Society and Environment

The sub-discipline, social geography, is essentially concerned with people in society. Since it is a branch
of geography, the people in society is discussed here with reference to the environment. Environment
includes the physiographic elements of the earth’s surface, like relief, drainage, location, situation, etc.,
the climatic elements, the atmosphere including sunrays, the biotic elements both plants and animals
and man, all in their original status, as well as their activities and interactions.

Society, on the other hand, is a group of people who live in the same environmental condition, work
more or less the same goal, follow same customs and traditions and strike to keep common interest.

Thus, it is clear that the people of a society interact among themselves socially, culturally, economically
and politically and their response to the environmental forces is same.

There have been many serious discussions since the nineteenth century to find out the relationship
between man and environment. It is necessary for the geographers to relate human behaviour with his
habitat. It is seen that physiography, climate and resources vary from place to place and accordingly the
economic condition, food, house types, dress, customs, etc,. of man also vary from place to place.

Geographers like Ells worth Huntington believe that environment that environment determines man’s
economy, his material culture and even his thinking and religion. This proposition is variously referred to
as ‘environmentalism’ or ‘environmental determinism’ or simply ‘determinism’. On the other hand,
certain French geographers, headed by Vidal de La Blache, believe that the dictates of environment is
not so much binding. According to them, environment presents man with a number of possible ways to
live and carry out his economic activities. What way he chooses depends on his level of culture. This
proposition is referred to as ‘possibilism’.

The controls of environment and their perception vary from place to place and from time to time.
Society is also found to have acted on environment, bringing about environmental changes by
destroying the forests, damming and controlling the courses of the rivers, filling low-lying areas and
constructing houses and factories thereon, irrigation projects, afforestation activities, etc. Thus, it is seen
that since environment acts on society and society also acts on environment, the relation between the
two can be best understood through an interaction model or system. The geographers are required to
identify the three major parts in this model, viz. society, environment and the relationships. They are
also to measure their relative importance.

Influence of Environment on Society

That the environmental conditions influence society, to some extent, is beyond doubt, because these
provide the setting in which man operates, while presenting him with a range of opportunities and
constraints. It is said that of all the environmental factors, climate is the most important in influencing
society, for it not only determines this dress, house type, agricultural activities, food habit, etc. but also
influences his health, physiology and capacity of sustained daily work. For example, man can work for
longer hours and feels less drowsiness in a cool day than in a hot day. Ellsworth Huntington and S. F.
Markham even suggest some climatically ideal zone for human activities. Some recent researches in
social geography have shown a correlation between crime and suicide on the one hand, and weather
condition on the other. It is also seen that some climates are beneficial to recouping or convalescing
from some diseases. We feel gay and light in the spring season and the societies over the world hold
their social festivals and functions in such seasons. These are perhaps some of the instances which point
to climate’s influence on the health and mind of man. The influence of climate on his dress, house type,
agriculture, food habit, economy, etc. are too obvious to be discussed here.

Oher elements of environment are relief, drainage, flora and fauna. A coastal area, a plateau, a low-lying
flat plain, a desert or a mountain – each influences the human activities and genre de vie somewhat
differently. Similarly, rivers and waterbodies, large or small, also influence human ecology. Flora and
fauna influence his economic pursuit, house type, food habit and even dress.

Another very important aspect of the relationship between society and environment is that the
environment is under constant change, and it is these changes that influence human activities. These
changes can be grouped into three categories.

Firstly, there are slow but long term changes like the erosion of top soil by rain water, bank erosion by
rivers, silting of the flood plain, deflation and deposition by wind, etc. These changes bring about change
to society and civilization.

Secondly, there are regular but short-term changes like the changes of season, which regulate the crop
raising, migration of land and sea animals, etc. and thus regulate human activities. Thirdly, there are
rapid and unpredictable changes like earthquake, land slide, heavy deluge, volcanic eruption, etc. which
affect human society suddenly but very intensively or extensively.

Man can, by applying science and technology, modify some of the effects of environment. Use of fire,
air-conditioning, central heating, etc. are some such instances to ameliorate the effects of climate.
Similarly, construction of zig-zag roads over the hills, irrigation canals, drainage channels, floating houses
and gardens are some of the example s of adapting to the natural relief and drainage conditions.
However, despite advances in science and technology, society is still dependent to a large extent on the
physical environment. It should be realised in this context that more than half of the working population
of the world are still engaged in the primary industries, like pastoralism, agriculture, fishing, forestry and
mining, upon which the physical environment has direct control. Of course, the nature of dependence
varies from society to society.

A primitive society has less control over the environment and depends on it. But at the same, its needs
are also less. An advanced society, on the other hand, has a greater degree of capacity to manipulate
some of the natural forces to its advantage and hence its relationship with the environment is more
complicated.

However, man in general has been able to control the forces of nature to a considerable extent,
especially in the habitable part (ecumene) of the earth’s surface. These controls and manipulation of the
environment by man have increasingly affected the environment. A study of the relationship between
society and environment must, therefore, include society’s influence on environment.

Influence of Society on Environment

Ever since man appeared on the surface of the earth, he has been manipulating the environment for his
survival and growth. The early gatherers and hunters, by collecting roots, fruits, leaves and their hunted
animals, did affect the environment, but very nominally. Later he used fire. Sometimes forests were
burnt, where grass grew attracting animals for easy hunting. Then he learnt to crow crops by slash and
burn method. This was followed by nomadic pastoralism and sedentary agriculture. In all these activities
he did affect the environment, although to a lesser extent. But since the industrial revolution in Europe
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and migration of the Europeans to the west, east, south and
north, the environments came to be interfered throughout the area of the ecumene. In fact, the natural
environment consisting of indigenous vegetation, animal life, courses of the rivers, etc. have been so
altered in some regions that it has become difficult to distinguish between man-made environment and
natural environment now. It is between man-made environment and natural environment now. It is
obvious that these changes have been brought about by man partly to support him and partly to meet
his increasing range of demands.

One of the important aspects of man’s modification of natural environment can be seen in the extension
of the ecumene (habitable area) with the help of science and technology. With the help of vernalisation,
crop cultivation has bee extended to the north in the tundra. Irrigation and afforestation have helped
man to grow crops and live in the deserts. Land reclamation has extended human habitat to coastal
lowlands and swamps. Hybridization has enabled man to grow some crops in certain areas where such
crops were not grown earlier. For examples, hybrid wheat and grapes are begun to be grown even in the
hot countries.

Another feature noticed in the relationship between society and environment is man’s intensive use of
environment in the recent days to increase its productive capacity. Apart from the use of hybrid seeds,
man is using chemical fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides, weedicides, germicides, irrigation, etc. to
increase crop and fruit production. Similarly, he has been using scientific methods to increase animal
products. All these new methods have, on the one hand, affected the natural environment, and on the
other, the human society itself. For example, the number of population has been increasing of late, too
fast, man’s aspiration for a more comfortable and better life has been rising, science and technology
have been advancing and man’s attitude towards environment has been changing, making him feel as if
the earth has unending resources and these are only to be exploited.

The above discussion shows that man’s interference of the environment has been increasing fast. Such
interferences have led to deterioration of the environment, threatening life itself. For example, the use
of pesticides, weedicides and insecticides deteriorates the quality of soils and poison the atmosphere.
The burning of coal and petroleum has increased carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere increasing
its temperature, the use of industrial coolants has created holes in the ozone layer, the industrial
affluent have polluted the fresh water, the felling of trees has increased top soil erosion, etc. Thus, the
environment pollution and deterioration have emerged as a monumental problem before the society.
The exhaustion of resources, as a result of over-exploitation, has also paused a serious problem to the
society. It has, therefore, become and urgent necessity to conserve and manage the environment in the
best interest of the human society.

The above discussion shows that the interaction between society and environment has two aspects:
environment influences society and society influence environment.

This apparently gives an idea of a two-way-system. The more society exerts influence on the
environment, the more is the change in the latter. Man can also work to restore the environment partly
reducing this change. An analysis of the relationship from this angle is known as interaction model, as
mentioned earlier. The relationship can also be studied by using the concept of an ecosystem. This
approach involves identification of various elements in the system, understanding their mode of action,
knowing their relation to each other and then studying their interaction as a functional whole. It is useful
to the geographers because the various elements of the system can be measured to provide an
explanation of the relationship between society and environment. This approach of studying the
relationship is called system analysis. Some scholars have suggested a modification of the system
analysis by including society as a controller of the positive and negative changes in environment. It says
that a man can, by his activities, bring about quick change, good or bad, to the environment. At the
same time he also, by the methods of conservation and regeneration, maintain stability and partly
restore the equilibrium in the system. Such an approach is called control system approach. An important
aspect here is the culture of the concerned society, because it is culture that determines the form and
process of human influence on environment. It is because of this variation in cultural landscape, which
emerges as a result of interaction between society and environment, varies from area to area. This
interaction, however, depends on the culturally produced perceptions, as mentioned earlier.