Human–environment interactions: learning from the past |
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Authors: | J A Dearing R W Battarbee R Dikau I Larocque F Oldfield |
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Institution: | (1) Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, L69 7ZT Liverpool, UK;(2) Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, WC1 0AP London, UK;(3) Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115 Bonn, Germany;(4) INRS-ETE, 490 De La Couronne Québec, G1K 9A9 Quebec, Canada |
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Abstract: | The analysis of palaeoenvironmental archives—sediments, archaeological remains, tree-rings, documents and instrumental records—is
presented as a key element in the global scientific endeavour aimed at understanding human–environment interactions at the
present day and in the future. The paper explains the need for the focus on palaeoenvironmental studies as a means of ‘learning
from the past’, and presents the rationale and structure of the IGBP-PAGES Focus 5 programme ‘Past Ecosystem Processes and
Human–Environment Interactions’. The past, as described through palaeoenvironmental studies, can yield information about pre-impact
states, trajectories of recent change, causation, complex system behaviour, and provide the basis for developing and testing
simulation models. Learning from the past in each of these epistemological categories is exemplified with published case-studies. |
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Keywords: | PAGES Focus 5 Human– environment interactions Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction Sustainability |
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