Showing papers in "Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers in 1974"

Destructive Exploitation of the South American River Turtle

Abstract: THE WORLD'S largest freshwater turtle, Podocnemis expansa, has long served as an important food resource for Indians and Mestizos of the Amazon and Orinoco basins ( Figure 1). Although widely distributed through tropical South America, this turtle, along with its marine relatives, is now a threatened species as a consequence of overexploitation for both meat and eggs ( Parsons ) . Tertiary fossil records place Podocnemis in Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. Today, however, perhaps due to the expansion of the ecologically more competitive cryptodire turtles, the genus survives only in isolated Madagascar (P. madagascariensis) and in South America (Figure 2), the latter an island continent for most of the Tertiary ( Neill ) . Of the seven species inhabiting the Neo-tropics, Podocnemis expansa is the largest, its carapace reaching up to 3 feet in length. Other species such as P. unifilis, P. dumeriliana, and P. caijennensis have figured less prominently in the regional diet due to their smaller size or more restricted range.

Irrigation and Urbanization in Pre-Hispanic Peru: The Moche Valley

Abstract: THE USE OF irrigation as an agricultural technique has had a long history in diverse regions of the world. In fact, in many areas of early civilization, irrigation has been noted as a common resource-exploitation technique. This has led to much speculation by scholars as to the role of irrigation within social systems, particularly as related to its importance in the development of \"high\" civilizations. Price, for example, gives an overview on the role of irrigation in the development of New World cultures.1 The present study of irrigation in pre-Hispanic Peru, by focusing on a single system with limited areal extent, enables us to analyze some of the spatial and cultural elements that led to the development of complex irrigation systems and some of the specific effects of their use. Throughout coastal Peru, exotic rivers flowing westward out of the Andes furnish water for over forty oases. These oases are particularly large in northern Peru and have long been im-

Town Size and Functional Complexity in a Disrupted Landscape

Abstract: CENTRAL PLACE theory suggests a settlement hierarchy whereby towns with large populations, large trade areas, and much functional complexity are widely spaced and surrounded by smaller less complex towns servicing smaller areas. To achieve the theoretical functional hierarchy and geometry, one must assume that towns develop on a featureless plain of uniform productivity and potential for movement. This reduces the relationship between customers and service centers to one of distance economies and diseconomies. Because qualities of the ideal landscape do not exist, geographers and economists since Lösch have done the next best thing—worked in such places as Iowa. In 1960 Thomas attempted to find and explain regularities in the relationship between town size and the number and kinds of activities performed in small Iowa towns.1 He defined a few simple measures of functional activity and correlated each with town population. Correlations were strong, a fact explicitly interpreted with respect to the dispersed populations of areas surrounding the towns and implicitly contributing to affirmation and elucidation of central place ideas. Several investigators have subsequently replicated substantial portions

Seasonal and Spatial Patterns of Air Pollution in Los Angeles County

Abstract: ABUNDANT DATA are becoming available on the chemistry ¦ and meteorology of air pollution,1 as well as its associated human problems. It remains to put these data to work in the interests of sound land use and the better life in general. Household and government policy decisions, for example, may be facilitated by better knowledge of spatial variations in air quality, expressed in ways which can be readily visualized and applied. The significant pollution problem that prevails in the Los Angeles area has prompted voluminous collection of data, which reveal considerable local variation in contaminants by intensity, type, and timing. Portrayal of spatial variations in pollutants within this metropolitan area is therefore seen as a useful and feasible objective. In the present paper the writer summarizes air quality by developing and mapping an air pollution index

Town Founding and the American Frontier

Abstract: One of the clearest statements of the relationship between the frontier and settlement, as originated by Turner and developed by his disciples, is found in the writings of Ray A. Billington. The 1960 edition of his best known work, Westward Expansion, A History of the American Frontier, opens with a chapter entitled “The Frontier Hypothesis.” One element of this familiar postulate involves the concept of the settlement of America through the westward expansion of the frontier, in which the frontier is thought of “as a series of contiguous westward migrating zones.” First into the area came the fur traders; next to arrive were the cattlemen; where conditions permitted, a third zone, consisting of miners, appeared; then came the “pioneer farmers,” followed by a fifth zone of “equipped farmers” who purchased the lands of the pioneers and whose demands called into being the final zone, the “urban frontier.” The transitional process to the ultimate urban frontier was simple, according to the TurnerBillington concept Opportunities provided by “equipped farmers” brought specialists— “millers, merchants, grain dealers, slaughterers, distillers, speculators, schoolmasters, dancing teachers, lawyers and editors”— to the frontier. These specialists “chose their homesites at strategically located points in the center of agricultural communities... As more and more concentrated there, a hamlet, then a village, then a town, gradually took shape.” Towns, according to Billington, seemed to develop slowly by accretion, like coral reefs. The selection of a townsite (as well as urban growth) appears to be a process of the final state of settlement, an activity of the “urban frontier.” A contrary view is expressed by Richard C. Wade, a historian of a younger generation, specializing in urban themes at the University of Chicago. His book, The Urban Frontier 17901830, begins as follows:

Afforestation: A Facet of the Changing Landscape of Mainland China

Abstract: FORESTS cover only about 10 percent of China's total area, a large part of the country having been deforested over the centuries to provide for lumber and fuel needs and space for agriculture. With the exception of the extensive coniferous forests in Manchuria, large expanses of relatively undisturbed forests are found only in the less accessible parts of China: Tsinling Shan, western Szechwan, and remote regions in the southern provinces of Yunnan, Kwangsi, Kwangtung, Kwei chow, and Kiangsi.1 Wood is needed for fuel and various constructional pur poses. The Chinese anticipated an average annual industrial timber requirement of 150 million cubic meters for the period 1960 to 1990, at which date their timber resources will be de pleted if not replenished.2 China has definite need for tree plant

Early Steps in the Classification of Climates

Abstract: is little to add to Thornthwaite's account of the development of Koppen's ideas, except perhaps to note the world map of types of seasonal occurrence of precipitation that Koppen drew for Julius Hann's Atlas der Meteorologie (1887), which served as the basis for mapping his subtypes of climate defined by the occurrence of dry and rainy seasons. I wish to go back beyond the period—essentially the time embraced by Koppen's long adult career—with which Thorn thwaite concerned himself. Arnold Court has called our atten

Conservation Strategies in the Redwoods

Abstract: CONTROVERSY inevitably permeates questions of land use in the United States. Disagreements usually involve traditional economic utilization of the land versus the maintenance of areas in an undeveloped condition, but the lack of accord does not end here. Finer subtleties of viewpoint frequently develop, and the trend toward greater refinement of goals may become more pronounced as society's affluence and complexity are reflected by diverse pressure groups with conflicting outlooks.1 Diversity within the conservation movement which confutes its characterization as a monolithic power block was strikingly revealed in the controversy during the mid-1960's over creating a redwood national park in northwestern California. In that decade there was, to be sure, the usual difference between the \"landscape converting\" group, represented by the forest products industry and affiliated local people, and the \"landscape conserving\" group of conservation organizations. However, the two principal conservation groups, the Save-theRedwoods League and the Sierra Club, were themselves virtual adversaries whose lack of accord was instrumental in delaying the outcome and perhaps swaying it from conservationist objectives that might have been attained had those groups maintained a common front. The differing outlooks of the league

The Black Settlers on Saltspring Island, Canada, in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract: SALTSPRING ISLAND lies off the southeast coast of Vancouver Island, B.C. north of the Saanich Peninsula, in the strait of Georgia. On this island, according to popular myth, a black colony settled in the 1860's. The creation and propagation of this myth is a topic of little academic investigation, and this discussion avoids a direct confrontation with the falsifiers of history. Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that research on Saltspring Island has been; done from white perspectives. These white viewpoints are responsible for the mythological proposition that "because there were blacks on the Island, they constituted a black colony." This myth exists in the face of the facts that the time of arrival, location and interests of the black pioneers were quite different. This paper is an attempt to portray the sequence of events that led up to the settlement and a brief description of the roles and positions of blacks in the colonial society.