Loading...
4 results
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
- (Inter)national and (trans)regional agents: the coastal sand dunes of MozambiquePublication . Freitas, Joana Gaspar de; Raimundo, Inês; García-Pereda, Ignacio; Sampath, D.M.R.Sand dunes characterise an extensive stretch of the coast of Mozambique. These aeolian landforms spread across provincial and countries’ borders and over time infiltrate the lives and actions of local people, authorities, experts, and tourists. This was the set off for a multi-layered study about dunes as agents of (inter)national and (trans)regional webs, due to their entanglement with the human world. This chapter brings into analysis and discussion the present physical and biological specific features of the Mozambican dunes, the Portuguese’s empire attempts to stabilise the sands through dune afforestation, the making a living of nowadays populations pushed to marginal seaside areas by war and poverty, and the exploitation of coastal zones by tourism and other big economic interests. The result is a transdisciplinary overview of the agents, agencies, and processes of change occurring in the Mozambican coast in the 20th and 21st centuries, and their connection to international trends and global environmental concerns.
- Extending the DPSIR framework to analyse Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response of sand dune management in Manawatu-Whanganui (New Zealand) since the 19th centuryPublication . Sampath, Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Ruwan; Freitas, Joana Gaspar de, 1978-; Dias, João Alveirinho, 1947-Coastal sand dunes are multifunctional landscapes with rich biodiversity. In New Zealand, with the establishment of European settlement around 1840, dunes in the Manawatu-Whanganui region were affected due to the removal of their vegetation cover by human activities and animal grazing. As a result, sand drifted further inland affecting villages, infrastructure and agricultural areas. The main response was to introduce marram grass (Ammophila arenaria) used in Europe to stabilize dunes. This solution caused significant environmental impacts as marram grass turned invasive and native habitats of fauna and flora significantly decreased. This paper focused on the long-term analysis of aspects related to sand dune management in the region during two-time frames: 1) from the 19th to the late 20th century and 2) from then on to the early 21st century, using the innovative spiral DPSIR (Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response) framework. Data for this study comes from historical records, scientific literature and present management reports. The integrated spiral framework allows for establishing the connections between historical and future management initiatives for mitigating and adapting to environmental impacts due to socio-economic drivers and their pressures. The study reinforces the paradigm shift from dune stabilization before the late 20th century to the restoration of stabilized dunes to make them active for enhancing native biodiversity should be again assessed in the context of sea-level rise during this century. Coastal managers should adopt an optimized solution between these two extreme solutions adopted from the 19th century to the present, by considering long-term and interdisciplinary analysis to better understand the systems’ evolution and the full consequences of human actions.
- An analysis of coastal sand dune management in Oregon (United States) from the 19th to the 21st centuryPublication . Sampath, Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Ruwan; Freitas, Joana Gaspar de, 1978-; Dias, João Alveirinho, 1947-The Drivers-Pressures-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework was employed to understand the land use policies developed to manage coastal sand dunes and their consequences in Oregon, United States of America, during two contrasting periods: from the 19th to the late 20th century and from there to the early 21st century. A combination of historical data and scientific literature was used for this study. Dune destabilization became a socio-economic issue as Euro-Americans settled in Oregon in the 19th century. Ammophila arenaria and Ammophila breviligulata were widely used for stabilization. This led to a paradigm shift regarding dunes, at a time when their management was becoming more complex due to socio-natural factors. As non-native beachgrasses turned invasive causing the loss of biodiversity and habitats, their removal became the focus to restore the active dunes to support the natural processes of the ecosystem. However, the removal of these beachgrasses, particularly, Ammophila arenaria, results in low dune heights, increasing the risk of coastal flooding by reducing their effectiveness as a natural defense against sea-level rise and extreme storm surges. The reason for the contrasting dune management policies in Oregon since the 1930 s is that the management response to environmental impacts due to human drivers creates new drivers, pressures, and corresponding impacts, as shown in the DPSIR analysis.Thus, land use policies for managing coastal dunes in Oregon and other places must balance efforts to restore the native biodiversity while minimizing coastal flooding in a context of accelerating and continuous sea-level rise in the 21st century.
- Patchy anthropocoasts: a transdisciplinary perspective on dunes, plants, rabbits, and humans in the United KingdomPublication . Vina, Michael Angel, 1977-; Sampath, Dissanayake Mudiyanselage Ruwan; Freitas, Joana Gaspar de, 1978In recent years, there has been increasing societal awareness of the crucial role that coastal dunes play in protecting against rising sea levels, mitigating climate change impacts, promoting biodiversity, and providing recreational opportunities. In some regions, dune management has been particularly focused on biodiversity and ecosystem restoration and the presence of alien species on dunes raises concerns about how these species become 'native,' 'invasive,' or 'hybrids' and whether they belong in their new ecosystems. These concerns illustrate how certain animals and plants assume different statuses according to normative categories associated with varying objectives. This article explores how perceptions of coastal dunes in the UK have transformed over time, from marginal resource frontiers to highly valued environments shaped by multispecies relations. In addition, this work explores how dunes around the UK emerge as ‘patchy anthropocoasts,’ that is, uneven landscapes designed by human purposes linked to economic activities, conservation, rabbit populations, unwanted vegetation, and the control of unpredictable sand movements. Bringing together diverse historical materials and scientific literature, this article links human and nonhuman histories with present debates on dune restoration from a transdisciplinary perspective rooted in anthropology, environmental history, and the natural sciences.