Environmental Geography

Citation

Marsh, W. M., & Grossa, J., Jr. (2004). Environmental Geography: Science, Land Use, and Earth Systems (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

Chapter Summary

The book has eighteen chapters in about 430 pages, followed by a glossary and a list of references for further reading. Wiley describes it as combining traditional physical geography with human-related environmental issues, emphasising physical processes and systems and using maps and other geographic tools. Each chapter ends with a summary, key terms and concepts, and questions for review. For the third edition the first five chapters were rearranged to move from issues and perspectives, to environmental foundations, to the condition of Earth and its people, and a continuing theme of sustainability runs through sixteen new case studies, twelve of them on sustainability.

Chapters 1–3: A World in Crisis; The Search for an Enduring Balance Between Humanity and Environment; The Global Context and Some Geographic Imperatives

The framing chapters. Chapter 1 begins with population, urban, resource and pollution trends of the twentieth century, weighs signs of progress against continuing problems, and moves on to the idea of development, carrying capacity and limits to growth. Chapter 2 takes up sustainable land use, resource accounting and the constraints on achieving sustainability. Chapter 3 defines the scope of environmental geography, from the global setting and the role of scale and risk to rural and urban land use and the part played by values and regulations.

Chapters 4–5: Global Cycles and Systems; Ecosystems and the Bioclimatic Environment

The scientific foundation. Chapter 4 treats the Earth's spheres, the supply and distribution of solar energy, the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and the Gaia concept. Chapter 5 covers food chains, energy flow, plant productivity, the main types and global patterns of ecosystems, and human disturbance.

Chapters 6–8: The Spread of Humanity and the Last Frontiers; The Human Population; Agriculture, Food Production, Hunger, and the Environment

People and resources: human dispersal and the environments at the margins (wet tropics, dry lands, cold lands, mountains, continental shelves); population trends, the demographic transition, family planning and migration; and agriculture, hunger, the Green Revolution, its environmental effects and prospects for sustainable farming.

Chapters 9–11: Energy Generation, Use, and the Environment; The Atmospheric Environment; Air Pollution

Fossil fuels, nuclear power, renewable sources and efficiency; then atmospheric structure and circulation, the heat balance, the greenhouse effect and global warming, urban climate and climate management; and the types, sources, patterns, effects and control of air pollution.

Chapters 12–15: The Hydrologic Environment; Water Pollution; Hazardous Waste; Soil and Land

Water and land as resource and hazard: the hydrologic cycle, storms, floods, groundwater and water management; pollution of surface water, groundwater and oceans and its treatment; hazardous waste sources, disposal, regulation and recycling; and soil properties, formation, erosion and its consequences.

Chapters 16–18: Biological Diversity; Open-Land Resources; Managing the Global Environment

Biodiversity, extinction and protection; forests, grasslands, parks and wilderness; and the closing chapter on progress toward sustainable development, international institutions and the use of remote sensing and geographic information systems in environmental management.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–5: Framework and Systems

• Carrying capacity and limits to growth: the questions about how many people the Earth can support, introduced in Chapter 1.
• Sustainable land use and natural resource accounting: Chapter 2's approach to balancing use and protection.
• Nutrient cycles and the Gaia concept: matter cycling through the carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and the Gaia idea (discussed with geophysiology) of Earth as a self-regulating system.
• Succession and disturbance: models of how ecosystems change over time.

Chapters 6–15: People, Resources and Pollution

• Demographic transition: the shift in birth and death rates that Chapter 7 uses to explain population trends.
• Green Revolution: higher-yielding agriculture and its environmental costs.
• Greenhouse effect and global warming: the physical basis of Chapter 10.
• Hydrologic cycle, soil formation and erosion: the physical processes behind Chapters 12 and 15.

Chapters 16–18: Conservation and Management

• Landscape ecology and habitat loss: how land-use change affects biodiversity.
• Sustainable development and international institutions: the policy framework of Chapter 18.
• Remote sensing and GIS: the tools for monitoring environmental change.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Physical and human geography together. The contents move from Earth systems and ecosystems to population, agriculture, energy, pollution and land use, so each environmental problem is set on its physical basis and its human causes.
• Sustainability as a thread. Wiley highlights sixteen new case studies, twelve on sustainability, and a stronger emphasis on actions by governments, corporations, NGOs and individuals.
• Policy coverage. Wiley reports that the first edition was praised for covering laws, regulations and international agreements, and regulation appears in section headings of several chapters, for example Chapters 3, 8 and 14.
• Study apparatus and tools. Every chapter closes with a summary, key terms and review questions, and Chapter 18 introduces remote sensing and GIS as practical methods.

Limitations

• Dated evidence. Published in 2004, the book relies on 2003 United Nations population projections and on figures from the early 2000s; the climate chapter includes a subsection headed "A Counterargument" within its treatment of global warming. Current climate science and data need other sources.
• North American emphasis. Many policy and institutional examples are American, among them the Superfund programme, the National Park and National Forest systems, the American conservation movement and US food aid. Other countries appear mainly as case studies, such as Brazil in Chapter 7 and Bhopal and Central and Eastern Europe in Chapter 14.
• Breadth over depth. Eighteen chapters survey every major environmental topic, so students pursuing a specific one, such as political ecology or climate policy, will need a more specialised book.

Where It Fits in the Course

Marsh and Grossa is the general, systems-based textbook of this course. Maslin's Climate Change: A Very Short Introduction is a concise account, published in 2021, of the evidence, impacts, mitigation and adaptation, and brings Chapter 10 and Chapter 18's discussion of climate up to date. McGuire's Global Catastrophes: A Very Short Introduction looks at the natural and human causes and impacts of major catastrophes and is a short complement to the hazards and ecosystem material.

Robbins's Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction treats environmental change as inseparable from power, economy and social difference, a lens that does not appear in the Marsh and Grossa contents list. Hulme's Why We Disagree About Climate Change examines why people who accept the same physical science still disagree, which adds a social dimension to the science of Chapters 10 and 18. Read Marsh and Grossa first as the broad foundation, then choose among these according to interest.

How to Use This Book

Wiley describes the text as written at an appropriate level for undergraduates, giving a good introduction to the key topics, and notes that instructors can choose which topics to emphasise.

A practical plan: read Chapters 1–5 first, since they supply the framework and the systems vocabulary used later. Then select by theme: Chapters 6–8 for population and food, 9–11 for energy and the atmosphere, 12–15 for water, waste and soil, 16–17 for biodiversity and land protection. Finish with Chapter 18, which draws the threads together and introduces remote sensing and GIS.

Use the review questions and key-term lists at the end of each chapter for revision, and treat the numerical data as a snapshot to be checked against current sources.