University of Colorado at Boulder

Dept Theme

Environment-Society Relations


Human dimensions of environmental change; natural resources; conservation behavior

From its earliest development as an academic field, geography has been concerned with the manifold relations between societies and their natural and built environments. Societies adapt and transform the environments they inhabit. They depend upon the use of resources and reduction of hazards for their survival and material well-being. They also assign meanings to the environment that vary over place and time, but that help define their identity and values within the world. Geographers tend to study these phenomena under the broad headings of resource use, natural hazards, sustainable development, landscape studies, cultural ecology, and environmental conservation. The University of Colorado has special strength in land and water resource issues in the American West, Africa, Latin America, and Asia. Students concentrating on environment-society relations are advised to take the introductory courses in human and physical geography and then, depending upon their academic interests and aims, to concentrate on specific topics and regions in the environment- society area.

Faculty teaching and/or performing research in Environment-Society Relations

Maxwell
Boykoff
environmental governance, cultural politics, science-policy interactions, political economy Adjunct
Mara
Goldman
Political Ecology;  Science and Technology Studies;  indigenous knowledge;  Nature-Society Relations
Tania
Schoennagel
Disturbance ecology; climate change; landscape modeling Adjunct
William
Travis
Natural Resource Conservation; Environment & Society
Bruce
Van Haveren
Natural Resources & Public Lands Policy; Wildlands Ecology and Conservation; Watershed Hydrology Adjunct
Emily
Yeh
Nature/society geography; political ecology; cultural politics; development; Tibet; China

Graduate Students in Environment-Society Relations

16 students total. TIP: To sort by more than one column, hold down the shift key while clicking an additional column header.

Name Degree     Specialties
Akeson, Cole M.A. Political and economic geography; energy resources and geopolitics; Ukraine & Russia; volunteerism
Auger, Mason Ph.D. Native American Culture; Symbolic Land Use
Clarke-Sather, Afton Ph.D. China; development, human-environment interactions
Clifford, Katherine M.A. American West; decision making and uncertainty; climate change; land and water resources
Griffith, Chandler Ph.D. food systems, climate risk, environmental justice
Lee, Ahn M.A. land-use change, migration
Longenecker, H.E. Ph.D. Climatology; Climate Change; Hazard/Risk Vulnerability
Lovell, Eric Ph.D. pastoral livelihoods; dryland resource access; critical cartography; GIS; mapping; STS
Malmberg, Julie Ph.D. Human Biometeorology
Naficy, Cameron Ph.D. Disturbance ecology; tree ecophysiology; climate variability; restoration; remote sensing
Petchprayoon, Pakorn Ph.D. Remote Sensing & Surface Energy Balance
Reiff, Eric Ph.D. Env-soc relations; landscape ecology; political ecology; sustainable economic develop; globalization
Rosati, Antonia Ph.D. climate; natural hazards
Skog, Lindsay Ph.D. Intersection of belief systems, landscapes, & conservation in high Asia
Smith, Samuel Ph.D. Historic/Urban Geog-links between historic mining settlements & current tourist areas
Wharton, Elizabeth Ph.D. China's development role in the Horn of Africa

News and Events related to Environment-Society Relations

Selected Publications by Faculty and Graduate Students associated with Environment-Society Relations

Faculty

 Maxwell Boykoff

Bottrill, C., Liverman, D., and Boykoff, M. (2010). Carbon soundings: greenhouse gas emissions of the UK music industry. Environmental Research Letters, Vol. 5.

Boykoff, M. (2010). Turning down the heat: the politics of climate policy in affluent democracies. Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy 28 567-570 .

Boykoff, M.T. (2010). Climate quarrels: ‘It’s not you, it’s me .. well it’s us’. Forum review for "Why We Disagree About Climate Change. Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity" by M. Hulme, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 176, No. 3, September 2010, pp. 267–269. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4959.2010.00371.x

Boykoff, M.T., and J. Smith. (2010). Media Presentations of Climate Change. Routledge Handbook of Climate Change and Society 210-218, Routledge.

O'Neill, S.J. and M. Boykoff. (2010). Climate denier, skeptic, or contrarian?. PNAS. doi:10.1073/pnas.1010507107

 Mara Goldman

Goldman, M.J. (2011). Strangers in their own land: Maasai and wildlife conservation in northern Tanzania. Conservation and Society 9(1):65-79.

Goldman, M.J., P. Nadasdy, and M.D. Turner, eds. (2011). Knowing Nature: Conversations at the intersection of political ecology and science studies. Chicago: University of Chicago University Press .

Goldman, M.J., J. Roque de Pinho and J. Perry. (2010). Maintaining complex relations with large cats: Maasai and Lions in Kenya and Tanzania. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 15 (5), 332-246 .

Goldman, M. (2009). Constructing Connectivity? Conservation corridors and conservation politics in East African rangelands. Annals of the Association of American Geographers. 99 (2):335-359 .

Goldman, M. (2007). Tracking wildebeest, locating knowledge: Maasai and conservation biology understandings of wildebeest behavior in Northern Tanzania. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25: 307-331.

 Tania Schoennagel

Krasnow, K. T. Schoennagel, T.T. Veblen. (2009). Forest fuel mapping and validation of LANDFIRE fuel maps in Boulder County, Colorado. Forest Ecology and Management. 257: 1603- 1612.

Schoennagel, T., C.R. Nelson, D.M. Theobald, G. Carnwath, T.B. Chapman. (2009). Schoennagel, T., C.R. Nelson, D.M. Theobald, G. Carnwath, T.B. Chapman. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In press.

Nelson, C.R., Schoennagel T., and E. Gregory. (2008). Opportunities for academic training in the science and practice of restoration within the United States and Canada. Restoration Ecology 16(2): 125-230.

Schoennagel, T., E.A. Smithwick, M.G. Turner. (2008). Landscape heterogeneity following large fires: Insights from Yellowstone National Park, USA. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 17: 742-753.

Schoennagel, T., T.T. Veblen, D. Kulakowski, and A. Holz. (2007). Multidecadal climate variability and interactions among Pacific and Atlantic sea surface temperature anomalies affect subalpine fire occurrence, western Colorado (USA). Ecology 88(11): 2891-2902.

 Emily Yeh

Yeh, Emily T. (2012). Transnational environmentalism and entanglements of sovereignty: The tiger campaign across the Himalayas. Political Geography 31:408-418 .

Yeh, Emily T. and Gaerrang. (2011). Tibetan pastoralism in neoliberalizing China: Continuity and change in Gouli. Area 43(2): 165-172.

Yeh, Emily T. (2009). Greening Western China: A critical view. Geoforum. 40:884-894.

Yeh, Emily T. (2009). From wasteland to wetland? Nature and nation in China's Tibet. Environmental History 14(1): 103-137.

Yeh, Emily T. (in press). Blazing pelts and burning passions: Nationalism, cultural politics and spectacular decommodification in Tibet. Journal of Asian Studies.


Grad Students