Jerzy Bański, Michael Meadows, eds.
RESEARCH DIRECTIONS, CHALLENGES AND ACHIEVEMENTS OF MODERN GEOGRAPHY
Springer Singapore 2023, 293 s.
Nor does contemporary geography stand apart from the trends characterising modern science. These are, in particular, deep specialisation and increasing interdisciplinarity. These trends have marked the book’s aim, the content of which is divided into 14 chapters. These present the research orientations and achievements of contemporary geography and its relations with other disciplines. The book’s authors see a parallel between the current trends in world geography and the research orientation of the International Geographical Union (IGU) expert commissions – more than 40 of them.
The chapters of the book are divided into three parts in terms of content:
- The first part (5 chapters) – Research Problems and Challenges in the Geographical Disciplines – deals with the methodology and achievements in various geographical disciplines (e.g. agricultural geography, urban geography, etc.).
- The second part (5 chapters), The Interdisciplinary Nature of Modern Geography, introduces these features and addresses global issues (e.g. global change, marginalisation and globalisation, etc.). The co-author of Chapter 10, entitled Changes in Land Use and Land Cover in the Context of Global Environmental Change – the Contribution of Geography, is Monika Kopecká, PhD, from the Institute of Geography of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. This chapter also includes the results achieved by the Institute’s staff in the cooperation framework on the European-wide CORINE Land Cover project, associated with using satellite remote sensing data to identify land cover objects and changes in land cover.
- The third part (4 chapters) – Territorial Dimension of Geographical Research, discusses the holistic approach of geography to regions or parts of regions (e.g. Africa, coastal systems, etc.).
The idea to compile such a publication was initiated in 2020 by the Secretary General of the IGU – prof. R. B. Singh, who unfortunately did not live to see its publication. He passed away in July 2021.
The inclusion of the results achieved at the IGU of the SAS in the field of the use of DPZs in the present, almost 300-page publication, initiated by the IGU and published by the major publishing house Springer, confirms that these contribute to the global progress of modern geography.
Information about the book and its individual book chapters is available on the publisher’s website.