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Human–environment interactions: learning from the past

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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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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Prof. Dr Wolfgang Cramer for the opportunity to publish in Regional Environmental Change; to the organisers of INQUA 2003 in Reno; and to PAGES for financial support. John Dearing is also grateful to Prof. Elisabeth Vergès and the Université de l’Orléans for providing a visiting professorship during which time the editing was completed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, L69 7ZT, Liverpool, UK

    J. A. Dearing & F. Oldfield

  2. Environmental Change Research Centre, University College London, WC1 0AP, London, UK

    R. W. Battarbee

  3. Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Meckenheimer Allee 166, 53115, Bonn, Germany

    R. Dikau

  4. INRS-ETE, 490 De La Couronne Québec, G1K 9A9, Quebec, Canada

    I. Larocque

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  1. J. A. Dearing
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Correspondence to J. A. Dearing.

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Dearing, J.A., Battarbee, R.W., Dikau, R. et al. Human–environment interactions: learning from the past. Reg Environ Change 6, 1–16 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-005-0011-8

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