Geography

Rosalia M. Roman
Geography

The study of places and the relationships between people and their environments.
Geographers explore both the physical properties of Earth’s surface and the human
societies spread across it. They also examine how human culture interacts with the
natural environment, and the way that locations and places can have an impact on
people. Geography seeks to understand where things are found, why they are there, and
how they develop and change over time

The term "geography" comes to us from the ancient Greeks, who needed a word to
describe the writings and maps that were helping them make sense of the world in which
they lived. In Greek, geo means “earth” and -graphy means “to write.” Using geography,
Greeks developed an understanding of where their homeland was located in relation to
other places, what their own and other places were like, and how people and
environments were distributed.
 Human Geography

▪ Human geography is concerned

with the distribution and
networks of people and cultures
on Earth’s surface. A human
geographer might investigate
the local, regional, and global
impact of rising economic
powers China and India, which
represent 37 percent of the
world’s people.
 Human Geography

Human geographers also study how people use and alter their environments. When, for
example, people allow their animals to overgraze a region, the soil erodes and grassland is
transformed into desert. The impact of overgrazing on the landscape as well as
agricultural production is an area of study for human geographers.
Finally, human geographers study how political, social, and economic systems are
organized across geographical space. These include governments, religious organizations,
and trade partnerships. The boundaries of these groups constantly change.
The main divisions within human geography reflect a concern with different types of
human activities or ways of living. Some examples of human geography include urban
geography, economic geography, cultural geography, political geography, social
geography, and population geography. Human geographers who study geographic
patterns and processes in past times are part of the subdiscipline of historical geography.
Those who study how people understand maps and geographic space belong to a
subdiscipline known as behavioral geography.
 Human Geography

Many human geographers interested in the relationship between humans and the
environment work in the subdisciplines of cultural geography and political
geography.

Some human geographers focus on the connection between human health and
geography. For example, health geographers create maps that track the location
and spread of specific diseases. They analyze the geographic disparities of
health-care access. They are very interested in the impact of the environment on
human health, especially the effects of environmental hazards such as radiation,
lead poisoning, or water pollution.
 Computational Human Geography

Computational Human geography - refers to the use of computational methods and

techniques to solve problems in human geography research and applications. Geographic
information systems (GIS) and science are a big part of computational human geography
but the notion is considerably broader, encompassing spatial process modeling and
simulation, the modeling of spatial decision and behavior, visualization techniques, most
aspects of spatial analysis, and an increasing number of other areas. Computation in
human geography goes back to the beginnings of the quantitative revolution and is
philosophically related though methodologically distinct from it. Two major thrusts have
persisted through the years: the use of numerical techniques to solve large, complex
quantitative problems; and the development of models of complex spatial processes
expressed directly in computational terms. Typical exponents of the latter kinds of
applications are cellular automata models of urban and environmental processes, and
agent-based models of spatial decision and behavior. More recent developments involve
applications of mobile and portable computing.
 Human Geography

▪ Cultural geography studies the relationship between different cultures and place. Geographers will look at how cultures
are distributed over space and how different cultures express their practices on the Earth’s landscape.

▪ Development geography studies the quality of life and standards of living within different communities around the world.
As geographers seek to understand spatial patterns in development, they will look at
economic, political and social factors that affect standards of living.

▪ Economic Geography. under this branch normally study the manner in which products are usually produced and
consequently distributed in their respective niche markets. In addition to this, they also study the way in which wealth is
distributed in various regions over the planet. In general, the structures which control and influence the conditions of the
economy are usually dissected microscopically here.

▪ Population Geography .In most cases, scholars usually equate population geography to demography even though this is
usually not the case. This is mainly owing to the reason that population geography is deeper than the study of the
patterns of a group of people with regards to birth, marriage & death as is the case with demography.

▪ Medical Geography In this branch, geographers normally study the patterns in which particular diseases spread. This
means that pandemics & epidemics are usually studied here as well as common illnesses, general health care and death
as well.
 Human Geography

▪ Military Geography - Geographers who practice this discipline normally conduct their research and studies within
the military fraternity.They mainly study the manner in which military facilities are distributed as well as the best
ways in which the troops can be able to utilize the facilities that they have at their disposal.

▪ Political Geography - This is a very interesting branch of geography that is involved in the investigation of every
aspect of politics. This is with regards to the boundaries of a country, the states it has and the development strategies
that it has in place.In addition, there are other details which are also covered such as: voting, sub-divisions,
diplomacy and international organizations.

▪ Transportation Geography - Geographers who are involved in this branch of geography are usually involved in the
research of the available networks for transportation. This includes both the public ones as well as private ones.
Once the networks have been studied, ways in which to maximize their use in the movement of people and products
can be explored.

▪ Settlement Geography -Settlement geography, which includes urban geography, is the study over time and space of
areas where humans have or currently reside.

▪ Urban Geography - With the development of urban cities worldwide, the branch of urban geography came into play
since it enables researchers to study these trends much more effectively. In addition to this, these geographers are
able to investigate potential locations that are suitable fore development for the tiniest of villages to sprout into the
desired huge cities
 Physical Geography

The natural environment is the primary concern of physical

geographers, although many physical geographers also look
at how humans have altered natural systems. Physical
geographers study Earth’s seasons, climate, atmosphere,
soil, streams, landforms, and oceans. Some disciplines within
physical geography include geomorphology, glaciology,
pedology, hydrology, climatology, biogeography, and
oceanography.
Physical geography consists of many diverse elements. These
include: the study of the earth's interaction with the sun,
seasons, the composition of the atmosphere, atmospheric
pressure and wind, storms and climatic disturbances, climate
zones, microclimates, the hydrologic cycle, soils, rivers and
streams, flora and fauna, weathering, erosion, natural
hazards, deserts, glaciers and ice sheets, coastal terrain,
ecosystems, geologic systems, and so much more.
The Four Spheres
It's a little deceiving (even overly simplistic) to say that physical geography studies the Earth as our
home and looks at the four spheres because each possible area of research encompasses so much.

The atmosphere itself The hydrosphere

has several layers to
The biosphere The study of
study, but the encompasses concerns living things the lithosphere
atmosphere as a topic everything having to on the planet and includes geological
under the lens of do with water, from why they live where processes, such as
physical geography also the water cycle to they do, with topics the formation of
includes research areas acid rain, from ecosystems and rocks, plate tectonics,
such as the ozone layer, biomes to food webs earthquakes,
groundwater, runoff,
the greenhouse effect, and the carbon and volcanoes, soil,
wind, jet streams, and currents, tides, and
weather. oceans. nitrogen cycles. glaciers, and erosion

.
 Sub-Branches of Physical Geography

▪ Geomorphology is the study of landforms and the processes that shape them. Geomorphologists
investigate the nature and impact of wind, ice, rivers, erosion, earthquakes, volcanoes, living
things, and other forces that shape and change the surface of the Earth.

▪ Glaciologists focus on the Earth’s ice fields and their impact on the planet’s climate.
Glaciologists document the properties and distribution of glaciers and icebergs. Data collected by
glaciologists has demonstrated the retreat of Arctic and Antarctic ice in the past century.

▪ Pedologists study soil and how it is created, changed, and classified. Soil studies are used by a
variety of professions, from farmers analyzing field fertility to engineers investigating the
suitability of different areas for building heavy structures.
▪ Hydrology is the study of Earth’s water: its properties, distribution, and effects. Hydrologists are
especially concerned with the movement of water as it cycles from the ocean to the atmosphere,
then back to Earth’s surface. Hydrologists study the water cycle through rainfall into streams,
lakes, the soil, and underground aquifers. Hydrologists provide insights that are critical to
building or removing dams, designing irrigation systems, monitoring water quality, tracking
drought conditions, and predicting flood risk.
 Sub-Branches of Physical Geography

▪ Climatologists study Earth’s climate system and its impact on Earth’s surface. For example,
climatologists make predictions about El Nino, a cyclical weather phenomenon of warm surface
temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. They analyze the dramatic worldwide climate changes caused
by El Nino, such as flooding in Peru, drought in Australia, and, in the United States, the oddities
of heavy Texas rains or an unseasonably warm Minnesota winter.

▪ Biogeographers study the impact of the environment on the distribution of plants and animals.
For example, a biogeographer might document all the places in the world inhabited by a certain
spider species, and what those places have in common.

▪ Oceanography, a related discipline of physical geography, focuses on the creatures and

environments of the world’s oceans. Observation of ocean tides and currents constituted some of
the first oceanographic investigations. For example, 18th-century mariners figured out the
geography of the Gulf Stream, a massive current flowing like a river through the Atlantic Ocean.
The discovery and tracking of the Gulf Stream helped communications and travel between
 Oceanography
Today, oceanographers conduct research on the impacts of water pollution, track tsunamis, design offshore oil
rigs, investigate underwater eruptions of lava, and study all types of marine organisms from toxic algae to friendly
dolphins.

∙ Meteorology: the study of Earth's weather, such as ∙ Landscape ecology: the study of how ecosystems interact
fronts, precipitation, wind, storms, and the like, as with and affect each other in an area, especially looking at the
effects of the uneven distribution of landforms and species in
well as forecasting short-term weather based on these ecosystems (spatial heterogeneity)
available data
∙ Geomatics: the field that gathers and analyzes geographic
∙ Paleogeography: the study of historical data, including the gravitational force of Earth, the motion of
geographies, such as the location of the continents the poles and Earth's crust, and ocean tides (geodesy). In
geomatics, researchers use the Geographic Information
over time, through looking at geological evidence, System (GIS), which is a computerized system for working
such as the fossil record with map-based data.

∙ Coastal geography: the study of the coasts, ∙ Environmental geography: the study of the interactions
specifically concerning what happens where land between people and their environment and the resulting
effects, both on the environment and on the people; this field
and water meet bridges physical geography and human geography.

∙ Quaternary science: the study of the previous 2.6 ∙ Astronomical geography or astronography: the study of
million years on Earth, such as the most recent ice how the sun and moon affect the Earth as well as our planet's
age and Holocene period, including what it can tell relationship to other celestial bodies
us about the change in Earth's environment and
climate
Human and Physical Geography
Instructor: Rosalia M. Roman
Cronasia Foundation College, Inc.