Geographical Concepts
Geography is a field of science that deals with the study of lands, the inhabitants, features and phenomena of the earth. Geography is a discipline that seeks to understand the earth together with its human and natural complexities. In a bid to understand geography, geographers divided it into two main branches; physical geography and human geography. Physical geography focuses on the features of the earth. Physical geography focuses on climates, formation of landforms, as well as animal and plant distribution. Human geography on the other hand focuses on the social cultural aspects of the earth. This branch of geography examines the aspects of human existence and is essential to our understanding of human culture. Geography is therefore a discipline that deals with the description, interaction and distribution of diverse cultural, physical and biological features of the earth’s surface. To have a better understanding of geography, it is essential to look at the elements or concepts of the branches of geography. The main concepts in geography are; location, region, spatial, hearth, migration, diffusion, sovereignty, environment and land use.
The concept of location focuses on the significance places and what they are like. Understanding of the concept location is examined in the following ways. Locations are parts of the earth’s surface identified and given meaning by human beings. Locations on earth range in size from a small garden or room to a large region like a country or continent. Places can be described by shape, boundaries, locations environment, physical features and human characteristics. These characteristics can be tangible; like people and landforms or intangible; like culture and scenic quality. Locations give us a sense of belonging and identity and offer us with the necessary facilities and services important for supporting our lives. Human actions influence the environmental processes both short and long term.
Spatial regions
This is the other concept that is important in understanding geography. It focuses on how people manage and organize spaces they live in. human characteristics of places are influenced by their region. Individual characteristics of locations form spatial distributions. The analysis of the spatial distributions helps in understanding the geography of the region. Spatial distributions also have social, economic, environmental and political consequences. Spatial regions are structured, organized, perceived and managed by people. These regions can be designed and redesigned to achieve specific purposes.
Regions
Geographers use regions as a means of grouping information units of manageable proportions. A region refers to an area of land that has consistent features, or easily recognizable features. Regions do vary in size, with some as big as the size of Africa while others as small as Annapolis valley. I describing regions, geographers not only look at physical features of a region, but by use of other cultural traits like religion, income, language and political boundaries.
Environment
The concept of environment focuses on how the environment affects human life as well as the interrelationships between humans and the environment. The environment encompasses geological, hydrological, atmospheric, biotic and human processes. The environment is an important concept to understand because it offers supports to humans and other life by providing flood, raw materials and gives a safe habitat. The environment however presents constraints economic development and human settlement. These constraints can be reduced by use of technology, but not completely eliminated. Population density, culture, level of technology, type of economy and values influence the different ways in which individuals adapt to, perceive and use similar environments. The management of human-induced change in environment requires an understanding of consequences and causes of change. It involves application of techniques and geographical concepts to identify required strategies (Bjeland, 2013). Different environments come with different hazards and their effects are determined by both human and natural factors. These hazards can be reduced by mitigation, prevention and preparedness.
Interconnection
The concept of interconnection posits that objects of geographical study are interconnected and none of them can be viewed in isolation. The interconnections have various influences on the characteristics places or locations and on the changes that might occur in these characteristics. One of the most basic interactions involves human and environmental processes. For instance, the water cycle, human induced environmental change and urbanization are some sets of interconnections that can operate within and between places. These elements of interaction can sometimes be organized as systems involving networks of interconnections through flows of energy, matter actions and information.
Sustainability
The geographical concept of sustainability focuses on the capacity of the environment to sustain or support the lives of human beings as well as the lives of other creatures and lives into the future. The understanding of the concept sustainability in the explanation of geography is that; sustainability can be viewed as both a way of thinking and a goal and how to progress towards that goal. The progress towards the sustainability of our environment depends on restoration or maintenance of the environmental functions that sustain human well being together with all life. To have an understanding of the causes of unsustainability, it is important to study environmental processes that produce the degradation of a given environmental function. It also focuses on the human actions responsible for initiating these processes together with the attitudinal, social, economic, demographic and political causes of these human actions. These features can be nest understood through analysis of the framework of human –environment systems. There are many views that seek to explain how progress towards sustainability can be achieved. Most of the views are informed by views such as sustainability.
Scale
The concept of scale as used to understand geography, examines how geographical issues and phenomena can be understood at different spatial levels. For instance, generalizations made and relationships realized at a given level of scale may differ with those at a different level of the scale; higher or lower. For instance in studying vegetation, climate is seen as the main factor at the global level or scale, but other factors such as drainage and soil may be the main factors at a local level or scale. Cause –and- effect relationships often cross scales from local to global scales and fro global to local. For instance, local events can have global outcomes, such as interference of a local vegetation on the on the global climate. Likewise, global events might have local outcomes, like the change on climatic conditions on local vegetation.
Change
The concept of change focuses on the explanation of geographical phenomena by investigating how much they have developed over a given period. Change can occur on geographical phenomena such as the environment over both long and short time frames, and both of the time frames are interrelated with human activities. Economic, social, environmental and technological changes are spatially uneven, and they affect places differently. An understanding of current change processes can help predict future changes and the identification of the factors that would help achieve preferred and more sustainable futures.
Culture
In studying geography, it is important to understand and take into consideration the idea of culture, customs, as well as the world view of a particular people. Various cultures have different views on geographical phenomena such as environment, use of natural resources and coexistence in human communities. Culture difference even exists among individuals living in the same region.
Patterns
Most of the events studied by geographers can be found in more than one region or location in the world. This explains partial distribution. However, when in their studies, geographers come across patterns of the same event in places that are far apart, and then such patterns are described as spatial patterns. For instance locations of suburbs across the world have similar patterns. Similarly, the intensity of air pollution in different regions of the world have similar pattern, mostly in urban areas where there are many factories.
References
Bjeland, A. G. (2013). Introduction to Geography. New York: McGraw-Hill
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