Book Review 26

Review

Title: The Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present and Future, 7th Edition

ISBN 13: 9781118576588

Published: 2013

Pages: 410

Cost: $89.95

Rating (1-5): 5

Submitted By: McLain, Jean E.

Date posted: January 20, 2014

A splendid compendium of what we know and understand about human impacts on environmental change.

Professor Andrew Shaw Goudie is a geographer at the University of Oxford, specializing in desert geomorphology, dust storms, and climate change in the tropics. He has been at the University of Oxford since 1970 and was head of the School of Geography from 1984 until 1994. He has been President of the Geographical Association and of the International Association of Geomorphologists. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of 39 books and more than 200 journal publications.

I first encountered Andrew Goudie’s acclaimed geography textbook, The Human Impact on the Natural Environment, in its 1st edition when it was assigned reading for an undergraduate geography class. At that time I found the book to be a comprehensive review of the social and scientific aspects of ecology, yet easy to read for this college undergraduate. Now in its 7th edition, The Human Impact on the Natural Environment: Past, Present and Future is as interesting as when it first appeared three decades ago and remains a stimulating review of the science of geography.

Part 1 of the textbook, covering the Past and Present, begins with a historical account of how human technology and related cultural adaptations to technologies have impacted and intensified environmental change. Separate chapters are then presented on human effects on vegetation, animals, soil, water, geomorphology, climate, and atmosphere. My own research interests drew me to Chapter 5, The Human Impact on the Waters, which opens with a consideration of the various ways in which humans have deliberately modified river systems, stream flows, and lake and groundwater levels. The second part of the chapter concentrates on human induced changes in freshwater quality, and ends with a consideration of the oceans and seas. Goudie manages to present this incredibly vast amount information in a concise (35 pages), yet highly readable and informative manner.

Part 2 of the book discusses The Future, and breaks the narrative of future human impacts into separate chapters on coastal environments, hydrological and geomorphological impacts, the cryosphere, and drylands. The final chapter delves into the unknown: “Are changes reversible?” and [Are these] “human impacts or nature? Though Goudie does an excellent job documenting and explaining the human processes that have contributed to environmental change, it is this final chapter that demonstrates, somewhat ironically, that the problem of scientific uncertainty is ever present, and that the changes that lie ahead are largely conjecture.

This book can be utilized by upper-level undergraduates as well as graduate students, or by any informed readers who want to enrich their knowledge of physical geography as modified by human action. As a textbook this volume would be useful in any geography or ecology classroom. Not only is the textbook full of clear and concrete examples, it also presents a very good source of up-to-date teaching material in the form of maps, graphs, tables, and other visual presentations of relevant information. Each chapter closes with thought-provoking “points for review” which would stimulate classroom discussion. And finally, the book stands out because of the clarity of the writing, which is straight-forward and free of technical jargon.

In summary, this is a splendid compendium of what we know and understand about human impacts on environmental change. The author is to be congratulated on a work that is suitable as a textbook to courses at all university levels.