Used planet: A global history
University of Maryland, Baltimore County · École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne · +5 more institutions
Abstract
Human use of land has transformed ecosystem pattern and process across most of the terrestrial biosphere, a global change often described as historically recent and potentially catastrophic for both humanity and the biosphere. Interdisciplinary paleoecological, archaeological, and historical studies challenge this view, indicating that land use has been extensive and sustained for millennia in some regions and that recent trends may represent as much a recovery as an acceleration. Here we synthesize recent scientific evidence and theory on the emergence, history, and future of land use as a process transforming the Earth System and use this to explain why relatively small human populations likely caused…
Citation impact
- FWCI
- 99.85
- Percentile
- 100%
- References
- 145
Authors
6Topics & keywords
- Biosphere
- Land use
- Geography
- Arable land
- Global change
- Niche construction
- Climate change
- Environmental change
- Life in Land