United States

The PulseAugust 8, 2019

Vintage EPA photos reveal what US waterways looked like before pollution was regulated

By Aylin Woodward

Over 40 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, we take for granted that rivers can be restored to a healthy functioning condition. These images taken by EPA photographers in the 1970s show how far we have come, but there’s still much to do.

Business Insider

The PulseMay 2, 2019

It’s Time for a More Inclusive Earth Day

By Bonnie Keeler

UMN Assistant Professor Bonnie Keeler calls for a radical Earth Day agenda centering diverse perspectives to address climate change and define desirable environmental futures.

Humphrey School News

Engagement Environmental Justice United States

The PulseMay 2, 2019

The Connection Between Water, Justice, and Health

By Amanda Abrams

Radhika Fox, CEO of the US Water Alliance, talks about ways to build stronger communities and create sustainable, just water futures.

Shelterforce

Engagement Environmental Justice Planning / Policy Public Programs United States

The PulseMarch 7, 2019

2019 Will Be a Big Year for Water

By Tara Lohan

In the last few weeks of 2018, the Trump administration set the stage for a big battle over water in the new year. At stake is an important rule that defines which waters are protected under the Clean Water Act.

EcoWatch

Planning / Policy Policy United States

PerspectivesMarch 4, 2019

the river

something in the river haunted the island between the city and the border. she felt it, when she was on the waves in the little boat. she didn’t say anything, because what could be said, and to whom?

Arts Engagement Environmental Justice United States

The PulseNovember 15, 2018

‘Environmentalist’ Doesn’t Just Mean White and Wealthy

By Linda Poon

A new study from the National Academy of Sciences finds that many members of minority groups think of themselves as environmentalists, only maybe not in the ways that “mainstream environmentalism” sees itself. Article from CityLab, the urban issues platform from The Atlantic Monthly.

CityLab

Engagement Environmental Justice Planning / Policy United States

The PulseNovember 15, 2018

Can L.A. build new parks and public spaces without gentrifying away low-income residents?

By Jon Christensen and Allesandro Rigolon

As plans move forward for revitalization of the Los Angeles River, questions arise about the potential for “green gentrification.” Waterfront redevelopments often do not serve everyone in the community; many eyes will be on LA to see if this problem can be solved.

Los Angeles Times

Design Engagement Environmental Justice Planning / Policy Policy United States

The PulseJuly 26, 2018

Water: An Essential Element of Summer in the City

By Andrew Small

Hard to think about summer in a city without thinking about water. City Lab has a number of good reads here.

CityLab Daily

Engagement Public Programs United States

The PulseJuly 26, 2018

Rivers of Oil

By MPR News

Minnesota Public Radio, in association with American Public Media’s The Water Main project, has developed a podcast series exploring the connections between oil pipelines and the waters that they threaten.

MPR

Engagement Public Programs United States

PerspectivesApril 27, 2018

One Water: A New Era in Water Management

Under the leadership of the US Water Alliance, a multi-sector coalition of leaders from more than 940 industry, government, and community organizations has joined forces to develop and advance practical solutions to the toughest water challenges facing our nation. As part of the “One Water for America” initiative, this diverse group collaborated to create the recently published One Water for America Policy Framework…

Civil Engineering Engagement Planning / Policy Policy United States

Issue Contents

Introduction

Introduction to Issue Fourteen

Climate change has virtually exploded as a subject of news reports, scientific analysis, and advocacy attention in the past six months. In November, the United States Global Change Research Program released its Fourth National Climate Assessment. Longstanding debates about the relative importance of mitigation and adaptation have further receded in urgency as this spring’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) finding that a million species are threatened with extinction have grabbed headlines worldwide.

By Patrick Nunnally, Editor

Introduction

Guest Editors’ Introduction to Issue Fourteen: Climate, Change & People

Archaeologists, by definition, are interested in using various techniques to learn about the human experience in diverse places, from ancient through contemporary times. A key part of this has been understanding human adaptation to diverse environmental and climatic changes over time, and for archaeologists, the long arc of human existence refers to at least around three million years.

By Lewis C. Messenger Jr. and Brent K. S. Woodfill

Feature

Multiple Ways of Understanding Peru’s Changing Climate

In this article, we consider how the perspectives and experiences of contemporary people facing climate change can enrich our archaeological interpretations of climate change in the past. In particular, we present an ethnographic study from highland Peru that highlights the complex and varied ways people are responding to environmental uncertainty, and explore how their perspectives and responses have led us to question and expand the narratives we construct about ancient people.

By Rebecca Bria and Doris Walter

Feature

Uncovering Amazonia

“Amazonia”—the word alone can conjure up a lot of images, some accurate and some wildly not. In truth, it has many definitions, ranging from a specific drainage basin to a tropical ecological world. For most of my childhood, such kinds of tropical “jungles” were places of peril to be avoided. The very word “Amazon” conjured up Joseph Conrad’s images from Heart of Darkness ([1899] 2015), albeit that book was about the Congo in Africa.

By Lewis C. Messenger Jr.

Feature

What’s in My Backyard? Empowering Indigenous Voices on Firefly Creek at Blue’s Bottom

All of us, regardless if we are Native or non-native, hold a specific location near and dear to our hearts. In this article, I focus on a place near and dear to my heart, exploring the history of my family’s cul-de-sac area known to my family, and much of the surrounding community, as Blue’s Bottom.

By Tianna M. Odegard

Feature

Ethnography and Archaeology of Water in the Maya Lowlands

Procuring potable water is an important factor for daily life in the semitropics, especially for contemporary populations in rural Guatemala. Seasonal subsistence practices are crucial for survival, especially regarding agriculture, droughts, and flooding. This article focuses on the Salinas de los Nueve Cerros region in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala to highlight contemporary land-use practices among the Q’eqchi’ Maya, their adaptations to flooding, droughts, and uses of different water resources.

By Alexander E. Rivas and William G. B. Odum

Geographies

Libraries Burning

The impact of climate change on archaeological and heritage sites in the Arctic region is devastating. New techniques of research and analysis are providing increasingly rich data about the long history of humans in the environment. Just as the value of these sites is being recognized more fully, the sites themselves are being destroyed by thawing permafrost, rising sea levels, and increasingly violent storms. Nowhere is this being felt more intensely than in the Arctic, which is warming two to three times as fast as the rest of the planet (Hoag 2019).

By Phyllis Mauch Messenger

In Review

Desert River Sea is a Vibrant, Compelling Tour of the Kimberley

For the past century, the curator has been the deciding factor in what is shown by museums and galleries, reassuring audiences of the importance of what they are seeing. While acknowledging other commercial and audience drivers, the centrality of curatorial decision-making has been sacrosanct. But when the curatorial team from the Art Gallery of Western Australia embarked on an epic quest to document the art of the Kimberley region in the state’s north west, they abandoned this idea of a single authorial voice in favor of a new model of partnership and exchange.

By Ted Snell

Perspectives

An Archaeologist Writes against the Anthropocene

Much of what archaeologists do is study how humans adapt to the environment. After Gordon Willey’s (1953) groundbreaking investigation into the entire history of occupation of a small valley in Peru, understanding how humans lived in and modified their environment became commonplace. Indeed, the “New Archeology” that took the American academy by storm in the 1960s and strove to make the discipline more scientific made human-environment interactions and the understanding of human-environmental relations one of its central goals...

By Brent K. S. Woodfill

Primary Sources

Water and the Preclassic Maya at El Tintal, Petén, Guatemala

As part of the 1931 Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Uaxactun expedition, geologist C.W. Cooke (1931: 286) noted, “If the bajos were restored to their former condition, the Petén would be a region of many beautiful lakes. Travel in it would be easy, for one could go from place to place by boat, with only short journeys overland, from one lake to another, across country that offers little impediment to travel at any season.” These bajos mentioned by Cooke, low-lying swampy areas prone to flooding, are spread throughout most of the northern lowlands of Petén, Guatemala, characterizing the region with seasonal and perennial wetland systems.

By Mary Jane Acuña and Carlos R. Chiriboga

Teaching and Practice

The Perils and Promise of Using Short-Term Media to Teach Long-Term Climate Patterns

A concern for climate change has burst onto the national media, scientific literatures, and other discourses over the past year. As someone who teaches in design- and natural resource-oriented fields, I feel an obligation to equip my students with critical awarenesses of the patterns, as well as a sense of what they can do, professionally and personally, to face this crisis.

By Patrick Nunnally

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