Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Nature and Society Relations
Yield declines and producer responses to shifting climate and economic conditions in Mexican coffee production
Published: 2023-04-06
Subjects: Agricultural and Resource Economics, Agricultural Economics, Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Other Environmental Sciences
Coffee’s climate sensitivity contributes to extreme production and price fluctuations. However, as coffee is a perennial crop, producers have difficulty responding to short-term market shifts. Combining historical climate, production and price data from all coffee-growing municipalities in Mexico, we examined trends of climate and coffee production and then characterized and quantified coffee [...]
The March of the Human Footprint
Published: 2022-09-29
Subjects: Arts and Humanities, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Human influence is driving planetary change, often in undesirable and unsustainable ways. Recent advances enabled us to measure changes in humanity’s footprint on Earth annually from 2000 – 2019 with a nine-fold improvement in spatial resolution over previous efforts. We found that earlier studies seriously under-estimated the magnitude, extent, and rate of change in the human footprint. [...]
Millet, Rice, and Isolation: Origins and Persistence of the Worlds Most Enduring Mega-State
Published: 2022-06-05
Subjects: Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, Asian Studies, Comparative Politics, Economic History, Economics, Geography, Growth and Development, Human Geography, International and Area Studies, International Relations, Models and Methods, Nature and Society Relations, Other Anthropology, Other Economics, Other Political Science, Political Economy, Political Science, Regional Economics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology
We propose and test empirically a theory describing the endogenous formation and persistence of mega-states, using China as an example. We suggest that the relative timing of the emergence of agricultural societies, and their distance from each other, set off a race between their autochthonous state-building projects, which determines their extent and persistence. Using a novel dataset describing [...]
Nature’s contributions in coping with a pandemic in the 21st century: A narrative review of evidence during COVID-19
Published: 2021-08-10
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Geography, Medicine and Health Sciences, Mental and Social Health, Nature and Society Relations, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
While COVID-19 lockdowns have slowed coronavirus transmission, such structural measures also have unintended consequences on mental and physical health. Growing evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment (e.g., blue-green spaces) can improve human health and wellbeing. In this narrative review, we synthesized the evidence about natures contributions to health and wellbeing during the [...]
Pathways linking biodiversity to human health: A conceptual framework
Published: 2020-09-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Public Health, Epidemiology, Geography, Immunology and Infectious Disease, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Other Psychology, Psychology, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Biodiversity is a cornerstone of human health and well-being. However, while evidence of the contributions of nature to human health is rapidly building, research into how biodiversity relates to human health remains limited in important respects. In particular, a better mechanistic understanding of the range of pathways through which biodiversity can influence human health is needed. These [...]