Plains of Promise, Rivers of Destiny

Plains of Promise, Rivers of Destiny
Author: Joseph Michael Powell
Publisher: Boolarong Press
Total Pages: 424
Release: 1991
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN:

Analysis of the role of water management in the development of Queensland after its separation from NSW. The book is divided into four chronological parts, each beginning with a discussion of general background issues. The author is a prolific and well-known writer and lecturer in human geography.

Words for Country

Words for Country
Author: Tim Bonyhady
Publisher: UNSW Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2002
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780868406282

Stories and phrases can powerfully shape the ways we experience and manage our environment. What languages have been used to characterise Australian landscapes and how have they influenced the way we see and treat our environment? How do stories take root in particular places? How do we find the right words for those parts of the country that matter to us? "Words for Country" answers these questions while exploring the inter-relationship between Australia's landscape and language. Tim Bonyhady and Tom Griffiths have brought together a collection of essays whose subjects range from the Ord River in the far north-west to Antarctica in the south, from the centre to the coast, the prehistoric to the present. Their terrain is environmental and cultural, political and poetic. Words for Country reveals not just how language grows out of the landscape but how words and stories shape the places in which we live.

The Arid Frontier

The Arid Frontier
Author: Hendrik J. Bruins
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2012-12-06
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401148880

The arid frontier has been a challenge for humanity from time immemorial. Drylands cover more than one-third of the global land surface, distributed over Africa, Asia, Australia, America and Southern Europe. Disasters may develop as a result of complex interactions between drought, desertification and society. Therefore, proactive planning and interactive management, including disaster-coping strategies, are essential in dealing with arid-frontier development. This book presents a conceptual framework with case studies in dryland development and management. The option of a rational and ethical discourse for development that is beneficial for both the environment and society is emphasized, avoiding extreme environmentalism and human destructionism, combating both desertification and human livelihood insecurity. Such development has to be based on appropriate ethics, legislation, policy, proactive planning and interactive management. Excellent scholars address these issues, focusing on the principal interactions between people and dryland environments in terms of drought, food, land, water, renewable energy and housing. Audience: This volume will be of great value to all those interested in Dryland Development and Management: professionals and policy-makers in governmental, international and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), as well as researchers, lecturers and students in Geography, Environmental Management, Regional Studies, Development Anthropology, Hazard and Disaster Management, Agriculture and Pastoralism, Land and Water Use, African Studies, and Renewable Energy Resources.

A River with a City Problem

A River with a City Problem
Author: Margaret Cook
Publisher: Univ. of Queensland Press
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2023-05-22
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 0702267058

When floods devastated South East Queensland in 2011, who was to blame? Despite the inherent risk of living on a floodplain, most residents had pinned their hopes on Wivenhoe Dam to protect them, and when it failed to do so, dam operators were blamed for the scale of the catastrophic events that followed. A River with a City Problem is a compelling history of floods in the Brisbane River catchment, especially those in 1893, 1974, 2011 and 2022. Extensively researched, it highlights the force of nature, the vagaries of politics and the power of community. With many river cities facing urban development challenges, historian Margaret Cook makes a convincing argument for what must change to prevent further tragedy. In this updated edition, Cook investigates the 2022 floods to illustrate how no two floods are the same.

Droughts, Cyclones & Floods

Droughts, Cyclones & Floods
Author: Don Garden
Publisher: Australian Scholarly Publishing
Total Pages: 1045
Release: 2017-02-03
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 1921509384

Droughts, Floods and Cyclones is the most comprehensive study of this phenomenon, examining the impact of a series of El NiƱo events in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and French Polynesia in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand

Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand
Author: Joanna Boileau
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2017-07-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 3319518712

This book offers a fresh perspective on the Chinese diaspora. It is about the mobilisation of knowledge across time and space, exploring the history of Chinese market gardening in Australia and New Zealand. It enlarges our understanding of processes of technological change and human mobility, highlighting the mobility of migrants as an essential element in the mobility and adaptation of technologies. Truly multidisciplinary, Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand incorporates elements of economic, agricultural, social, cultural and environmental history, along with archaeology, to document how Chinese market gardeners from subtropical southern China adapted their horticultural techniques and technologies to novel environments and the demands of European consumers. It shows that they made a significant contribution to the economies of Australia and New Zealand, developing flexible strategies to cope with the vagaries of climate and changing business and social environments which were often hostile towards Asian immigrants. Chinese Market Gardening in Australia and New Zealand will appeal to students and scholars in the fields of the Chinese diaspora, in particular the history of the Chinese in Australasia; the history of technology; horticultural and garden history; and environmental history, as well as Asian studies more generally.

Geography and History

Geography and History
Author: Alan R. H. Baker
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2003-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780521288859

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Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-1900

Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650-1900
Author: John C. Weaver
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 524
Release: 2003
Genre: America
ISBN: 9780773525276

A critique of the greatest reallocation of resources in the history of the world and an analysis of its effects on indigenous peoples, the growth of property rights, and the evolution of ideas that make up the foundation of the modern world.

Gardening the World

Gardening the World
Author: Veronica Strang
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2009
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9781845456061

Around the world, intensifying development and human demands for fresh water are placing unsustainable pressures on finite resources. Countries are waging war over transboundary rivers, and rural and urban communities are increasingly divided as irrigation demands compete with domestic desires. Marginal groups are losing access to water as powerful elites protect their own interests, and entire ecosystems are being severely degraded. These problems are particularly evident in Australia, with its industrialised economy and arid climate. Yet there have been relatively few attempts to examine the social and cultural complexities that underlie people's engagements with water. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in two major Australian river catchments (the Mitchell River in Cape York, and the Brisbane River in southeast Queensland), this book examines their major water using and managing groups: indigenous communities, farmers, industries, recreational and domestic water users, and environmental organisations. It explores the issues that shape their different beliefs, values and practices in relation to water, and considers the specifically cultural or sub-cultural meanings that they encode in their material surroundings. Through an analysis of each group's diverse efforts to 'garden the world', it provides insights into the complexities of human-environmental relationships.