Introduction to

Physical Geography

- A modern science with ancient roots -

Bernd Eversmann

About this course

• About 10 lessons of 90 Minutes each

• Not designed as a monologue: Please be on time, switch off

cellphones and participate actively: Your questions and

contributions are very much welcome

• Objective of the course: Get a deeper understanding of how

our planet works and how the foundations laid out by the

Physical Geography of the Earth influences us humans.

One of your contributions

• As your contribution to this course, you will be expected to

stay current with world news related to physical geography. In

particular, you will keep a Physical Geo Journal with

summaries of relevant news stories or similar material.

• Your journal should contain at least 5 entries at the end of the

course. For each entry, you will summarize three news stories

or other material related to the physical geography of the

region at hand. Each entry should be a paragraph long and in

your own words. Stories should come from reputable sources.

You will need to include the reference(s) for each news story.

Today:

• Definition of the subject

• A brief look at history

• The spherical earth and early maps

• Modern Geography

• Physical and Human Geography

• Systems theory

Geography

From the greek words

geos and graphein,

literally: describing the

earth

Definition:

Geography is the science that

studies the lands, the features,

the inhabitants, and the

phenomena of the Earth

(The American Heritage

Dictionary/ of the English

Language).

Perspectives of Geography

The three unique perspectives of geography—its spatial viewpoint, its synthesis

of related fields, and its representation of spatial processes and information—

are diagrammed as three dimensions occupying the sides of a cube.

Source: Strahler 2010, p.4)

Questions Physical Geography

aims to answer...

A brief look at History

• History: very different for the various cultural groups:

Babylon, Graeco-Roman World, China, Islam, ...

• Cartography (we‘ll look at that shortly)

From a european perspective:

• Europe: The age of discovery

• Enlightenment

• The quantitative revolution, ...

Recommended reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_geography

A brief History of Physical Geography

• Uniformitarianism (late 18th century): Catastrophic forces or

continuing uniformity of existing processes responsible for the

present condition of the earth?

• Evolution: „On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural

Selection ...“ (Charles Darwin 1859)

• Exploration and Survey: Basic data collection in all geographic

fields after 1900

• Conservation became a concern from the 1850s onwards

• The Quantitative Revolution: From observation to analysis and

modeling (After 1950)

• The study of Human/Land Relationships

Spherical Earth and Meridians

Whereas a number of previous Greek philosophers presumed

the earth to be spherical, Aristotle (384–322 BCE) is the one to

be credited with proving the Earth's sphericity.

Source: Wikipedia

Your Homework:

What arguments did Aristotle and others (later) use to prove

that the earth is a spherical body?

Measuring the Earth

• Eratosthenes (276-194 BC): First person to use the term

Geography

Eratosthenes will always be remembered for the

calculation of the Earth's circumference circa 240

BC, using trigonometry and knowledge of the angle

of elevation of the Sun at noon in Alexandria and

Syene (now Aswan, Egypt). The calculation is based

on the assumption that the Earth is spherical and

that the Sun is so far away that its rays can be taken

as parallel.

The age of Discovery

Early Maps I

Reconstructed world map by Hecataeus of Miletus, ca. 500 BCE

Early Maps II

The Ptolemy world map is a map of the known world to Western society in the 2nd century CE. It was based

on the description contained in Ptolemy's book Geographia, written ca. 150 CE.

Perhaps the most significant contribution of Ptolemy and his maps is the first uses of longitudinal and

latitudinal lines and the specifying of terrestrial locations by celestial observations.

Early Maps III

Tabula Rogeriana drawn by arab cartographer Muhammed Al-Idrisi for the

Norman King Roger II of Sicily in 1154 (upside down)

Early Maps IV

The Chinese Yu Ji Tu (Map of the

Tracks of Yu the Great), a map

carved into stone in the year

1137 during the Song Dynasty,

located in the Stele Forest of

modern-day Xian, China. Yu the

Great refers to the Chinese deity

described in the Chinese

geographical work of the Yu

Gong, a chapter of the Classic of

History. Needham and Chavannes

assert that the original map must

have predated the 12th century.

Source: Wikipedia (History of

Geography)

Modern Geography

An all-encompassing discipline that seeks to understand the

Earth and all of its human and natural complexities

– where objects are

– how they have changed and come to be

– how they influence each other

4 Traditions of Geography

• Spatial Tradition (also called Locational Tradition)

• Area Studies Tradition (also called Regional Tradition)

• Man-Land Tradition (Human-Environmental)

• Earth Science Tradition

(Pattison 1963)

Natural or Social Science?

• Geography has been called "the world discipline" and "the

bridge between the human and the physical science".

Natural ScienceNatural Science

Social ScienceSocial Science

Rocks, Minerals, Soils

Landforms

Atmosphere

Climate & Weather

Water

The environment

Rivers and Other Water Bodies

Plants

Animals

Oceans

Population

Settlements

Urban systems

Agricultural

Systems

Human Migration

Social Traditions

Political Systems

Religion

Recreational

activities

Transportation

Economic Activities

A holistic approach

Physical Geography

• Physical geography is that branch of natural science which

deals with the study of processes and patterns in the natural

environment like the atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere,

and geosphere, as opposed to the cultural or built

environment, the domain of human geography (Wikipedia)

• The main purpose of Physical Geography is to explain the

spatial characteristics of the various natural phenomena

associated with the Earth's hydrosphere, biosphere,

atmosphere, and lithosphere (physicalgeography.net)

• Modern research in physical geography is often

interdisciplinary and uses the systems approach.

Environmental Spheres

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008

Spheres or „great systems“. Are they open or closed?

Tools of the Phyiscal Geographer

• Fieldwork

• Maps and

Cartography

• GIS, GPS and

Remote Sensing

• Mathematical

Modeling

• Statistics