, technology research and development, application, and promotion. Relevant universities and scientific research institutions should take the responsibility of promoting the basic theory research and technology experiment of the relevant disciplines of agricultural geographic engineering experiment, and carrying out the education and vocational training of new agricultural talents. Companies and enterprises should pay attention to the integrated application of engineering experiment findings and the research and development demonstration of relevant technologies. Professional agricultural cooperatives and ordinary farmers need to improve scientific understanding, actively participate in the organization, implementation, and extension of engineering experiments, and become participants in agricultural geographic engineering experiments and practitioners of technology application. Temporally, AGE should follow the standard process and time sequence, including regional problem diagnosis, experimental design, organization and implementation, result analysis, and application promotion. Problem diagnosis mainly includes five contents: national strategy, regional overview, system analysis, regional evaluation, and practical problem research and judgment. Its task is to comprehensively evaluate the spatio-temporal pattern evolution characteristics of regional agricultural systems, systematically diagnose the prominent problems faced by regional agricultural development and engineering governance, and put forward the preliminary scheme to solve the problems and promote the efficient use of agricultural resources. Experimental design primarily encompasses five elements: defining the subject matter, selecting targets, conducting comprehensive analyses, devising schemes, and predicting outcomes. Its task is to analyze and evaluate the composition, structural type, and functional characteristics of agroecosystem elements, and design the implementation scheme of agricultural geographic engineering experiment based on this. The organization and implementation mainly include material preparation, personnel organization, program implementation, regular monitoring, and data collection. Its task is to establish a reasonable division of labor and cooperation mechanism, implement personnel organization, sample area selection, material preparation, and other work, and ensure the reasonable implementation of the test plan. Result analysis mainly includes data verification, statistical evaluation, conclusion analysis, result discussion, and test summary. Its task is to classify and statistically analyze the whole set of data collected and measured by the engineering test, and draw test results and conclusions. Application promotion mainly includes five contents, such as result discussion, application design, sample site selection, application publicity, and practice test. Its task is to transform and apply the scientific research results of engineering experiments to AGE practice in time, demonstrate a series of technical parameters for engineering design, and put forward suggestions and countermeasures to promote the high-quality development of regional agriculture.

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5.4 Future Research Prospects 5.4.1 Opportunities and Challenges Over the past half-century, rapid industrialization and urbanization, as well as land degradation, defacement, and inefficient use caused by climate change, have posed great challenges to global land resource use, agricultural production, and food security. Modern agricultural geographic engineering research also faces a series of problems and challenges (Mehrabi et al. 2018). They are mainly reflected in the following: (1) Agricultural development and land use problems tend to be complicated. (2) The research of agricultural geography and land engineering involves interdisciplinary research. (3) How to achieve optimal regulation of agricultural geographical systems through engineering means. AGE research involves geography, agronomy, engineering, agronomy, etc. How to effectively unite related scholars, scientifically integrate related research, and synthesize and integrate technical methods of each discipline becomes a great challenge in the future. Concurrently, modern science and technology have been applied widely in agriculture, resulting in remarkable achievements in agricultural infrastructure construction worldwide, such as land remediation, soil and water allocation, ecological conservation, and the construction of high-standard farmland (Jin et al. 2017). Throughout the history of discipline development, there has been a certain regularity in the evolution of a discipline from knowledge and science to engineering. For example, biology has biological engineering, geology has geological engineering, and environmental science has environmental engineering (Tang et al. 2019). The engineering nature of geography science should be geographic engineering. As an applied discipline, agricultural geography needs to deepen intersection research with geography, agronomy, engineering and other related disciplines. It should actively promote problem-oriented agricultural geography engineering research. Modern agricultural geography engineering is a new intersection between agricultural geography and land engineering, strengthening the organic combination of comprehensive and regional geography with systematic and technical engineering. To innovate and develop modern geography, it is urgent to make up for the shortcomings of engineering technology. We should promote the exploration and application of geographic engineering theories while continuously strengthening the vast and profound characteristics of geography and the advantages of both soft power and hard technology based on modern human-earth systems.

5.4.2 Prospects for Future Research With the innovation and development of human-earth system theory and the wide application of modern scientific and technological achievements in the field of agriculture, the basic theories and technical methods for the reconstruction of modern

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agricultural geographical types and the optimal regulation of soil and farming systems have been rapidly developed (Wang et al. 2014). In the new era, AGE research should focus on frontier areas such as whole-area land improvement, agricultural resource utilization, and farmland system conservation, and systematically promote integrated research on geographic experiment, geographic engineering, and humanearth system science. At the regional practice level, we should focus on the “doubleoptimal” engineering observation and coupling experiments of land reclamation and crop optimization in different types, explore the best matching mechanism of regional land allocation suitability and crop physiological adaptability, and the coupling regulation mechanism of soil-crop relationship, and promote the experiments and engineering technology application of different types of agricultural complexes such as ditch type, mountain type, and suburban type (Liu and Wang 2019). At the theoretical level, we should thoroughly study the regional laws of coupling healthy agricultural ecosystems with water, soil, and air resources, reveal the conduction mechanism of farmland soil structure-soil structure-crop nutrient structure and its cascade effect, and explore the specific problem-oriented “soil measurement and formula application” for “soil measurement”. Modern geographic engineering investigates regional engineering technical problems and solves specific human-earth system problems by applying geographic theories and methods. The innovative development of geographical engineering will serve as a key differentiator for modern geography compared to traditional geography. Modern geography focuses on strengthening the organic connection between basic theories and application technologies. It not only talks about the main principles, revealing the mechanism of human-earth interaction and exploring the laws, but also comes up with detailed solutions, solving the realistic problems of regional development and applying precise policies (Liu et al. 2020). In-depth agricultural geoengineering experiments and technology applications in different regions not only play a role in supporting macroscopic decision-making in regional agriculture and rural development, but also make up for the shortage of traditional geography in ground engineering and technology support. The object of modern geographic engineering research is different types of human-earth systems, which is itself a process of continuous adaptation, improvement, and innovative development. Under the background of economic globalization and climate change in the new era, AGE research faces challenges such as complex regional agricultural development problems, multi-disciplinary intersection, and multi-technology integration. Future research should focus on frontier areas such as whole-area land improvement, agricultural resource utilization, and farmland system conservation, and systematically promote integrated research on geographic experiment, geographic engineering, and human-earth system science coherence. Scientific research needs to innovate the technical system of AGE, and promote the practice of geographic engineering in the world, especially in developing countries. It should give full play to the core roles of modern geography in scientifically coordinating human-earth system relationships while serving global poverty reduction and national sustainable development strategic requirements.

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Finally, we are particularly grateful for the grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41931293) and the Belt and Road Poverty Reduction and Development Alliance (No. ANSO-PA-2020-16), as well as the strong support of the International Geographical Union (IGU) and IGU Commission on the Agricultural Geography and Land Engineering (AGLE).

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Part II

The Interdisciplinary Nature of Modern Geography

Chapter 6

Integrating Geography for Global Sustainability and the Earth’s Future: The Role of International Geographical Union Commission on Geography for Future Earth Xutong Wu, Yiming An, Shan Sang, Yan Li, and Wenwu Zhao

Abstract Recent decades have witnessed dramatically accelerated interactions between human and earth systems. To better understand the changing human and earth systems, and human–natural interactions and their dynamics of change, Future Earth was launched in 2014, providing a global research platform to support transformations toward sustainability. As the key to integrating geography, the coupled human and natural systems research is at the frontier of understanding the complex and dynamic human–natural interactions, which can provide new diverse contexts and sustainable development paths for the earth’s future. Various studies have been conducted at multiple scales to identify the relationships between human activities and earth surface processes, model the effects of humans on earth systems, and try to find the possible pathways for regional, national, and global sustainable developments. To better serve the earth’s future, the International Geographical Union Commission on Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human–Earth Systems for Sustainability (IGU-GFE) was established in 2017 under the banner of IGU and Future Earth. As a platform for furthering global sustainability and promoting innovation of geographical sciences, IGU-GFE proposed five research areas as priorities for integrating geographical research: (1) integration of multiple water, soil, air, and ecosystem processes; (2) ecosystem services and human well-being; (3) feedback mechanisms of natural and social systems; (4) mechanism, approach, and policy of sustainable development; and (5) geo-data and modeling for sustainability.

X. Wu · Y. An · S. Sang · Y. Li · W. Zhao (B) Faculty of Geographical Science, State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China e-mail: [email protected] Faculty of Geographical Science, Institute of Land Surface System and Sustainable Development, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_6

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Keywords Coupled human and natural systems · Sustainable development · Human–natural interactions · Feedback mechanism · Integrated model

6.1 Global Challenges for Sustainability The world’s population has grown rapidly in the past two centuries and might increase to 8.5 billion in 2030 and 9.7 billion in 2050 according to the latest United Nations projections (UN 2022). The rapid and dramatic modification of the earth’s surface and atmosphere indicates that human activities have become the leading force within the earth system, symbolizing that we’ve entered a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene (Crutzen 2002; Lewis and Maslin 2015; Steffen et al. 2007). This unprecedented shift since the Industrial Revolution has resulted in ecological and environmental problems that are plaguing human survival and sustainable development. It is estimated that four of the nine Planetary Boundaries for human safe operating space have been transcended, including climate change, land–system change, loss of biodiversity, and biochemical flow change (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015). Global climate risk might increase by two to fourfold with continuous greenhouse gas emissions at the end of this century (Magnan et al. 2021). Substantial land degradation is undermining the well-being of 3.2 billion people and representing an economic loss of more than 10% of the annual global gross product (Scholes et al. 2018). If the trends of biodiversity loss continue, the earth may face the sixth mass extinction within 240 years (Barnosky et al. 2011), causing damage to ecosystem functions and services including ozone depletion, elevated CO2 , and nutrient pollution (Hooper et al. 2012). The amount of fluvial sediment that reaches oceans has decreased by 49% from 1950 to 2010 (Syvitski et al. 2022), and the world’s most populated deltas are becoming more vulnerable to flooding due to the sea-level rise and land subsidence (Syvitski et al. 2009). In this context, the United Nations formally proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets in 2015, aiming to find the balance among the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development (UN 2015). To achieve these goals, the main challenge is to improve our understanding and management of the complex relationships between humans and nature. The key to meeting the challenge is to break down the barriers between disciplines and link science and policy, which has been a long-lasting ambition for scientists, researchers, and innovators. As early as the 1960s, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) had developed a groundbreaking program—the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) program, trying to establish a new way of understanding the relationship between people and the natural world. Twenty years later, more international projects such as the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP), International Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Program (IHDP), and DIVERSITAS were developed. Though each of these projects has its own areas of focus, they all call for integrating social sciences into global change studies, thus, providing socially relevant knowledge and a scientific basis

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for policy-making. In the twenty-first century, the emergence of the Anthropocene concept and the numerous conclusions of IPCC reports about how humans impact the atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere have strengthened the need for an integrated research program. Finally, IHDP, IGBP, and DIVERSITAS merged under the umbrella of Future Earth in 2014 (https://futureearth.org/about/history/). Future Earth focuses on systems-based approaches and aims to deepen the understanding of complex earth systems and human dynamics through interdisciplinary research. Three research themes have been proposed: dynamic planet, global development, and transition to global sustainability. As a worldwide initiative to bridge the gap between policy and science, Future Earth is playing a vital role in the global transformation toward sustainability. As an all-encompassing discipline, geography seeks better to understand the earth and its human and natural complexities and focuses on the mechanisms of interaction between humans and the environment. Thus, it is well suited for studying sustainability from a transdisciplinary perspective and is important to sustainability research (Fu 2020). Future Earth urgently needs to seek new diverse contexts and development paths from geography and to find new ways to accelerate transitions to sustainable development for the world. As the frontier of geographic research, the coupled human and natural systems (CHANSs), which are also known as coupled human–earth systems, human and environment systems, and social–ecological systems, emphasize the understanding of processes in the natural and social systems and their mutual feedbacks, providing a framework to study the sustainability from a transdisciplinary perspective (Cumming 2014; Fu and Wei 2018; Liu et al. 2009; Ostrom 2009). In CHANSs, humans alter the earth system to obtain the desired ecosystem services; natural processes affect human systems through climate change, land degradation, and natural disasters (Fu et al. 2022a, b). Besides, there exist multiple interactions within each subsystem. The CHANS, therefore, possesses the complexity characteristics of thresholds, feedback loops, time lag, heterogeneity, regime shift, panarchy, and nonlinear interactions (Gunderson et al. 2017; Liu et al. 2007; Nelson et al. 2007; Rocha et al. 2015; Wu et al. 2020). The research of CHANS advocates utilizing rather than eliminating complexity, to holistically explore the vulnerability, resilience, and adaptability of the system through interdisciplinary data integration, model simulations, and scenario analysis at multi-scale (Biggs et al. 2021; Liu et al. 2013; Partelow 2018; Tian 2017; Wang et al. 2018). Hence, the research of CHANSs may provide what previously fragmented studies could not—a systematic, comprehensive, integrated assessment and prediction to develop innovative insights and solutions to the challenges in the Anthropocene (Motesharrei et al. 2016; Thornton et al. 2017; Woodard et al. 2019). The integration of social sciences will make research more closely related to policy-making, which is the basis of their practical significance for guiding sustainable development, and what Future Earth and other international programs pursue (Fu and Li 2016; Liu et al. 2021). We are now facing the most serious global crisis in decades, political tensions, food shortages, energy insecurity, and high inflation rates are hampering the world’s ability to respond to global challenges like climate change and COVID-19 (Blake 2022; WFP 2022). Under such

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circumstances, promoting geography and developing CHANS research is becoming more important for guiding future humanity onto a path of sustainability.

6.2 Geography and Sustainability In order to serve Future Earth and carry out research on CHANS for sustainability, scientists have been conducting various experiments and modeling at multiple scales, and trying to identify the relationships between human activities and various earth surface processes, dwell on ecosystem processes and ecosystem services trade-off at multi-scale, model the effects of human activity and earth systems, and try to figure out the possible sustainable solutions for regional, national, and global developments. Geographers worldwide have delivered a series of scientific research, trans-national cooperation, and international conferences, and the scientific bases of geography for Future Earth can provide good references for global researchers and policy makers.

6.2.1 Research Progress on Geography and Sustainability 6.2.1.1

Publications and Countries

To gain an overall understanding of the research progress on geography and sustainability, we reviewed the publications in the bibliographic databases of the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Web of Science Core Collection using the following criteria: “Topic = geography AND sustainability or Topic = geography AND sustainable development” (accessed on February 16, 2023). More than 3,000 publications were found from 1990 to 2022, which numbered less than ten prior to 2000. The number of publications began to increase rapidly in 2017—two years after the Sustainable Development Agenda proposal by the United Nations in 2015 (UN 2015). The COVID-19 pandemic restricts the achievements of SDGs; however, the research on SDGs remains flourishing. Researchers from the USA contributed the highest number of publications on geography and sustainability studies (571), followed by those from the UK (496) and China (368).

6.2.1.2

Hot Topics

We counted the number of publications of different research areas linking geography and sustainability and found that studies on agriculture, urban, energy, water, climate change, biodiversity, food, ocean, forest, and related technology, such as computer science and remote sensing, were hot topics in previous studies (Fig. 6.2). We further classified these publications by their research elements and scales and summed up the number of publications of different classifications. The analysis showed that

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Fig. 6.1 The number of publications related to geography and sustainability: a publications by year, b top 10 countries

“city” is with the highest frequency (272). Meanwhile, considerable research has been carried out at large scales including regions, countries, continents, and global. As for the elements of research, most attention was paid to “process” (755), and “sustainability” (965) studies (Fig. 6.3).

6.2.2 Frameworks for Geography and Sustainability Research To promote geography for sustainability research, several conceptual frameworks are proposed to better couple human and natural systems at multiple spatial– temporal scales, e.g., the social–ecological system framework (Ostrom 2009), the adaptive cycle framework (Gunderson and Holling 2002), the metacoupling framework (Liu 2017), the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) conceptual framework (Díaz et al. 2015), the landscape sustainability science framework (Wu 2013), the pattern–process–service–sustainability

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Fig. 6.2 The research areas with top 20 records linking geography and sustainability

Fig. 6.3 Research scales and elements linking geography and sustainability

framework (Fu et al. 2022a, b), the ecosystem cascade model framework (HainesYoung and Potschin 2010, 2011), and the classification–coordination–collaboration framework (Fu et al. 2020). These frameworks are fundamentally important to quantitatively and qualitatively integrating geography and sustainability.

6.2.2.1

Social–Ecological System Framework

The social–ecological system (SES) framework was initially proposed by Ostrom (2007). The framework systematically points out that society and nature are inevitably interdependent and closely linked to form a synthesis. The framework is composed of multiple tiers. Resource systems, resource units, governance systems, and actors are

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the highest tier variables. They contain several variables in second tiers or lower tiers (McGinnis and Ostrom 2014). Action situations are where inputs are transformed by the actions into outcomes. Feedback occurs from action situations to each of the top-tier categories. The SES framework innovatively links variables at macro- and micro-scales and can be adjusted based on the features of variables, which provides a new paradigm for social ecosystem research.

6.2.2.2

Adaptive Cycle Framework

The adaptive cycle was proposed to understand long-term dynamics of change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) such as ecosystems and social–ecological systems (Gunderson and Holling 2002). The endogenously generated dynamics in CAS are described as a result of the internal processes of self-organization and evolution over time. An adaptive cycle describes system movement using a 3-dimensional state space with the axes of system potential, connectedness, and resilience. The process of an ecosystem process can be divided into four stages: exploitation, conservation, release, and reorganization. The different 3-dimensional values represent different adaptive cycle characteristics, which is the basis of understanding complex system processes.

6.2.2.3

Metacoupling Framework

The metacoupling framework proposed by Liu (2017) is constituted of the interactions within focal CHANS (intracoupling), and with other CHANS (intercoupling) including adjacent (pericoupling) and distant (telecoupling) CHANSs, respectively. This framework can help counter hidden connections between a coupled system and its adjacent and distant systems. Therefore, useful information may be extracted to address global challenges such as achieving SDGs.

6.2.2.4

IPBES Conceptual Framework

The IPBES conceptual framework includes six primary elements connecting natural and social systems at multiple scales: nature; nature’s benefits to people; anthropogenic assets; institutions and governance systems and other indirect drivers of change; direct drivers of change; and good quality of life (Díaz et al. 2015). Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) is newly proposed in the IPBES conceptual framework, which is based on the concepts of Millennium Assessment and ecosystem service, and contains contributions of biology, biodiversity of ecosystem, and related processes.

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Landscape Sustainability Science Framework

Wu (2013) proposed a framework for moving toward landscape sustainability science, focusing on the interactions of landscape patterns, ecosystem services, and human well-being at landscape and regional scales. To better understand such interactions, the biodiversity and ecosystem processes within the CHANS should be considered. The change of climate and land use and other driving factors are direct factors affecting the ecosystem and human well-being, while population, economy, institutions, and other factors are the indirect factors.

6.2.2.6

Pattern–Process–Service–Sustainability Framework

The framework of “Pattern—Process—Service—Sustainability” is proposed to deal with the sustainability of CHANS (Fu et al. 2022a, b; Fu and Wei 2018). The change of the land use/land cover (landscape pattern) is one of the most important drivers of ecosystem processes (process) at multiple scales (i.e., local, regional, and global), which determines the functions of ecosystem linking to the supply of ecosystem services to humans. A deep understanding of pattern–process–service interactions can help to figure out the reasons for the unsustainable status of a CHANS and provide the scientific basis for designing policies or measures that promote its sustainability. Sustainable development should consider the resources and capabilities at different spatial scales (e.g., local, regional, country, and global) and the integration of short and long-term goals, the dynamic of CHANS and its future scenarios, and the metacoupling with distant CHANSs (Zhao et al. 2018).

6.2.2.7

Ecosystem Cascade Model Framework

The “cascade model” of ecosystem service generation and valuation plays the role of a bridge between natural ecosystems and social systems (Potschin and Haines-Young 2011). The framework of the ecosystem cascade model classifies the steps of generating and allocating ecosystem services, i.e., ecosystem process, ecosystem function, ecosystem service, benefit to the social system, and its values to social system (Haines-Young and Potschin 2010, 2011). The framework can support ecosystem decisions based on above-mentioned ecosystem service and its values to the social system.

6.2.2.8

Classification–Coordination–Collaboration Framework

The classification–coordination–collaboration (3C) was proposed to promote the realization of SDGs, combining joint actions by countries and enabling SDGs to advance at regional, national, and global scales (Fu et al. 2020). Classification means

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reclassifying individual SDGs according to their properties, grades, and other characteristics, which helps to analyze SDGs based on their relationships and differences, and to make joint management by clustering these goals systematically. Coordination means not only the combination between SDGs based on the categories but also the harmonization of the functions of all departments to reach the goals with minimum effects. Coordination is proposed to deal with the problem of unbalanced development among countries. Collaboration is the prerequisite to accomplishing SDGs, which need the effects of different departments for different goals. In the future, the collaboration among economics, science and technology, and culture is necessary to achieve the SDGs.

6.3 Promoting Geography for Sustainability Geography study is concerned with the mechanisms of human–natural interactions. Geography provides a holistic, systematic way of understanding the world by coupling natural and human elements, and is important in connecting the natural and social sciences. However, current geographical research has not been able to fully mitigate natural degradation, global warming, or rising inequality. Geographers have not developed systematic and detailed strategies to achieve SDGs, nor do they fully address key issues in sustainability research and offer solutions. In addition, compared with economics and environmental sciences, the role of geography in planning and implementing national sustainable development strategies has not been prominent. Thus, geographers need to identify their core competencies compared to other scientists and redefine the unparalleled advantages of geography in sustainability research. One of the bottlenecks in geographic research is how to deal with the transdisciplinary problems of sustainability (Fu 2020). While geographic information science offers analytical tools for quantifying spatiotemporal processes, modeling human–natural spatiotemporal interactions relies on further advances in integrating transdisciplinary methodologies. Integration of geographic processes and ecosystem services, feedback mechanisms of CHANSs, driving mechanisms of sustainable development, and geographic data and models are all frontier research areas and fundamental methodologies for sustainability science. Geographers can better integrate geographic research into sustainability research in five research areas as described below.

6.3.1 Integrating Research on Multiple Interactions of Water, Soil, Air, and Ecosystem Processes A basic element of geography is the spatial component distributed over the earth’s surface, namely the geographic pattern. The geographic process is called the

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spatiotemporal evolution of geographic phenomena occurring in one geographic pattern. The coupling of the pattern and process is an essential method for the integrated research of geography and a fundamental way to combine geographic research with sustainability research. Exploring the interactions between geological, biological, hydrological, soil, and socioeconomic processes and quantifying their complex spatiotemporal interactions can provide quantitative evidence for sustainability research. The dynamics of water, soil, and air interactions are the basis for studying geography. Pairwise integration is the most common among these factors, such as the eco-hydrological process, soil–water process, and vegetation–climate interaction. At present, the international research frontier lies in how to realize the integration of multiple factors. Such integration of various elements and processes is still in its initial period, with most research in statistical analyses while mechanistic analyses are insufficient (Lu et al. 2018; Luo et al. 2018). Hence, the mechanisms driving soil, water, climate, and ecosystem interactions and the corresponding drivers must be further investigated. Multi-scale cases are necessary to explore relationships between various elements of the earth’s surface system. Dissecting the geophysical, geochemical, and biological processes that make up the earth’s surface can help geographers understand the interactions between water, soil, climate, ecosystems, and humans.

6.3.2 Cascades of Ecosystem Structure, Functions, and Services Ecosystem services are the various benefits humans receive from ecosystems and the conditions and processes that sustain and enable human life (Bennett et al. 2009; Palmer and Filoso 2009). Examples of ecosystem services include soil formation, water regulation, and services like food and drinking water, etc. The complexity of ecosystems lies in the fact that processes and services are entangled. Some processes are services supporting other services (e.g., flood regulation by vegetation). Biophysical components and structures are the basis of ecosystem processes, and when they benefit humans, they become ecosystem services (Lamarque et al. 2011). Ecosystem processes interact with ecosystem components and structure. Human management affects key ecosystem processes by modifying ecosystem components and structures (e.g., land use changes) to provide ecosystem services and enhance human wellbeing. Since ecosystem processes, ecosystem services, and their driving mechanisms are vital components of human–nature coupling systems, understanding the linkages between ecosystem processes and services is crucial for ecological policy-making and sustainable development. A systematic understanding of the supply, demand, and flow of ecosystem services is fundamental to identifying the linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being at multiple scales, which is reflected not only in the benefits brought by

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ecosystem services to society but also in how ecosystem services are managed in response to human demands (Wang et al. 2013). Furthermore, the potential of an ecosystem to provide services in a changing environment needs to be studied from interactions of ecosystem processes, functions, and human well-being. Exploring the demand for ecosystem services by different stakeholders is beneficial for better understanding the relationships between human well-being and ecosystem services and supporting sustainable development decisions at multiple scales. Therefore, it is necessary to understand further the causal relationships between ecosystem services and human well-being, estimate the demand for ecosystem services by different recipients, and provide scientific support for analyzing the coupling mechanism and dynamics of CHANSs.

6.3.3 Feedback Mechanisms of Natural and Social Systems The elements and processes in CHANSs are coupled with various influencing factors, such as system perturbations and external drivers. Based on the self-organizing characteristic of CHANSs, vulnerability and resilience theories are important tools for clarifying complicated processes in CHANSs (Adger 2006; Gunderson and Holling 2002). Vulnerability and resilience research is concerned with the adaptive governance of CHANSs. To safeguard human well-being dynamically and promote the understanding of coupling mechanisms and feedback loops, the CHANSs must use adaptive mechanisms of social rights and behavior decisions (Folke et al. 2005; Reyers et al. 2018). Furthermore, considering that landscape is a crucial medium for describing CHANSs, the discipline of landscape ecology and sustainability provides a valuable perspective for explaining human–natural interactions (Wu 2019). Understanding the complex interactions in CHANSs is a critical approach to achieving sustainability and is the core research goal of sustainability science. Sustainability should involve economic and social developments and environmental protection simultaneously. The concepts of planetary boundaries and ecological footprints have been proposed to create linkages between natural resources and social development, and clarify the economic and social development bottomline from the perspective of environmental protection through thresholds at global and regional scales (Rockström et al. 2009; Steffen et al. 2015). However, both do not consider the two-way feedback between human society and natural systems. The CHANS contains natural and social elements, and their coupling frameworks vary at different spatiotemporal scales and have multi-scale nested characteristics differing from that of the single system. Development of CHANS models with various spatiotemporal scales provides insights from two-way interactions for sustainability. Therefore, sustainability research needs to explore the feedback mechanisms of natural and human factors and their effects at different spatiotemporal scales, including determining the quantitative methods and clarifying the interaction between human and environmental systems (Wang et al. 2018).

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6.3.4 The Mechanisms, Approaches, and Policies of Sustainable Development The challenge in achieving the SDGs is that all 17 goals must be met simultaneously. This indicates that in addition to focusing on the progress of individual goals, the interrelationships between goals should be paid more attention, and there may be trade-offs between objectives (Fu et al. 2019; Stafford-Smith et al. 2017; Wu et al. 2022). A typical example is the interactions between water, energy, and food. Global environmental change will lead to changes in the terrestrial water cycle, which in turn contribute to changes in the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources and water hazards, resulting in many challenges for global and national water security (Wheater and Gober 2013). Water security is not only the security of the water resource itself but also involves food, ecology, energy, and other areas, affecting economic production, life, and social stability (Cosgrove and Loucks 2015; McLaughlin and Kinzelbach 2015). Further research on the synergistic change mechanism between water system security, food, energy, ecological, and environmental security should be done to support the understanding of relationships between SDGs. Currently, many countries have carried out SDG strategies without following scientific recommendations. They analyzed the national SDG process through data collection but ignored the synergistic effect of various goals in the implementation process. Moreover, few existing system models can provide a theoretical basis for implementing SDG policies through scenario analysis. Existing studies have classified interactions among the SDGs, including indivisible, constraining, counteracting, and canceling (Nilsson et al. 2018). These studies only clarify the classification based on the analysis of synergies and trade-offs among the SDGs, and lack a systematic and comprehensive consideration of the 17 SDGs (Fu et al. 2019). Therefore, the analysis of SDG correlation should start from the feedback mechanism between the CHANS and analyze interactions among the 17 SDGs. This will help individual countries to formulate more scientific and realistic SDG plans, thus promoting the achievement of global sustainable development.

6.3.5 Data, Models, and Simulation of Sustainable Development With the gradual improvement of ground-based observation networks and the rapid development of remote sensing technology, more and more datasets at different scales have emerged, providing an effective aid to understanding natural processes. Geographic information technology and big data have made it possible to connect human and natural systems spatially. Big data provides significant help in detecting socioeconomic tendencies arising from human behavior and strengthens the linkages between natural and socioeconomic processes at spatial and temporal scales. Datasets of the CHANS can provide substantial assistance for realizing regional

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sustainability. However, the existing human environmental datasets differ significantly from the SDG datasets in scale and cannot be directly applied to national or regional sustainability studies. When modeling sustainable development, both social and natural factors need to be considered as they interact with each other. However, in existing models, human system variables (e.g., population, migration, and economic growth) are obtained through external estimates without being calculated by coupling with the natural system. The UN population projections are a typical example (Warren 2015). This obstacle makes the simulation results of these models erroneous because of the ignorance of critical feedback loops occurring in CHANSs (Motesharrei et al. 2016). The integrated assessment models (IAMs) are the mainstream tools for studying earth system dynamics driven by climate change, whose outputs are considered by some economists to be useless for climate policies. Therefore, it’s important to improve further the technology of acquiring, processing, and managing spatial information and data to unify the size and resolution of natural and social datasets to create sustainability datasets suitable for countries and regions. Although the human–environment dataset has taken shape, the models related to CHANSs are mostly unidirectional and lack the linkage of multiple geographic processes. Combining the environment-carrying capacity model and ecosystem service model with the regional socioeconomic model, an integrated climate change-ecosystem-regional sustainability cascade can be developed, which could play a significant role in evaluating the human system changes and environmental system and proposing sustainability strategies for different scenarios.

6.4 IGU commission on Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human–Earth Systems for Sustainability To promote scientific development in the areas discussed above and help settle sustainable development problems in the world, a new International Geographical Union Commission on Geography for Future Earth: Coupled Human–Earth Systems for Sustainability (IGU-GFE) was formally established in October 2017. Guided and supported by IGU, the commission provides a platform for global scientific communication on Human–Earth Systems and Future Earth, promotes global sustainability, and promotes innovation of geographical sciences.

6.4.1 Mission of IGU-GFE IGU-GFE’s mission is to foster geography’s role in creating a sustainable and equitable world. Under the banner of IGU and Future Earth, IGU-GFE acts as a central hub for interdisciplinary research and education concerning the dynamics of the coupled

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human–earth system and sustainable development. Its objective is to enhance the impact of research, explore novel development pathways, and contribute to global sustainable development goals through innovative approaches (http://igu-gfe.org/). Given its intricate relationship with humanity, the land system represents the most intricate and crucial subsystem within the coupled human–earth systems. Consequently, IGU-GFE initially directs its focus toward studying human–land systems and their interactions with coastal oceans and the atmosphere. By merging and synthesizing various fields such as physical geography, human geography, ecology, hydrology, atmospheric science, climate science, and social sciences, the commission aims to facilitate comprehensive analysis and foster innovative thinking regarding global land sustainability.

6.4.2 Thematic Areas of IGU-GFE With this mission, IGU-GFE aims to promote and facilitate the following thematic areas (http://igu-gfe.org/): (1) Fundamentals of geography for Future Earth, and especially new theories and hypotheses on coupled human–earth systems for sustainability; (2) Open and inclusive platforms for geospatial big data and observations of coupled human–earth systems; (3) Integrated systems models to deepen our understanding of complex earth systems and human dynamics across different scales; (4) Linkages and dynamic analysis among ecological process, services, and human well-being; (5) Human contributions and responses to global climate/environmental changes and sustainability; and (6) Evaluation tools for sustainable development, multi-scale sustainability evaluation, and sustainable scenarios for transformative development pathways.

6.4.3 Commission Tasks IGU-GFE strongly follows the purpose of IGU to promote geography by initiating and coordinating geographical research and teaching around the world. It endeavors to collaborate with global scientists in ecological services and human needs, natural and anthropogenic processes, human–earth systems dynamics and modeling, sustainability evaluation, and sustainable development solutions. The tasks of this commission are (http://igu-gfe.org/). (1) To hold regular conferences and thematic workshops on relative topics, such as hosting the annual meeting on Geography for Future Earth, and organizing the annual symposium on Coupled Human–Earth Systems for Sustainability;

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(2) To conduct experiments on natural and human processes in specific regions of the world. This tends to set experimental sites in different continents and countries; (3) To jointly educate students and exchange scholars at member universities and institutes to focus on developing sustainable development solutions at the national and global scales; (4) To jointly organize professional scientific investigations and apply for international projects and do research of different case areas in the world; (5) To jointly promote the scientific program globally, write high-quality scientific papers and books, and release academic reports on Geography for Future Earth.

6.4.4 Efforts Made by the IGU-GFE Since its establishment in 2017, the IGU-GFE has implemented various activities to promote geographical research for global and regional sustainable development under the guidance of IGU. The meetings and workshops held or co-organized by the IGU-GFE include International Workshop on Geography and Sustainability in 2020 and 2021; the BNU Summer School 2022 | Geography and Sustainability; the Nature Based Solutions and Ecosystem Services for a Sustainable Future Workshop in 2022; the Climate Change Workshop in 2022; the Land Degradation and Pathways for Sustainability Workshop in 2022; the Environmental Governance and Social Network Workshop in 2021 and 2022; the Nature Based Solutions Implementation and Ecosystem Services Assessment in a Changing Environment Workshop in 2021; the International Workshop on the Human–Earth System Dynamics and Modeling from 2018 to 2021; and the Ecosystem services, Academic Writing and Editing Workshop in 2020. IGU-GFE also organized special sessions at the 2018 IGU Regional Conference, the 10th IALE (International Association for Landscape Ecology) World Congress, the African Regional Workshop of Global Dryland Ecosystem Programme and the Second Conference on Climate, Ecosystems and Livelihoods in Africa, the China Conference on Geography 2019, and the Thematic Forum of the IGU India International Conference (Virtual) 2020. To promote research and education in sustainable development for young and early career geographers involved in all branches of Geography, IGU-GFE collaborated with IGU-YECG (International Geographical Union-Young and Early Career Geographers Task Force) to establish the Young and Early Career Geographers Working Group on Geography and Sustainability (YECG-GeoSus). The YECG-GeoSus and its members were officially announced at the 34th International Geographical Congress “Geography: bridging the continents”, Istanbul, August 16–20, 2021. In addition to these engaging workshops and meetings, IGU-GFE launched its official journal Geography and Sustainability in 2020 to promote international communication and cooperation on geography, future earth, and sustainability. Beijing Normal University Press and Elsevier jointly publish Geography and Sustainability. Professor

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Bojie Fu, Honorary Dean of the Faculty of Geographical Science of Beijing Normal University and Vice President of IGU, serves as the journal’s chief editor. Geography and Sustainability aims to serve as the focal point for developing, coordinating, and implementing interdisciplinary research and education to promote sustainable development through an integrated geographic perspective. The journal encourages more comprehensive analysis and innovative thinking about global and regional sustainability by bridging and synthesizing natural and human sciences. The first issue of Geography and Sustainability was published in March 2020. The journal has been indexed by the Scopus database, the high-quality journal catalog in the field of geography and resources in China, the Directory of Open Access Journals, Emerging Sources Citation Index, Norwegian Register for Scientific Journals, Series, and Publishers, Superstar Journals Database, Wanfang Data, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Engineering Village-GEOBASE, and Chinses Science Citation Database. Geography and Sustainability is ranked Q1 according to Journal Citation Reports (JCR™) Journal Citation Indicator (JCI) 2021 and ranked 2/61 and 2/74 in the “Geography, Physical” and “Green and Sustainable Science & Technology” categories, respectively.

6.5 Summary Understanding the complex interactions between humans and nature is the key to addressing the sustainability challenges in the Anthropocene. Geography provides a holistic and systematic way of understanding the world through coupling natural and human elements and is important to sustainability research at regional, national, and global scales. Geographers can better integrate geographic research into sustainability research in five research areas: (1) integration of multiple water, soil, air, and ecosystem processes; (2) cascades of ecosystem structure, functions, and services; (3) feedback mechanisms of natural and social systems; (4) mechanism, approach, and policy of sustainable development; and (5) data, models, and simulation of sustainable development. IGU-GFE was established to promote scientific development in the proposed areas and help settle sustainable development problems in the world. Guided and supported by IGU, it serves as the focal point for developing, coordinating, and implementing interdisciplinary research and education related to coupled human– earth system dynamics and sustainable development. IGU-GFE provides a platform for global scientific communication on Human–Earth Systems and Future Earth, furthers global sustainability, and promotes innovation of geographical sciences. Acknowledgements This work was funded by the National Science Foundation of China (42242101, 42271292), the State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (2022-ZD-08), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China.

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Chapter 7

Global Change and Human Mobility in the Anthropocene Josefina Domínguez-Mujica , Dušan Drbohlav , MarIa Lucinda Fonseca , Daniel Göler , Zaiga Krišj¯ane , Wei Li, Cristóbal Mendoza , Gábor Michalkó , Comfort Iyabo Ogunleye-Adetona, Susana M. Sassone, and Barbara Staniscia

Abstract In a period of increasing large-scale human effects on the planet, the named Anthropocene, the mobility turn has emerged as a crucial paradigm for social sciences. Since the end of the twentieth century, human mobility, associated with the globalisation process, has become a constitutive element of most of the social and economic changes, establishing new forms of relationship between space and society. Thus, persistent socioeconomic inequalities, armed conflicts, the nexus between J. Domínguez-Mujica (B) University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Pérez del Toro, 1, 35003 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain e-mail: [email protected] D. Drbohlav Charles University, Ovocný Trh 560/5, Prague 1. 116 36, Prague, Czech Republic e-mail: [email protected] M. L. Fonseca University of Lisbon, R. Branca Edmée Marques, 1600-276 Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] D. Göler University of Bamberg, Am Kranen 12, 96045 Bamberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] Z. Krišj¯ane University of Latvia, Alberta 10. LV 1215, Riga, Latvia e-mail: [email protected] W. Li Arizona State University, P O Box 874603, Tempe, AZ 85287-4603, USA e-mail: [email protected] C. Mendoza Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, Av. San Rafael Atlixco, 186, Colonia Vicentina. Delegación Iztapalapa CP 09340, México DF, Mexico e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_7

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migration and development, and the complexity of the drivers of mobility make Geography an essential science for interpreting the relationship between mobility and social sustainability. A good example of this is the importance mobility acquires for young people and their identity formation, as well as the prominence of tourism flows. In the opposite direction, in post-pandemic times, the (im)mobility forced new interpretations of this paradigm due to its restructuring role in a changing world involved in new political tensions and environmental reconfigurations. Keywords Human mobility · Mobility drivers · Global South · Global North · Migration-development nexus · Youth mobility · Tourism mobility · Post-pandemic times

7.1 Introduction. Human Mobility in Post-Pandemic Times When the evolution of geographical thought is analysed, we identify trends and paradigms that are closely related to the evolution of science, philosophy, culture, and the great socioeconomic transformations in the history of human beings (Taylor 2015). In the case of human mobility, it has always been associated with Geography, either studied by geographers or with geographical perspectives since the beginning of time. Cartographer and demographer Ernst Georg Ravenstein, in the late nineteenth century, was among the first ones to describe migration in “The Laws of Migration” (Ravenstein 1885) to explain both internal (rural to urban) and international migration. His gravity model remains the foundation for migration theory (Poot et al. 2016). Wilbur Zelinsky’s hypothesis on mobility transition (Zelinsky 1971) led geographers to interrogate the linkages between mobility, demographic change, economic growth, technological innovations, and community resilience in different places and times (Cook et al. 2018). Finally, based on economic development and G. Michalkó HUN-REN CSFK Geographical Institute, University of Pannonia, H-1112, Budaörsi Str. 45, Budapest, Hungary e-mail: [email protected] C. I. Ogunleye-Adetona University of Cape Coast, Guest House. P. O. Box 5007. Accra-North Ghana, Accra, Ghana e-mail: [email protected] S. M. Sassone Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET), Saavedra, 15, 4º. Provincia. Capital Federal. C1083ACA, Buenos Aires, Argentina e-mail: [email protected] B. Staniscia Sapienza University of Rome, P. Le Aldo Moro, 5. 00185, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

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social conditions, the sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein approached world geography through the post-Marxist World Systems Theory, dividing the countries into core, semi-periphery, and periphery, and explaining migration flows often from lower rank countries to higher-ranked countries (Wallerstein 1974). Their insights guided the way of Geography, contributing to the advancement of migration theory until the last decades of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first century. At that moment, the so-called new mobilities paradigm was formulated by such prestigious sociologists as John Urry, Thomas Faist, Kevin Hannam, and Mimi Sheller who placed human mobility at the heart of the social sciences, incorporating advanced critical thought regarding complex systems of social, cultural, economic, and political movement in reference to processes of technological innovations, globalisation, climate change, citizenship, and tourism. Also known as the mobility turn, many geographers (Tim Cresswell, Michael Hall, Daniel Hiernaux, Aharon Kellerman, Armando Montanari, Allan Williams, among others) have cultivated this perspective of analysis by reflecting on the assumptions underlying the nexus between social and spatial movement, dealing with the different mobilities of human beings and their interdependencies. Closely related to this paradigm, these authors have also echoed the importance of place and transnational spaces, as people today live in one place, in several places in succession, in several places at the same time, or in “no-place”. This makes the geographical perspective essential in reflections on human mobility flows. For this reason, the objective of this contribution is to claim the role of Geography, proposing different thoughts on some of the central issues in human mobility studies. There is no doubt, moreover, that the perspective of mobility as a subject and object of geographical interest is closely related to globalisation (Montanari and Staniscia 2016). The increase in the possibilities of displacement is a distinctive condition of the context of current globalisation, which has been expressed as a goal and condition in the most diverse dimensions, such as the circulation of goods, capital, information, and people. In this vein, Cresswell (2006) argued that human mobility, in the context of globalisation, is practised as a way of existing in the world; Engbersen and Snel (2013), Castles (2016), and Domínguez-Mujica and DíazHernández (2019), adopting Zygmunt Bauman’s concept of fluidity, used the term liquid migrations to refer to more flexible and unpredictable forms of human mobility; Göler and Krisjane (2016) referred to “elusive migration systems” with the same intention. Nevertheless, this framework does not prevent the certainties we have achieved, placing Geography at the forefront of critical thinking, from being shaken by circumstances that only a few academics could have foreseen. The international economic-financial crisis that began in 2008, the so-called Great Recession, one of the periodic crises of capitalism has marked a turning point in the reorganisation of the production system and international relations on a planetary scale, with a disparate temporal and territorial impact. The origin of this crisis lies in its socioeconomic structure, and we have, therefore, continued to interpret the effects of the capitalist mode of production; to speak of globalisation and glocalisation; to refer to the strength of information and communication technologies; to explain the transformative capacity of tourism; to recognise the impetus of urbanisation; to be

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puzzled by the management of migration and refugee movements; and to be alarmed by the consequences of the climate crisis (Borja and Castells 2013; Fulger 2015; Harvey 2014; McCarthy 2015). However, only very few scientists thought that the patterns of epidemiological transition could be altered and that a major pandemic, such as COVID-19, could occur (Manzano et al. 2020). This caused not only the loss of many human lives and severe socioeconomic effects, but also resulted in transformations of human mobilities around the world, as the spread of COVID-19 made it clear that the world is globalised (Antràs et al. 2023). Just as financial flows have moved faster than humanity could have imagined three decades ago, the pandemic spread at an unprecedented speed and geographical dimension. This necessitated the containment of movement through norms and citizenship policies that were established for a world very different from the one we live in. During the pandemic (im)mobility gained ground and, in the words of Armando Montanari, honorary member of the IGU Globility Commission, “the society of flows became solid” (2021). At this point, it is worth wondering whether we will return to the situation of mobility pre-COVID-19 disease or whether, on the contrary, the feeling of vulnerability associated with it is generating changes, not only in population movements for reasons of work, study, or tourism, but also in human relations and in the norms of citizenship. The experience of more than two years of the pandemic with restrictions on movement has given rise to new bodily practices, new understandings of self and others, and altered social dynamics at various scales. These restrictions have also led to the emergence of new inequalities and other forced displacements linked to the struggle for the control of energy and mineral resources, exacerbating longstanding disparities, as evidenced by the geopolitical conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. This also occurs in a world in which climate change continues to cause the migration of hundreds of thousands of people in search of environmental conditions that allow them to survive. Consequently, the post-pandemic times force us to re-understand the world we live in and the role that mobility plays as an instrument of connection between spaces and societies. Given that mobility transformations are reshaping people and places in diverse ways, a rethinking of the global complexities of mobilities nowadays is more relevant than ever before for a comprehensive understanding of the planet in the Anthropocene. To this end, the members of the Steering Committee of the IGU Globility Commission reflect in this chapter on some key issues, namely: (i) the complexity of drivers in human mobility (Maria Lucinda Fonseca and Wei Li) linked to (ii) the persistent inequalities between the Global South and Global North (Daniel Göler and Susana Sassone). They also look at (iii) the migration-development nexus (Dusan Drbohlav and Comfort Ogunleye-Adetona) and identify (iv) the transformative role of youth mobility (Zaiga Krisjane and Cristóbal Mendoza). Finally, they broaden (v) the conventional tourism scheme with the new conceptual model in search of a sustainable planet (Gábor Michalkó). In the final section, Barbara Staniscia traces the lines of research promoted by the Globility Commission in the last twenty years. The topics covered in this chapters do not solve all the doubts about human mobility in the age of the Anthropocene but allow us to further strengthen the validity

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of this paradigm in post-pandemic times; the selected topics are among the most outstanding ones in the current scientific debate concerning human mobility.

7.2 Topics, Scope, and Perspectives of the Research in Human Mobility (a) The Geographical Perspective in Human Mobility: Migration and Mobility Drivers Human beings have been mobile since the beginning of our species—move to seek food and shelter, better work and life, family reunification, intellectual pursuit, or professional training. Such mobility, or lack thereof, could be explained through different drivers and motivations influenced by cultural, demographical, economic, political, or societal factors. The migration decision-making process is complex and highly context-dependent (Czaika and Reinprecht 2020). Recently, migration studies tended to use the concept of ‘drivers of migration’ in attempting to overcome conventional, often deterministic thinking (Van Hear et al. 2018; Czaika and Reinprecht 2020; IOM 2020). Drivers of migration are defined as a “complex set of interlinking factors that influence an individual, family or population group’s decisions relating to migration, including displacement. The concept […] is dynamic, reflecting an interaction of personal, social, structural, environmental, and circumstantial factors working in tandem with local, national, regional, and global level incentives and constraints” (IOM, 2019, 58). From this perspective, economic factors, namely employment opportunities and working conditions, have been historically the main driver for labour migrations (Van den Broeck 1996). In addition, they also affect the secondary and primary movements of those who migrate involuntarily, such as refugees (Fasani et al. 2020). On the other hand, the development of modern communication and transportation technologies has broadened the accessibility to distant places promoting travel and the subsequent growth in tourist flows. Those transformations led to different mobility regimes and temporalities, with the increasing relevance of impermanent and circular migration, new forms of family arrangements, and transnational and translocal lives. Therefore, as claimed by the new mobilities paradigm, an interlinkage between the flows generated by an economic motivation and those generated by a recreational motivation can be established, being the production-led mobility inseparable from the consumption-led one (Domínguez-Mujica and Montanari 2022). Otherwise, as the access of the poorest populations to digital communications expands and the knowledge of the differences in economic opportunities and quality of life in distinct parts of the world increases, the propensity to emigrate also tends to be greater (McAuliffe 2021). Moreover, smartphones have become part of a fundamental toolkit for managing border crossing, arrival, and asylum, and also had the potential to function as tools for mobilising migrants’ struggles and resistance (Trimikliniotis et al. 2015). In this way, the different capacities for economic growth

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or worsening of the recession, in different locations and the economic and social inequalities that result from them, will certainly increase the migratory pressure to the well-off countries and regions. Simultaneously, the contraction of the overall economy will probably lead to more restrictive immigration policies and the expansion of populist anti-immigrant sentiments. Sudden geopolitical events, such as the Russian Federation-Ukrainian conflict, natural disasters, and pandemics can cause differential impacts and migration outcomes. War, famine, or disaster can originate major exodus as internally displaced populations or economic or political refugees. A pandemic, such as COVID-19, caused sudden immobility that hauls shortor long-distance travel as the result of border closure, or lockdown of life and commute, while digital technologies contributed to reinforcing digital nomadism, a symbol of flux, hybridity, and mobility in a globalising world (Richards 2015). Paradoxically, the pandemic, which contained many international flows of travellers, favoured residential relocation and nomadism linked to teleworking (ParreñoCastellano et al. 2022). Therefore, the consequences of the pandemic on national and regional economies, labour markets, the expansion of teleworking from home, and the increasing use of digital technologies are reshaping the main drivers of internal and international migration (Martin and Bergmann 2020; Gamlen 2020). However, they will not affect all the potential migrants in the same way, because the decision to migrate varies according to the migrant’s motivations and employment status (Beets and Willekens 2009), making it difficult to anticipate how migration and mobility will evolve after the pandemic since it will depend on the combination of several factors that can generate contradictory effects. As a result of these circumstances, in addition to the impacts on the dimension, composition, and temporality of migration flows, the effects of the health crisis can also cause an increase in irregular migration, changes in the chosen destination, and migratory routes. The growth observed in 2021 of irregular migrations to Europe, from North African countries, strongly affected by the income decline generated by a paralysed tourism activity, or from Latin America to the United States, together with the sharp drop in legal migration flows, confirm this trend (ICMPD 2022). Furthermore, it should be noted that the aspirations and capabilities to implement the migratory project are very diverse, so restrictions on mobility and international migration do not involve all types of migrants in the same way (labour, highly qualified, students, lifestyle, or other forms of privileged migrants), especially affecting less qualified immigrants (De Haas et al. 2019). On the other hand, even if immigration restrictions are tight and economic opportunities are scarce, the existence of well-established migration networks and a ‘culture of migration’ may be perpetuating migration (Massey et al 1993; Czaika and de Haas 2017). (b) Human Mobility Between the Global South and Global North: Migration Aspirations and Capabilities in the Light of Persistent Inequalities and Vulnerability The globalising world is facing growing multidimensional economic, social, and political inequalities. They affect both human mobility and immobility. International organisations, nation-states, and even local communities are concerned about the

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social polarisation and spatial disparities, which are the main root causes and determinants of migration between the Global South and North (Sassone and Yépez de Castillo 2014). From a critical position, we must question the rigidities of some core categories that are persistent in contemporary migration studies and, maybe much more, in migration policies, i.e., the distinction between internal vs international, temporary versus permanent, regular versus irregular, labour versus refugee, and voluntary versus involuntary migration—shady dialectics that were recently labelled as ‘categorical fetishism’ (Crawley and Skleparis 2018). In reality, the categories and drivers are diverse and often overlapping, and they open a new field of dialogues and discussions. Large parts of the world suffer from critical constellations of vulnerabilities, defined by unfavourable political and/or socioeconomic situations, impacts of armed conflicts, pandemic effects, and consequences of climate change, among the main ones. Far too often, these factors are strongly interrelated and perpetuating. Human mobility is one of the strategies for individuals, households, and communities to cope with risks like those and to migrate, be it within the Global South or in a wider context. From a theoretical point of view, scholars realise more and more that thinking and explaining in (neo)classical schemes with gravity and push–pull models or utility and opportunity assumptions are no longer feasible. Agency and structure are still important, but they must be rethought beyond new conceptual frameworks. Recently, de Haas (2021, 1) inspired the debate by conceptualising “migration as a function of aspirations and capabilities”. That framework advances in the analysis of Human Mobility as an intrinsic part of the vast process of social change, in relation to the perceived geographical opportunity structures. Based on positive and negative liberty conditions, external constraints and individual capabilities form a theoretical matrix with four migration categories (ibidem, 27): precarious, distress, improvement, and free migration. All of them entail different degrees of freedom regarding the decision to migrate or not. Precarious migration occurs often within the Global South, mostly short-distance, and performed by those undocumented and the poor that are vulnerable, while free migration refers mainly to the relatively unconstrained movements between rich countries of the Global North or those moving from Global North to Global South as expats or self-initiated for job opportunities. Migrants have the capability to move as they are skilled workers, lifestyle migrants, students, etc. These considerations are slightly similar for improvement migration, which refers to impoverished people with the freedom to move but generally limited capabilities. With a little bit of phantasy, we can locate migration from Global North to South here, as observed in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis starting in 2008 when young qualified returned due to deteriorated living conditions (Sassone and Yépez de Castillo, 2014). If we look at the most recent migration crisis in and around Europe, distress migration may apply best as is the case in Syria starting in 2012 or in Ukraine in 2022. Staying is no option due to life-threatening circumstances in some regions of the world; as they have the resources to migrate and obtain a legal status abroad, hundreds of thousands

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of women and children leave Ukraine as refugees, leaving men at home and living with great uncertainty how long this state of forced family separation will last. All examples demonstrate the multifaceted aspects of decision-making and migration. Those who have certain levels of freedom choose their destination according to their aspirations and capabilities and may move from A to B directly. Others enter a long-term migration trajectory, moving at least three times (named by Wee and Yeoh 2021, serial migrants), and then, in many cases, the one and only driver of migration cannot be identified; the same is true for the wide-spread assumption of an ex-ante predefined destination of migration. In fact, migration trajectories, especially those connecting the Global South with the North, include rethinking and new decisionmaking en route, possible redirections of the journey, back-and-forth movements and sometimes getting stuck in unfavourable risky places. Migrant’s decisions are not set in stone. They are subject to permanent change, depending on the migrant’s changing assets of aspirations and capabilities. Beyond national and international labour migration (which still covers the main part of global migration), migration studies have to accept that drivers of migration are getting more diverse and that migratory movements are becoming long-term trajectories that include phases of mobility and immobility. Consequently, migration became a substantial part of many individual biographies. Migration policy and the public should consider that the volatile circumstances of “elusive migration systems” (Göler and Krišj¯ane, 2016) make migratory movements hard to predict regarding their volume, directions, and destinations. (c) Migration–Development Nexus with Special Regard to Remittances Over the years, migration has been a key component of population shift and development in many emerging countries, as has been identified by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10. Migration generally has significant development implications and may have a positive or negative impact on migrants’ and their families’ livelihoods depending on a variety of conditions in both the origin and destination areas. Internal rural–urban migration can significantly affect people, places, and development by improving their adaptive capacity under certain circumstances; however, it can also damage livelihoods if not properly planned and managed (Skeldon 1997). The same might be said about international migration movements. Migration is a complex phenomenon and cannot be explained by a single theory. Obviously, there are growing calls to better understand it as a process that can contribute to alleviating both socioeconomic inequalities, political oppression, or, environmental adaptation, while, at the same time, boosting the development of the countries of origin of migrants. There is a need for new research activities and policy debates that will be centred on whether and how migration might contribute to beneficial human development outcomes (Hoffmann et al. 2019). Since the 1960s, the human migration–development nexus (Bastia and Skeldon 2020) focused on diasporas, brain drain, and financial remittances; later social remittances has represented a platform where the above concerns were materialised. According to the World Bank, financial remittances (FR) are the sum of personal transfers and compensation of employees. From a pragmatic definition, FR are the

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money sent (or brought) to family members in a migrant’s home country by a migrant from a destination country. The officially documented remittances do not cover any informal transfers (outside formal financial institutions) and in-kind remittances. The size of informal transfers is not marginal at all and makes remittances´ statistics underestimated (de Haas 2012). Despite this, for many less developed countries, FR represent an important financial inflow because “remittances underpin the livelihood and survival strategies of over 1 billion people” (Guermond 2021, 2). In 2021, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries were expected to reach $589 billion because, notwithstanding the COVID-19 pandemic, these flows demonstrated their resilience and decreased less than expected in 2020, registering a robust 7.3 percent growth in 2021 (World Bank 2021). Research on conditionalities and impacts of FR upon destination societies is complex and not fully developed; it presents several ambiguities since remittances’ production, circulation, and adoption are not only financial and economic issues; they have their own social, cultural, and symbolic meanings. Importantly, geographies of finance and market making, labour geographies of remittance households, and the political economy of financial subordination should be studied from a transnational perspective (Guermond 2021). We lack an entrenched theoretical framework to lean on. In any case, FR represent over time a very stable and effective, directly targeted financial source, nevertheless, often not reaching the poorest people and/or countries and regions. Whereas FR flows importantly contribute to the improvement of individual and family livelihoods—while also often substituting the role of dysfunctional public social policies—at a macro-societal level their role is less convincing, unclarified, and even negative. There is a need to continue to further explore the migration-remittances nexus while also trying to help cope with concrete problems in the field—like, for instance, by making remittances’ recipients spend more for investment vis-a-vis consumption, bringing down the financial transaction price and, beyond the rentseeking perspective, decreasing the reliance on migrants´ remittances via developing more prosperous and democratic societies. The concept of social remittances (SR) is quite new. According to Levitt (1998, 927), SR are “the ideas, behaviours, identities and social capital flow from receiving—to sending country communities”. Sometimes, also know-how, practices and skills, mindsets, worldviews, values and attitudes, and norms of behaviour come explicitly into play with the term SR (Markley 2011). Occasionally, political remittances are analysed separately. Levitt (1998) divides SR into (a) normative structures (ideas, values, and beliefs), (b) systems of practice (actions shaped by normative structures), and (c) social capital. SR have gradually become an integral part of the migration–development nexus and its discourses. Research activities in the field of broadly defined SR concern a wide spectrum of subtopics and studied regions/countries; the concept is still new and internally diversified, fragmented, and underdeveloped in terms of conceptual, methodological, and methodical aspects (Boccagni and Decimo 2013). Besides continuing to study SR in close relation to transnationalism, analysing who (with which characteristics and qualities) and how (through which modes) transmits SR, the question of the impacts

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upon the country of origin seems to be crucial. In addition to the individual migrant´s micro-behavioural patterns, macro-context structures (institutions, history, culture, geography) also matter and do influence SR flows and their spread. Consequently, more research is needed on how to strengthen the SR influence “by scaling up to other levels of government and scaling out to other domains of practice” (Levitt and Lamba-Nieves 2010), as well as processes of re-migration and return. (d) Mobility, Youth, and Freedom. Is Mobility an Attribute of Youth Identity? International student mobility (ISM) is a critical educational tool for increasing students’ multicultural competence and labour market potential. Over the last few decades, there has been a surge of interest in ISM in the literature (e.g., Van Mol et al. 2021). Students’ decisions to study overseas may be due to limited university options in their home countries (e.g., lack of specialised study programs) or to the wish to explore the world outside their home country. Still, non-academic reasons (e.g., desire to live abroad) might also have relevance in such decisions. Even if international studies serve as a means of securing future employment, many students prefer to travel abroad for the sake of enjoyment and adventure. International students might choose to go to a new country for a different lifestyle, influencing whether or not they will stay in these locations after graduation (Prazeres et al. 2017). Furthermore, many international studies offer greater job chances after graduation because they provide the possibility of building social and cultural capital, and this fact may expand the labour possibilities back home (Baláz and Williams 2004). “Although the literature has amply explored education-work transitions among young graduates, it has rarely studied post-study transitions associated with international migration” (Mendoza, Ortiz, and Oliveras, 2019, 961). It, therefore, remains unclear how young graduates perceive, experience, negotiate, and manage complex personal and employment transitions abroad. Furthermore, it has been claimed that young people no longer follow common and predictable transitions towards adult life to the same extent as in the past “but instead move between status positions and occupational activities in complex ways” (Frändberg 2015, 554). In this regard, (further) migration can be caused by a mismatch between supply and demand in qualified jobs that hampers young graduates’ access to stable, skilled jobs that are “reserved” for older people and more experienced workers. In other words, the economic structure may push away young people towards secondary labour markets, seriously affecting their options for upward labour and social mobility. Young people in countries with highly regulated labour markets and a supply of highly skilled workers, such as Spain and Italy, are at a clear disadvantage when it comes to looking for a job, and when they manage to succeed in this, their jobs tend to be precarious, unstable, and badly paid. In these contexts, international migration is a plausible option (Mendoza et al. 2020). On the other hand, an increasing number of young people are embarking on shortterm international migrations in search of a “global experience” while postponing their transition to adulthood and consequently their full incorporation into labour markets. The literature on middling migrants helps explain these transitions since it focuses on young graduates at the early stages of their careers. This stresses individual

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characteristics (e.g., human capital, a moment in the life cycle) and preferences, as well as adventure, self-achievement, and the desire for an international experience, to explain migration undertaken before full adulthood (Wiles 2008). Indeed, mobility has become an important marker for youth in many global contexts, being used the term of mobile transitions to describe “transition pathways under conditions of mobility” (Robertson et al. 2018, 203). And these last produce new experiences, memories, feelings, and identities through their life course. Similarly, the concept of “liquid migration” appears to be useful for explaining some young people’s migration projects, as defended by King 2018, 5. So, it has happened with research on intra-European migration among young people trying their luck in new and multiple destinations, benefiting from open borders and open labour markets (Engbersen et al. 2010; Bygnes and Erdal 2017). (e) Mobility Within the Context of Total Tourism The economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has shown the extent to which tourism has become a way of life for humanity in the twenty-first century (Fotiadis et al. 2021). In fact, it is most likely that tourist mobility enhanced the global spread of the coronavirus in just a few months. While in 2019, there were nearly one and a half billion international tourist arrivals; by 2020, cross-border tourist flows declined to around 380 million (74%) due to fears of contracting the virus and restrictive measures (World Tourism Organization 2021). Most actors in the tourism industry were in a state of extreme crisis, and the lack of environmental change provided by travel created psychological challenges for societies. The lack of demand had a negative impact on many segments of the economy due to the multiplier effects of tourism, which also affected households through employment struggles. Tourist mobility has been breaking records every year since 2010, therefore, the sudden halt caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and its diverse consequences confirmed that tourism has entered its “total” period in the twenty-first century. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourist arrivals almost tripled from January to July 2022 (+172%) compared to the same period in 2021, meaning that the sector stood at almost 60% of pre-pandemic levels. This steady recovery reflects the strong pent-up demand for international travel, as well as the easing or lifting of travel restrictions to date (as of September 19, 2022). Three periods have characterised the history of tourism development: (i) the intracontinental period, from the advent of Thomas Cook (1841) to the 1960s; (ii) the global period, the second half of the twentieth century; and (iii) the “total” period, as we may consider the present time (Michalkó–Rátz 2019). Every epochal change has been induced by the symbiosis between the emergence of technical achievements and changes in consumer demands. Tourist mobility has been transformed by the combination of the urbanising society (railways), the consumer society (jet aircrafts), and the experience society (digitalisation). Between 2000 and 2019, the number of international tourist arrivals doubled, with the result that experiential demand not only spread across the planet horizontally, but also vertically. In the era of total tourism, (i) popular destinations suffer from the phenomenon of overtourism, while previously almost unknown places garner interest among tourists; (ii) demand extends beyond

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the tourist centre of a destination and spreads capillary-like to the locality and its surroundings; (iii) there is hardly any segment of society that is not involved in the tourism industry, either on the supply or on the demand side; (iv) both municipalities and governments pay special attention to tourism and try to allocate as many resources as possible to tourism development. The term “total”, borrowed from the vocabulary of military science, is the best way of describing this stage in the history of tourism, as it expresses the fact that the tourism industry is no longer just a set of services designed to serve leisure activities, but an organising force that permeates almost every segment of the social, economic, political, technical, and natural environment. The following changes have served as catalysts for the transition of tourism from its conventional function: (i) digitalisation, in particular, the use of internet-based booking and rating systems and travel apps on smartphones; (ii) partly related to this, the proliferation of social media platforms as experience-sharing, travel promotion platforms; (iii) the democratisation of air travel with the emergence and market penetration of low-cost flights; (iv) the increasing popularity of the sharing economy, the explosion of Airbnb accommodation; (v) the never-ending expansion of the experience apparatus (Dallen et al. 2022). Of course, these trends, together with each other and other social and economic processes, shape the nature of tourism. Not even estimates are available of the global volume of tourist mobility, as international tourism measurement methods and databases are not necessarily uniform, and counting domestic tourism is downright “mission impossible”. Measuring tourist flows by focusing on border crossing points and registered accommodations is far from providing a complete picture of the real volume of demand, with a growing amount of so-called invisible tourism (Rátz et al. 2015). It is not possible to register domestic and cross-border trips of less than 24 h, but trips with a minimum stay of one night are not necessarily registered in official accommodations that would be a part of the observed metrics either. Cross-border shopping trips, short-haul trips for certain health services, day trips to popular tourist destinations, the use of a private weekend home, or staying overnight at the home of a relative or friend living abroad all reflect uncounted mobility under the umbrella of tourism. The link between the Anthropocene and tourist mobility is not new (Gren and Huijbens 2014). The negative environmental impacts of tourism have been evident since the dawn of travel, with regional problems becoming national, then continental, and then global. After conquering water and land, the next step was the sky. Carrying hundreds of millions of travellers, cruise ships, diesel locomotives, kerosene-burning aeroplanes, cars, and buses can be considered the ecological time bombs of tourism as well as the level of water consumption. The biggest challenge to sustainability is not the volume of tourist mobility per se, but the dramatically changing nature of tourism and the rate at which demand for tourism is growing year on year. The solution may be the spread of the responsible travel paradigm for sustainable development (Tanja et al. 2021). The relative lull during the pandemic has shown what the environment gains from a drastic reduction in tourism, however, it also shined a light on the losses society and the economy must face.

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Conclusions: The Global Change and Human Mobility Commission: Twenty Years Promoting Scientific Achievements in Theory and Practice Globality—Global Change and Human Mobility was created in 2000 as one of IGU commissions. As of today (April 2022), it has 197 members from 53 countries. It was born from the theories revolving around revisiting the concept of human mobility following global changes (Montanari and Staniscia 2016). The mobility of people has lost the characteristics that had been characterised by the traditional division, namely the traditional classifications of migration and tourism. Mobility has acquired new forms providing: (i) multiplicity of mobility—mobility for production and mobility for consumption; permanent mobility and temporary mobility; mobility on an international, national and regional scale; free mobility and forced mobility; unidirectional, circular, return mobility; (ii) multiplicity of players with different characteristics representing different segments—young people, elderly, women, citizens of the Global South and those of the Global North, residents of core areas and those of peripheral areas; (iii) multiplicity of effects and impacts—regarding spatial such as regions of origin/departure and regions of destination/arrival, on individual practising mobility, and those related to global in terms of connections and international networks, tangible or intangible. In over twenty years, Globality and its members have attempted to cover all those thematic areas and to follow their evolutions resulting from changes in global scenarios; among the latter, the economic-financial crisis that began in 2007–2008 and the pandemic crisis that originated in 2019–2020. Some of the topics covered are: – Changes in mobility after the end of Socialism (e.g., Baláz and Williams 2002; Kolossov and Galkina 2002, 2006) and Apartheid (e.g., Maharaj 2003; Manik et al. 2006). – Changes in mobility resulting from new modes of production and consumption (e.g., Claval 2002; Venier 2002; Verquin 2002; Montanari 2005, 2010, 2012; Illes 2006; Brusa and Papotti 2011; Ishikawa 2011; Montanari and Staniscia 2011; Williams et al. 2012; Parreño-Castellano and Domínguez-Mujica 2016). – Analysis of human mobility in relation to the local dimension (e.g., Salvà Tomàs 2002, 2003; Jansen and Bazargur 2003; Staniscia 2005; Michalkó and Rátz 2006). – Female mobility (e.g., Domínguez-Mujica and Guerra Talavera 2005, 2006; Raghuram and Montiel 2003; Wickramasinghe 2002). – Youth mobility (e.g., Lash 2003; Chikanda 2003; Staniscia 2012, 2018; Fonseca et al. 2016; Montanari and Staniscia 2017; Pumares et al. 2018; Staniscia and Benassi 2018; Staniscia et al. 2021). – Urban changes linked to different types of mobility (e.g., Glorius and Friedrich 2006; Hatziprokopiou 2006; Montanari and Staniscia 2006, 2011; DomínguezMujica 2021). – Changes in mobility linked to economic and financial crises and their spatial impacts (e.g., Ishikawa 2003, 2011; Montanari 2010; Brusa and Papotti 2011; Montanari and Staniscia 2011; Tömöri and Süli-Zakar 2011; Domínguez-Mujica et al. (2016); Glorius and Domínguez-Mujica 2017).

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– Cross-border mobility (e.g., Clark 2002; Laroussi 2002; Godenau and López-Sala 2016). The health crisis linked to the global spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the geopolitical crisis linked to the conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine are characterising the beginning of the third decade in the twenty-first century. The consequences in economic and social terms on a global scale are negative and severe. Human mobility has been strongly influenced, resulting in an extremely difficult and reduced state. Even if there is no complete agreement among scholars on the future of global-scale mobility in its order of magnitude, it can already be predicted that, when the crises will be over, it will be significantly reconfigured. In this sense, it is essential to think about the consequences of climate and environmental changes, not only because of their effects on the displacement of populations and tourist trends, but also for the increasing vulnerabilities facing (im)mobilities. Studying human mobility reconfigurations linked to the advance of digital capitalism will also be necessary; the entangled production-led mobility/consumption-led mobility has never been so evident as in the new forms of digital nomadism in this stage of the Anthropocene. Acknowledgements The research outcomes presented in this chapter were made possible with the support of: European Union’s Horizon 2020. RIA under grant agreement No 870661 (www.hummingbirdh2020.eu). European Union’s Horizon 2020. CrossMigration project under the grant agreement Ares (2017) 5627812–770121 (https://migrationresearch.com/ ). Regional research project co-funded by ERDF and the Government of the Canary Islands under the programme Canary Islands smart specialization strategy, 2021. ProID2021010005. National research programme project DemoMigPro (Nr. VPP-LETONIKA-2021/4-0002). NRDI Office OTKA K134877 project.

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Chapter 8

Contribution of Geography and Geospatial Technology to Cope with Hazards and Risks: Implications of GIS Development in Japan Takashi Oguchi

Abstract The distribution and characteristics of geographical phenomena, including the location and magnitude of each threat and the coping capacity of people and societies, determine the risks of natural and social hazards. Therefore, Geography and geospatial technology play significant roles in investigating disaster hazards and risks, and their effective use helps cope with future disasters. This paper firstly reviews the relationship of hazard and risk issues with Geography and geospatial technology. Then it introduces relevant topics in Japan, which experienced various types of natural disasters, and where GIS (Geographical Information Systems) have developed in response to disasters. The topics include historical disasters, advancing stages of GIS, spatial data infrastructure provided by the central government, hazard maps produced by local governments, and recent changes in geographical education. Keywords Hazard · Risk · Geography · GIS · Map · Japan

8.1 Background Natural and social hazards often threaten citizens and communities, leading to disasters. Natural disasters include seismic, volcanic, geomorphological, meteorological, hydrological, and biological ones, whereas social or man-made disasters include socio-technical and warfare ones (Mohamed Shaluf 2007). Scientific studies have been focusing much more on natural disasters than social disasters. For instance, based on Google Scholar, the search by the phrase “natural disasters” resulted in ca. 1.28 million academic documents, whereas searches by “social disasters” and “man-made disasters” led to ca. 6,500 and 23,900 documents, respectively (as of T. Oguchi (B) Center for Spatial Information Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 J. Ba´nski and M. Meadows (eds.), Research Directions, Challenges and Achievements of Modern Geography, Advances in Geographical and Environmental Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6604-2_8

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August 13, 2022). This chapter also focuses mainly on natural hazards and disasters, although it also deals with a unique case of a social disaster. There have been two opposite directions in the risks of natural hazards since the twentieth century. One is the decrease in some fatal disaster risks thanks to technological developments such as the construction of structural countermeasures, better weather monitoring and forecasts, and better communication systems for faster information spread. For example, Shen and Hwang (2019) assessed natural disasters worldwide from 1900 to 2015 using the EM-DAT database and showed that annual human fatalities from natural disasters have significantly reduced since the late 1960s. Social activities for disaster risk reduction, including school and adult education and increased government information to aid evacuation, also contributed to this trend. The other is the increase in certain disaster risks due mainly to population increase and global climate change. The analysis by Shen and Hwang (2019) shows that the numbers of injured people, affected people, and damaged buildings due to natural hazards have increased since the late 1960s, along with the number of disaster occurrences. Consequently, the total economic loss from natural disasters has also increased (Kellenberg and Mushfiq Mobarak 2011; Panwer and Sen 2019). Although these increases in disaster-related figures may partly reflect the more systematic collection of disaster data in recent years, population growth and concentration in disaster-prone areas such as floodplains and coastal lowlands in developing countries have also played a significant role (Bull-Kamanga et al. 2003; Pal and Bhatia 2018). The recent global climate change under strong human influences has led to extreme physical forces to induce natural disasters, such as the intensification of tropical cyclones due to more abundant moisture from heated sea surfaces (Emanuel 2005; Cutter 2021). Therefore, despite the reduced number of fatalities, coping with natural disasters is one of the essential subjects in today’s world, and scientists and decision-makers should contribute to this theme.

8.2 Hazards, Risks, and Geography The relationship between natural hazards and their risks is often described using the so-called risk triangle model proposed by Crichton (1999). According to the model, the risk of natural disasters is a function of three components: hazard, vulnerability, and exposure. A hazard can be defined as a dangerous phenomenon or condition of natural origin, such as an earthquake or heavy rainfall. It is strongly related to Physical Geography as related to geomorphological, meteorological, and hydrological processes. Vulnerability refers to the characteristics of a social community or system that affects susceptibility to the damaging effects of a hazard. The latter is associated with human activities and responses to hazardous circumstances, and Human Geography is a prominent theme. Exposure refers to how strongly people, properties, and social systems are exposed in hazard zones subject to potential losses, which depends on the spatial relationships of geographical elements, especially the distance between the locations of hazard and vulnerable elements. Therefore, spatial analysis

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of the distribution of various physical and social factors using geospatial technology, especially GIS (Geographical Information Systems), contributes to the investigation of exposure. In other words, studying natural disasters is an essentially geographical issue for which all three major components of modern Geography (physical, human, and GIS) should be incorporated (Fig. 8.1). Indeed, researchers have investigated the hazards and risks of natural disasters in various areas of the world by integrating physical and social factors using geospatial technology and the concept of the risk triangle (e.g., Lugeri et al. 2010; Tomlinson et al. 2011; Dillon et al. 2015; Asbridge et al. 2021; Wang et al. 2021a, b). An advantage of GIS is the overlay of multiple layers representing various geographical elements to enable their integrated analysis. The geographical elements include physical ones (e.g., topography, hydrology, meteorology, vegetation, and soil) and human ones (e.g., roads, land use, and population), and they can be overlain easily as long as they are projected using the same coordinate system. These days, physical and human geographers tend to work separately because even a single subfield in Geography is quite advanced, and they often concentrate on either a physical or

Fig. 8.1 Risk triangle and Geography. Three components determining disaster risks (Hazard, Vulnerability, and Exposure) correspond to three major elements of modern Geography (Physical Geography, Human Geography, and GIS, respectively)

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human aspect. Therefore, the mixed use of physical and human geographical data is relatively limited. However, the overlay capability of GIS helps lower this barrier, enhancing the integrated analysis of physical and human geographical data based on the risk triangle model. In sum, GIS and relevant geospatial technology play a crucial role in investigating the hazards and risks of natural disasters.

8.3 Development of GIS and Related Issues in Japan in Response to Disasters It is widely accepted that Roger Tomlinson, an English-Canadian geographer, first invented GIS and has been acknowledged as the “father of GIS.” His 1968 paper (Tomlinson 1968) is one of the earliest publications about the concept, structure, and purposes of GIS. The paper states that he was developing a prototype of GIS for regional planning in Canada, especially in rural areas, to optimize land use for agriculture, forestry, recreation, and wildlife conservation. Subsequently, the Harvard Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Spatial Analysis at Harvard University developed more advanced GIS software called Odyssey (Teicholz 1980), which became the basis of Arc/Info from ESRI Inc., the first commercially successful GIS software package released in 1982. ESRI was founded in 1969 as the Environmental System Research Institute, a consulting firm dealing with land use and environmental issues. The firm applied computer mapping and spatial analysis to help land use planners and land resource managers. Later, the firm focused on developing GIS software (Maguire et al. 2008). Like these early representative cases, the development of GIS in many countries aimed at improving land and environmental management and planning. In Japan, however, the development of GIS has been more associated with disaster risk reduction. Introducing such Japanese historical cases may help deeply consider the relationship of GIS with hazard and risk issues.

8.3.1 Gas Explosion in Osaka, 1970 A massive gas explosion occurred in Osaka City, the second largest city in Japan, on April 8, 1970. This event, the so-called “Tenroku Gas Explosion,” led to the introduction of systems similar to GIS in Japanese natural gas companies and some other companies that also need proper, efficient facility management. The blast occurred shallow underground at a subway construction site in the heart of the densely populated city. While digging underground to elongate an existing subway line, a part of the gas pipe network was exposed and hanging in the mid-air of a tunnel. Then two pipe segments connected with a joint were detached, causing gradual gas leakage. The gas was filled within the tunnel with a ceiling composed of numerous steel deck plates. Then it fired, and a massive explosion took place with a scale of 200 m

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in length and 16 m in width. The blast blew off the steel deck plates, and the two pillars of fire with a height of ca. 10 m were observed. The event killed 79 people, injured ca. 420 people, and destroyed or damaged ca. 500 buildings and houses around the site. This disaster has been ascribable to multiple mistakes (Ishida et al. 1985; Kobayashi 2006), and the initial cause was the unexpected broad exposure of gas pipes in mid-air. The pipes belonged to Osaka Gas Co. Ltd, and their information about the existing gas pipes, including paper maps, was not effectively used. In addition, the information at that time was not systematic and seemed to have been insufficient. Therefore, after the disaster, the Japanese government ordered natural gas companies in Japan to provide detailed maps showing the location of gas pipes. Then some companies, including Osaka Gas and Tokyo Gas, decided to utilize electronic databases to store the locational data of gas pipes and other relevant information such as the distribution of roads. They also aimed to construct systems to efficiently retrieve the locational data from the databases and output a map with attribute information for a specific area. Such systems have been referred to as AM/FM (Automated Mapping and Facility Management; Burkhold and Broom 1989), which can be regarded as a specific type of early GIS focusing on facility management. For this purpose, Osaka Gas started collaborating with IBM in 1974, and the first generation of their AM/ FM was completed in 1986 (Hata 2007). Tokyo Gas also completed its AM/FM in the mid-1980s (Ando and Endo 1993). Later, the functions of these unique AM/FM systems were merged into more widely used GIS software such as ArcGIS from ESRI (Hata 2007). Consequently, the extensive utilization of GIS has been common in natural gas companies in Japan and similar companies with a high responsibility for facility management, such as electronic power companies. Despite the relatively early development of AM/FM systems in Japan, the propagation of GIS in Japan during the 1980s was much more limited than in developed Western countries. For example, in the United States, the number of states that institutionalized GIS rapidly increased during the 1980s (Warnecke 1998), whereas such a movement did not occur in Japan. This contrast did not reflect technological or economic backgrounds because Japan was also a developed country with high technical standards. Oguchi (2001) attributed this situation to the mental and cultural experience of the Japanese people, which is different from Western people due to religious and historical backgrounds. In this sense, the Japanese AM/FM systems in the 1980s were exceptional. The 1970 disaster in Osaka was the initial promoter of this exception, which can be regarded as a precursor of later GIS development in Japan.

8.3.2 Great Hanshin Earthquake, 1995 Lessons learned from the Great Hanshin Earthquake on January 17, 1995, led to a significant change in GIS-related policy in the Japanese Government. The earthquake had a moment magnitude (M w ) of 6.9, and its epicenter was located on Awaji

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Island in Osaka Bay at a depth of ca. 17 km (Ohmura et al. 2001). The earthquake severely affected Kobe City, about 30 km west of Osaka, and surrounding cities and towns, resulting in >6,000 dead people, > 40,000 wounded people, and > 200,000 demolished or severely damaged houses and buildings (Tanida 1996). After the earthquake, information about the extensive damage, such as the distribution of collapsed houses and the location of road blockage, was collected and analyzed for rescue and mitigation operations. For this purpose, along with the newly obtained data about the damage, they needed to utilize existing geographical data showing the distribution and types of surficial objects, including private, public, and commercial buildings and facilities, roads, parks, agricultural land, forested land, and water surfaces. However, they found it challenging to efficiently collect and summarize various types of spatial information because relevant administrative units, especially local governments, still depended on analog maps and ledgers at that time (Kajiwara 1999), and some existing digital spatial data were not well standardized for rapid collective usage (Murakami 1999). Therefore, they could not conduct a quick analysis of geographical data for planning even under emergent conditions. This situation let the Japanese Government reflect on their past policies and initiate new projects to provide digital geospatial data and promote GIS. At the same time, some GIS-related activities of the US Government also influenced the Japanese Government. One is Executive Order 12906, “Coordinating Geographic Data Acquisition and Access: The National Spatial Data Infrastructure,” published by President William Clinton in April 1994. This order has provided the policy umbrella for geographic information in the US (Goodchild 2007), including the governmental responsibility of collecting fundamental geographic data and their free distribution through the Internet. The Japanese Government got interested in creating a Japanese version of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). Another case is the activities of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), an agency of the US Department of Homeland Security. In the early 1990s, FEMA developed a prototype of disaster planning and response systems using GIS in collaboration with a software company (Juhl 1993). Although FEMA mainly focused on disasters caused by hurricanes, the Japanese Government started thinking that GIS-based systems would be utilized for other types of disasters, including seismic ones. In September 1995, the Japanese Government set up a new liaison committee of some 20 national Ministries and Agencies to promote the use of GIS. After this, the government launched and announced various relevant projects, such as constructing and updating nationwide digital geospatial data, introducing data standards, and supporting related activities of local governments and private companies. Since then, governments have regarded GIS and geospatial data as essential elements, and governmental budgets for GIS-related activities have significantly increased. In October 1995, Japanese private companies, mainly for mapping and surveying, established a new association called NSDIPA (NSDI Promotion Association) to effectively collaborate with governments and promote GIS in Japan (Okabe 1997). In 2007, the Japanese version of NSDI was established by new legislation, the “Basic Act on the Advancement of Utilizing Geospatial Information” (Murakami 2008).

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Researchers in Japan also contributed to the propagation of GIS after the 1995 earthquake. About 20 days after the quake, some academic volunteers, mainly geographers, started collecting detailed data about the distribution of road blockage and rubbles from collapsed houses in the affected areas. The data were collected in the field and at local administrations, where information from citizens was accumulated. Then they summarized the data using GIS for mapping and analysis. These surveys and data processing were conducted repeatedly, and the sharing of outcomes through a database contributed to information distribution and governmental decision-making (Usui 1997). The 1995 earthquake also let engineering and information technology researchers propose constructing GIS-based disaster management systems to handle spatial and temporal data (Hatayama et al. 1999). The system includes three subsystems for different requirements under different situations: (1) rescue support immediately after a disaster, (2) reconstruction support during the recovery period, and (3) information management during regular times. The concept and prototype of the system attracted the attention of national and local governments in Japan. In April 1998, the Center for Spatial Information Science (CSIS) was established at the University of Tokyo (Okabe 1998), with support from the Japanese Government. This center was the first relatively large university unit focusing on GIS in Japan. Researchers from various fields, including Geography, Urban Engineering, Civil Engineering, Information Technology, and Economics, started working there. Although initial planning of such a research center existed before 1995, the 1995 earthquake and subsequent changes in governmental policies facilitated the foundation of CSIS.

8.3.3 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami, 2011 On March 11, 2011, an M w 9.0 earthquake occurred about 80 km off the coast of the Tohoku Region, northeast Japan. It induced ground shaking, liquefaction, and landslides, causing damage to buildings and other infrastructures (Goda et al. 2013). Then a colossal tsunami due to the earthquake attacked the northern Pacific coast of Japan, devastating the coastal communities, especially in Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures. Due to these disasters, more than 18,000 people were killed or missing, and more than 100,000 houses collapsed or were washed away, mainly because of the tsunami—about 90% of deaths were attributed to tsunami-related drowning (Koshimura et al. 2014; Seto and Imamura 2020). The tsunami additionally led to the loss of electrical power at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, releasing abundant radioactive materials that spread about 60 km northwest of the plant, leading to the evacuation of >120,000 people (Hirose 2016). The series of disasters was eventually named the Great East Japan Earthquake Disaster (GEJED), giving longlasting social, economic, and psychological impacts on Japanese societies (Harada et al. 2015).

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Thanks to the accelerated diffusion and popularization of GIS in Japan since 1995, various responses to the GEJED took place using GIS and related technologies. During the first three months after the earthquake, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan collected and arranged extensive geospatial data about the impacts of the earthquake and tsunami and analyzed them using GIS to understand the characteristics of the disaster (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan 2011). Then they released the arranged data and relevant existing data to the various sections of national and local governments, researchers, surveying and consulting companies, the media, and citizens, which supported numerous rescuing, managing, and planning activities (Geospatial Information Authority of Japan 2011; Hasegawa et al. 2011). GIS also contributed a lot to scientific research concerning the GEJED; for example, topographic analysis of the tsunami-affected lowland (Udo et al. 2012) and the coastal valley (Hayakawa et al. 2015), mapping of building damage (Gokon and Koshimura 2012), analysis of post-disaster road recovery and traffic (Komori and Endo 2013), spatial analysis of lost material stock due to the disaster (Tanikawa et al. 2014), medical responses to the Fukushima nuclear disaster (Nagata et al. 2012), planning for renewable energy in the area affected by the nuclear disaster (Wang et al. 2014), and modeling the home return of evacuees (Ogawa et al. 2018). Another notable GIS-related activity was performed by a group of volunteers skilled in GIS-based open-source software. Just several hours after the earthquake, they launched a website called “sinsai.info” (Sinsai is a Japanese term for earthquake disaster) using the Ushahidi platform (Seki 2011). Ushahidi is a set of open-source tools for crowdsourcing crisis information with Web mapping (Okolloh 2009), which was effectively used after the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti (Heinzelman and Waters 2010). The interactive web map of the sinsai.info site allowed the overlay of data submitted by individuals, including citizens, through e-mail and SMS, and social media. This capability contributed to the efficient distribution and exchange of information, such as confirming someone’s safety and where to find shelter, water, and food. There were technical challenges, such as managing frequent accesses, handling Japanese characters, and fixing bugs, but the collaboration of many volunteers via the Internet led to fast solutions. During the first month after the earthquake, the sinsai.info website got about one million page views and collected about 10,000 reports from numerous people (Seki 2011). As noted above, geospatial data, GIS, and relevant technologies were utilized to handle many complex issues associated with the GEJED. At the same time, lots of victims and damages due to the tsunami revealed problems with hazard maps produced using geospatial data and GIS. Before 2011, local governments created tsunami hazard maps for the Pacific coast of the Tohoku region, assuming an earthquake of M w 8.2, following the guidelines provided by the national government. The M w 9.0 earthquake in March 2011 was much larger, and in some coastal areas, the resultant tsunami inundation was much broader than the prediction in the hazard maps (Sugimoto 2014). In September 2011, a national government council admitted that the underestimation of tsunami inundation in the existing hazard maps was one of the reasons for many victims (Central Disaster Management Council 2011). Considering this, the Japanese national government revised disaster-related laws and acts and let

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local governments update and newly create various hazard maps with a more reasonable estimate of hazard extent (Une 2021). These new hazard maps are not limited to tsunamis—they also deal with floods, landslides, debris flows, seismic liquefaction, volcanic eruptions, and high tides because the GEJED provided an opportunity to think about natural disasters in general.

8.4 Recent Hazard Maps in Japan and Future Perspectives The construction of the new governmental hazard maps in Japan after 2011 benefited from improved spatial data and more sophisticated GIS-based methods to enhance the quality of the maps. Since the enactment of the Basic Act on the Advancement of Utilizing Geospatial Information in 2007, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan accelerated the free distribution of primary geospatial data covering the whole of Japan, and an integrated scheme for data publication was established in 2012 (Hasegawa and Ishiyama 2013). Local governments utilized such general data with their more specific data to produce hazard maps. For example, high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) obtained by airborne laser scanning facilitated the detailed estimation of inundation depth by floods, high tides, and tsunamis. In July 2018 and October 2019, flood inundation occurred in numerous areas in Japan due to extreme rainfall (Sayama et al. 2020). The actual inundation during these events agreed reasonably well with the prediction by the recently constructed flood hazard maps (Une 2021), indicating the success of disaster-related policies after the 2011 earthquake and devastating tsunami. Although these hazard maps contributed to the immediate responses of the governments and the evacuation of some people, more than 350 people were killed or missed due to the 2018 and 2019 floods. A survey in Mobi Town, western Japan, affected by the 2018 flood, has revealed that only about 20% of citizens had well recognized the flood hazard map for the town (Yasui et al. 2019), suggesting that the lack of recognition limited disaster risk reduction. The lack of recognition on hazard maps also increased economic losses due to these flood events. In Nagano City, central Japan, the October 2019 heavy rainfall caused a levee breakage along the Chikuma River, resulting in an inundation of about 934 ha. Two elderly people were killed, and about 2000 houses were destroyed (Yamamoto et al. 2020). In addition, a rail yard for the Shinkansen (bullet trains) of the East Japan Railway Company was inundated, and ten trains with 120 carriages were submerged. These high-tech cars are weak against water, and they all had to be scrapped later. The total economic loss caused by the train submergence was several hundred million USD. Although the rail yard is located on a floodplain, the nearby elevated track where the trains run at high speed for regular service was only partially inundated, meaning that if they had moved cars there, no cars would have been lost. Three months before the flood, the Government of Nagano City released a set of flood maps for areas along the Chikuma River assuming the 1-in-1000-year flood. The maps were printed on A1-size sheets and distributed to all households in the city in August 2019, and the PDF version became available on the web. According to the

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map for an area in and around the rail yard (Fig. 8.2), deep flood inundation with a thickness of > 10 m is expected at the yard, meaning that people in the East Japan Railway Company did not pay sufficient attention to the distributed hazard map. An important lesson from these recent examples is that, even if high-quality hazard maps are provided to societies, only a limited number of people utilize them to mitigate actual disaster risks. Therefore, education and outreach for the effective utilization of hazard maps play a pivotal role in realizing disaster risk reduction. In addition, possible future hazards predicted in hazard maps should be interpreted with vulnerability and exposure, as indicated in Fig. 8.1. Therefore, education and outreach about general aspects of Geography to understand regions’ physical, social, and geospatial characteristics are also necessary. A related educational reform for Japanese senior high schools occurred in April 2022. Before 1982, most senior high school students in Japan took a course in Geography. However, after an educational reform in 1982, less emphasis was put on Geography, and only about half of the students took a geographical course. However, the Japanese Government considered the importance of geographical subjects, including geospatial technologies, international understanding, global environmental issues, natural disasters, and sustainable development, and decided to introduce a one-year mandatory subject, “Chiri-Sogo” (General Geography), to high school education after 2022 (Ida 2019). Although education in Japanese senior high schools is not compulsory, about 99% of young Japanese enter senior high schools. Therefore, after 2022, almost all young Japanese learn Geography with an emphasis on natural disasters and GIS. This situation will support solving the problems with the limited utilization of hazard maps in Japan. Moreover, educational methods to teach how to use hazard maps need to be developed. Although traditional hazard maps were printed on paper, they can be online and interactive. Recently, Song et al. (2022) compared the performance of paper hazard maps with online ones supported by WebGIS through educational implementations in Japanese and Chinese high schools. The results showed higher educational effects of online hazard maps. Consequently, geospatial technology is essential for not only creating adequate hazard maps, but also effectively using them. Furthermore, the visibility, understandability, and accessibility of hazard maps should be improved. Maebayashi et al. (2021) analyzed the design of hazard maps in Japan and pointed out that the poor design of some maps reduces their visibility and understandability. They also found that the presentation ways of these maps, such as symbols and text labels, are inconsistent, making it difficult for a person to understand hazard maps for different areas. More attention must be paid to designing hazard maps for their successful utilization. As mentioned in the case of Nagano City, hazard maps provided by local governments in Japan are often available on the web. The national government has also been operating and updating a portal site using WebGIS technology to browse numerous hazard maps for various regions in Japan (Motojima et al. 2016). Still, users of such browsing systems are limited; hence the constructed hazard maps did not significantly reduce the magnitude of disasters (Arima and Kawamukai 2022). More efforts are required to increase the opportunities for citizens to access hazard maps frequently.

Fig. 8.2 Nagano City Flood Hazard Map #4, published in August 2019. The white area along the Chikuma River is riverside land between levees. Colored areas beyond the levees are predicted to be inundated if the levee breaks under a 1-in-1000-year flood. Colors show flood water depths: purple— >10 m, dark red—5 to 10 m, light red—3 to 5 m, skin color—0.5 to 3 m, yellow-green—