Landscape timeline: the 90s

Thesis Statement

Thesis statement: 

I first became interested in this topic when I was in Tanzania last January, staring out he window of a Land Rover at the passing scenery. I first notices the erosion damage on the outskirts of Arusha where a Marsscape of deeply eroded gullies and channels threatened to swallow trees and buildings. The erosion was caused by a combination of overgrazing by livestock and the increasing intensity of rain events. Government policies had been instituted to protect the scant vegetation on the eroded landscape but without topsoil, little will grow and the annual rains wash away more soil every year. As a snapshot of a much larger problem this scenario has many of the major players: subsistence agriculture in the form of grazing livestock, both urban and rural land-use pressures in a developing country, both drought and increased flooding combined with ineffective government land management policies.

There are many different projects world wide working to combat soil degradation in the face of climate change.  Land degradation also has a great diversity of causes; overuse, contamination, and processes associated with climate change, nearly all causes of major land degradation are the result of human activity. I am most interested in those regeneration approaches with the potential for proliferation in highly compromised conditions; places where resources are scarce and the possibility of external assistance is low. Anthropogenic causes of soil degradation are due in large part to poor management. If the vast number of subsistence farmers throughout the world can be mobilized to engage in the work of regenerating soils, the problem of soil degradation may be alleviated in a wide range of landscapes. Major challenges that the the field faces are numerous, most striking and immediately apparent is climate change. However, coupled with climate change is population growth which has placed increased pressures on the land. The lack of access to technology is a major stumbling block for many potential solutions, the technologies employed to create successful agriculture in Israel cannot be employed in Rwanda or Inner Mongolia, these impoverished regions affected by the twin threats of overgrazing and drought.

New processes are emerging to combat and degradation. Specialists in agronomic scientists and remote, rural farmers along with countless others are all working on this problem. Encouraging the growth of vegetation and drought tolerance may be one small piece of the solution in places experiencing reduced rainfall. The development of improved polices on land management may also help in places where compaction and overuse have caused land degradation.  Nothing can be achieved however without the participation of and benefit to the people who are currently most affected by the global land degradation crisis.

Thesis Abstract

How can degraded soils be regenerated to protect to facilitate ecological health and continued human habitation in places of declining biotic diversity and ecosystem performance. Through a survey of case studies, reviewing different conditions that lead to soil degradation, I will look specifically at the patterns of human land use that negatively impact soil quality, the processes that exacerbate these impacts and the mitigation approaches that are being enacted and proposed in order to understand how different mitigation approaches function and assess their potential for success.

The problem of soil degradation carries with it significant global socio-political and environmental consequences. The lives of millions of people, the fates countless species and habitats as well as the trajectory of global climate change are all dependent on the success of these efforts to restore degraded soils.

Desertification of the Gobi in Mongolia

Reading summaries

Kelly McCracken

Design Research

September 25, 2012

Reading summary:

Judith Butler, What is Critique? An Essay in Foucault's Virtue

In this essay Butler looks at critique and evaluates the way it has been discussed by Foucault along with and a number of other theorists. Butler exposes the shared concerns of Williams and Adorno that criticism should not be reduced to simple judgment; Adorno is quoted to illustrate this point; “danger...of judging intellectual phenomena in a subsumptive, uninformed and administrative manner and assimilating them into the prevailing constellations of power which the intellect ought to expose.” By asking the question “What is critique?” Focault challenges the practice and simultaneously performs within it and in doing so takes a position on critique itself. This statement brings Butler to Habermas and the problem of normatively impoverished critique where she asserts that in Focault's writing can be found a normatively enriched critique where “...poiesis itself is central to the politics of desubjugation”.

Foucault's attempts to define critique as a thing can only exist in a state of hetrogneity, that is critique requires an object and that the goal of critique on objects is “to bring into relief the very framework of evaluation itself.” The paradoxical nature of critique that looks out to reflect it's inner structure is challenging and Butler reminds the reader “critique is a practice that requires a certain amount of patience in the same way that reading, according to Nietzsche, required that we act a bit more like cows than humans and learn the art of slow rumination.” Only when there is an idea that exists outside the normative structure can critique be applied to identify it; as Butler puts it, “the tear in the fabric of our epistemological web” is the place from which critique forms.

Foucault connects critique to virtue, as a by recognizing the critical attitude as a critical relation to the normative, which Butler describes as a “specific stylization of morality.” Butler clarifies the concept of morality; “ Moral experience has to do with a self-transformation prompted by a form of knowledge that is foreign to one’s own.” The understanding of an object is limited to the prevailing ontological domain, Foucault's example of austerity is used as an example of this idea. The act of austerity as a self-production is not a denial of pleasure but is a certain “practice of pleasure in the context of moral experience.” The connection Foucault makes between virtue and critique is challenging to reconcile, Butler seeks to extrapolate the nuance of his position by clarifying what it is not, a call for anarchy. In recognizing relationship between the present normative state, ontology and epistemology, Butler sees a threat to liberty. “Who can I become in such a world where the meanings and limits of the subject are set out in advance for me? By what norms am I constrained as I begin to ask what I may become? And what happens when I begin to become that for which there is no place within the given regime of truth?” This liberty is another way to describe the virtue Foucault discusses.

The process of rationalization as the governmentializing of ontology results in the relationship between rationalization and power. “Power sets the limits to what a subject can “be,” beyond which it no longer “is,” .... But power seeks to constrain the subject through the force of coercion, and the resistance to coercion consists in the stylization of the self at the limits of established being.” The stylization of the self is a way of self forming, if this poiese occurs “in disobidence to the principles by which one is formed” then the self is formed virtuously and in this process, desubjugated.   

Reading summary:

Marc Treib, Being Critical

Trieb begins his essay with a discussion of the studio critique, its practice, process and goals. He clarifies that the goal of criticism is not to judge so much as to assists the student in expanding his or her thinking, developing a set of skills most useful to their future success; the ability to meet goals, the ability to speak publicly and understand which ideas are best conveyed through drawings and which are best communicated with words. Listening is also a valuable component of critique for the student as they hear the perspectives and values of different judges reacting to the work of their peers. He enumerates the uses of a design education with 3 items; the experience of the instructors, learning how to learn, and the ability to be self-critical.

Critical thinking is the most important component of academic experience according to Trieb. For landscape architects and designers, this critical evaluation needs to extend to evaluating one's experience of the world, in order create meaningful designs. He uses the various works as a vehicle for asserting his own perspectives on landscape design as a discipline and the primacy of theory in guiding all creative work. In critically addressing issues related to number of major works of landscape architecture, he describes his own process of critical evaluation and the shifting theoretical awarenesses that have facilitated changes in his values. In closing, Trieb reinforces the the absolute necessity of critical thinking for designers and the importance of imagination to better understand the way the places designers create will be received and used.

Annotated Bibliography:

Sivakumar, Mannava, and Ndegwa Ndiang'ui. Climate Change and Land Degradation. Berlin: Springer, 2007. Print. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING.
R. Allan, U. Forstner, W Salomons. The Assessment of Global Trends in Land Degradation 

Land degradation is a significant environmental problem threatening many nations across the globe.  Assessment of land degradation processes has been carried out as early as the 1970s in limited locations and has grown in scope and frequency in recent decades.  Synthesizing this data is both challenging and necessary in order to understand the current state of land degradation on a global scale. 

The challenges to understanding the current extent and trajectory of this problem include the subjectivity of the scales used to evaluate land degradation, the diversity of methods and criteria for evaluating land degradation and the temporally and geographically patchy, conflicting nature of these studies.  The mechanisms that drive land degradation process can be radically different; erosion, salinity, nutrient depletion and vegetation loss are the major categories identified by this assessment.  While the number of countries suffering from land degradation and the severity of the problem has increased, so too has the variability of the data. 

This study exercises caution when drawing conclusions; urging the field to develop a historical record and utilize technology that can provide more objective measures of land degradation processes.  One major contribution this study provides is a strong definition for land degradation: “a persistent reduction in the major land service – primary productivity.” 

W. Wu, E. De Pauw,  Policy Impacts on Land Degradation: Evidence Revealed by Remote Sensing in Western Ordos, China

This study assesses changes in biomass by measuring changes in land cover in Western Ordos, a dry-land region in China. Government policies have resulted in significant land degradation through the creation of grazing lands for communal use.  These communal grasslands were overgrazed by herders who benefited from increased herd size and were not personally responsible for the land.  Additionally, over-foraging of root herbs by peasants caused significant loss of biomass in the soil. In an effort to reduce the process of desertification caused by these practices, the government developed a system of managed rotational grazing and subsidies to keep livestock penned, with feed being harvested elsewhere. Protected portions of the grasslands were established where grazing and foraging were forbidden and land was given time to recover grazing.  This system has resulted in increased livestock holdings and income per capita and mixed results for land regeneration.  In areas where land protection policies can be enforced, the biomass of formerly degraded areas has increased but in unenforceable locations land degradation has become even more severe "land degradation... can be mitigated and reversed by reasonable execution of rational policies" The study concludes in a tone of tempered optimism, acknowledging the value and danger of government policies land-use policies.


Mann, Charles C. "Soil." Our Good Earth. National Geographic, Sept. 2000. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. <http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/mann-text>.


A. Adesina, J. Biadu-Froson, "Farmers' Perceptions and Adoption of New Agricultural Technology: Evidence from Analysis in Burkina Faso and Guinea, West Africa." Agricultural Economics13.1 (1995): 1-9. Print.

 Reji, Chris. Farmer Innovation in Africa: A Source of Inspiration for Agricultural Development. London [u.a.: Earthscan Publ., 2001. Print.

Thackara, John. "Greener Pastures." Greener Pastures § SEEDMAGAZINE.COM. Seed Magazine, 3 June 2010. Web. 24 Sept. 2012. 

How are we going to feed all these people?

Anthropogenic Soil Degradation Map

Source: World Soil Information Database. http://library.isric.org/

Population Growth Rate by Country

Source: Index Mundi. http://www.indexmundi.com/map/?v=24

How 

I found an amazing resource!

I found an amazing resource!

World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT)

How does a sand storage dam work?

Filling of the sand dam aquifer

Sedimentation upstream of the sand storage dam occurs during heavy rainfall events, when river discharge will be high, transporting large quantities of sediments. The grain size of the transported sediments is dependent on river flow velocity and the material comprising the riverbanks. Since most of the land is bare at the start of the rainy season, soils are poorly protected against soil erosion, resulting in a high silt and sand load in the water.
The sand dam will reduce the flow velocity of the river at some distance upstream of the structure. This drop in flow velocity results in sedimentation. The materials found in the river bed prior to construction are a good indication of the type of sediment that will be collected by the sand dam. These sediments form a ridge comparable to the formation of a delta. Upstream of the ‘delta’, flow velocity is higher and coarse sediments are transported. Where the ‘delta’ stops, a sudden drop in flow velocity occurs causing coarse sediments to settle, building the ‘delta’ further towards the sand dam (see figure). Continuous repetition of this process causes the ridge of sand to move towards the dam, eventually filling the total volume behind the dam.

The evolution of sand dams

Genre slide