Water in the landscape KGA171 The Global Geography of Change Presented by Associate Professor Elaine Stratford Semester 1

Vulnerability L vulnerare – to wound; capable of being wounded; open to attack or damage; assailable Geographical imagination Management responses – harnessing water’s power – the environment ‘speaks back’ Unknown, Outer right wing of an altarpiece with the St Elizabeth’s Day flood, November 1421, with the broken dike at Wieldrecht

LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK Part 1

Revising Module 6 Lecture 1 1. How do Burton and Kates define the term ‘natural hazard’? 2. Name and describe six geo-hazards. 3. What happens to ground stability in conditions of permafrost melt? How would you represent that diagrammatically? 4. List and briefly describe the twelve categories of the Mercalli scale. To what does this scale refer? 5. Name and describe eight atmospheric hazards. 6. What does the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale measure? How many classes does it have? 7. What are five steps when considering how to manage in situations involving hazard? 8. Individual responses to hazard may be seen as a function of at least five variables. What are they? 9. List and describe the characteristics of four main phases of hazard response. Man thinking

Learning Objectives Module 6 Lecture 2 Be able to: describe and explain the movement of water through the landscape in gaseous, liquid and solid forms, and comprehend the transformative effects of such movement [noting that sometimes movement is slow and sometimes involves lengthy storage] understand physical and human geographical dimensions of damming and its strategic use to manage water’s potential and actual hazard status KGA171 demonstrate knowledge of geographical concepts, earth and social systems and spatial patterns of change create and interpret basic maps, graphs and field data identify and analyse different viewpoints to contribute to debates about global development communicate in reflective and academic writing, referencing literature when needed

Textbook Reading BurkeBurke, M., Jorde, K. & Buffington, J.M. (2009) in Journal of Environmental Management 90(3) S224-S236 TiltTilt, B., Braun, Y. & He, D. (2009) in Journal of Environmental Management 90(3) S249-S257 Critical reading 1. What is the author’s purpose? 2. What key questions or problems does the author raise? 3. What information, data and evidence does the author present? 4. What key concepts does the author use to organize this information, this evidence? 5. What key conclusions is the author coming to? Are those conclusions justified? 6. What are the author’s primary assumptions? 7. What viewpoints is the author writing from? 8. What are the implications of the author’s reasoning? [from Foundation for Critical Thinking]Foundation for Critical Thinking Man reading a book

WATER IN THE LANDSCAPE Part 2

Revisiting the hydrologic cycle

Phases of water Gaseous Liquid Solid Sources of water Connate Juvenile Meteoric

Solid water etches landscapes

Ice landscapes may render human landscapes vulnerable Langmoche flash-flood

A climate of change

Liquid water etches the landscape, forms soils

Water is unevenly distributed – and reliance on groundwater may be unwise

There are many deliberate and inadvertent human influences on hydrological processes

Dammed if you do …

The costs and benefits of dams Large dams Some implications for geomorphological processes Some social benefits Some social dis- benefits

CASE STUDY – THE MEKONG Part 3

Asian rivers

Existing and planned dams on the Mekong

The Mekong continued Fresh silt deposited along river banks each wet season Agriculture highly focused on fertile fresh silt as wet season floods decline

The Mekong in Cambodia

Natural process – social and cultural space

Tonle Sap

Vietnam: life on the lower Mekong delta Seasonal flooding is the natural process that has built-up the delta sediments

Future tense?

Last words Milton Osborne, The Asia Pacific Journal