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4Ученые записки Таврического национального университета имени В.И.Вернадского Серия «География». Том 24 (63). 2011 г. №2, часть 1. С. 219-225.
УДК 911.2 (477)
NATURAL CONDITIONS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY IN REAL GEOGRAPHICAL SPACE: THE CHOICE OF THE RESEARCH AREA Goclowski A.
University of Warsaw, Warsaw; University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in Siedlce, Siedlce
E-mail: amgoclow@)uw.edu.p
In the present article, the author analyses some properties of physico- and anthropogeographical regions, chosen on the basis of their usefulness in research on natural factors conditioning human activity in real geographical space. Special attention is given to the following elements: physico-geographic boundaries and settlement borders in the context of their significance to the optimization of the choice of the research area. Keywords: homogeneous and nodal regions, physico-geographic boundary, settlement border, natural "passability", optimization of the choice of the research area
INTRODUCTION
Research on the natural conditions of human activity in real geographical space, formerly conducted within anthropogeographical studies, is done very rarely (cf. e.g. A. Goclowski 1997). However, in the last decades there has been "(...) a revival of scientific interest in the issue of the connections between economy and natural environment" (R. Domanski 1990, p. 101). A long-discussed matter of the need to study mutual relationships between regions of various types - natural ones and the ones connected with human activity - "(...) makes the question of the relationships between economic regions and natural regions topical again. [...] The literature on the subject is extensive, but there is a lack of properly justified solutions" (l.c.). One of the unresolved problems is the lack of optimal procedures to delimit the area of research of the above-mentioned relations.
It has long been known that a wide variety of environmental conditions is generally beneficial to human activity. According to an outstanding Polish geographer, Eugeniusz Romer, "(...) the variety of natural conditions, engendering differences in production and culture, stimulates movement between societies, and therefore it also tightens the bonds between them" (in: D. J^drzejczyk 1999, p. 30).
A particularly wide variety of natural conditions is a characteristic feature of physico-geographic boundaries. They constitute gradient zones within the features of neighbouring physico-geographic regions. The latter are by definition internally relatively homogeneous, and thus they have to be characterized by a lesser degree of internal differentiation than the surrounding border zones.
Areas which differ considerably from one another in natural features, in many ways and with different intensity can favour (or not) human activity, regardless of the cultural formation. For example, when "(...) we look at the boreal zone of Eurasian coniferous forests, we will find that the homogeneous landscape zone belongs to three different cultural regions: the Western European region in Scandinavia and Finland, the Russian region from Eastern Karelia beyond the River Daugava, and the Palearctic region. The borders of the cultural regions do not coincide with the division into natural units" (C.
Troll 1965, p. 19). This simple example proves that physico-geographic demarcation is insufficient to study the causes of differences of human activity in nature.
Moving to a more detailed scale, we can find that, for instance, in European conditions settlements are mostly concentrated on the coasts and in river valleys. Highly and permanently developed areas mainly run along morphological borders separating plateaus from valleys, that is along the most distinct, complex physico-geographic boundaries. Similar "settlement advantages" apply to many other physico-geographic border zones (cf. e.g. E. Semple [1911]; B. Zaborski and A. Wrzosek [1939]; G. Taylor [1951]; A. Piskozub [1968]; M. Janiszewski [1973, 1991]; B. Dumanowski [1974]; J. Tyszkiewicz [1975]; E. Kantowicz [1975, 1985]; M. Kielczewska-Zaleska [1978]; K. Seibert [1978]; A. Goclowski [1984, 1988, 1993, 2005]; M. Lechowicz [2000, 2010] and others).
In Ernst Neef s (1980) opinion, physico-geographic boundaries assume the character of open barriers (the so-called "boundaries in continuum") which make the exchange of matter and energy possible between neighbouring regions. Physico-geographic border zones are characterized not only by relatively the biggest natural variation in the given, wider area, but also by great dynamics of natural processes, specific for both the border zones, and for the demarcated territories (l.c., p. 84-87). Given that settlements and the economic activity of man are often concentrated in these zones (specific in terms of their natural diversification and dynamics), one can, therefore, assume that the connection between them might not be coincidental. Romer (1912) explained a similar regularity, though concerning phenomena studied in a more general scale, as follows: "(...) all [...] political organizations based on an economic interest tend to unite physiographic opposites, which guarantee diversity and richness of production. These tendencies are limited only by barriers to communication, and these generally do not exist between lowlands and mid-altitude mountains, because they are found only in young mountain chains" (in: J^drzejczyk, op.cit., p. 30).
In Poland, works tackling the issue of establishing principles of an optimal delimitation of the geographical area of research concerning the relationship between humans and nature, appear only sporadically. However, there exists a constant need to establish territorial limits to the range of various geographical studies, especially in relation to field and cartometric research. It is not unimportant whether these limits will be marked out by physico-geographic borders, by borders between political (or administrative) units, or by anthropogeographical regions. However, the choice of one of the methods of preliminary delimitation of the area of research is also needed to make it possible to analyse the entire spatial structure which is of interest to the researcher.
1. APPROACHES USED
The approaches used by Polish researchers to the issue of delimiting the above-mentioned area of research, for the sake of simplicity, can be divided into three groups.
The ambivalent approach, which can also be called intuitive/pragmatic, is predominant. Regardless of the domain of geography, the kind of the study and the methods used, in practice we deal with research done within the boundaries of physico-geographic units (of various types and levels), and within more complex regions, i.e. economic, historico-geographical, politico- administrative, or within the limits of given sheets of maps (or even their parts). What is more, the choice and the delimitation of the specific areas are established every time anew, most often when the work is in progress.
This choice is usually intuitive, and sometimes even lacking any attempt at a justification. Therefore, from the very beginning the research is marked by methodological confusion; when the study is finished, it makes a comparison of results obtained by various researchers highly complicated. Much worse, however, is the fact that research done within an area which was incorrectly delimited can give results which are defective or even erroneous.
The second approach, in which the main field of reference for the geographical research on the relationship between humans and nature are physico-geographic regions, has the smallest number of proponents. One of the main arguments supporting this approach is the conviction that physico-geographic regions are more stable in space and time than anthropogenic phenomena and regions, and therefore more real and palpable (vide J. Kondracki - 1972, 1993, 1994, 1998). However, geosystem structures, which are the basis of physico-geographic regionalization, only rarely coincide with the structures and dynamics of human activity in geographical space. Furthermore, from the perspective of physical geography, human activity is treated in the same way as other natural factors, not as a subject, like in humanistic studies and in human geography, which fact narrows down the field of study of the relationship in question. One of the major problems in complex physical geography is also the difficulty in the transition from geosystematic reality to physico-geographic regions. The impossibility of conducting physico-geographic regionalization based on a full set of natural components, due to both source and technical limitations, and to the complicated character of the phenomenon, is widely known (cf. e.g. E. Przesmycka 1968; Kondracki 1976; A. Richling 1982). The commonly used procedure of delimiting the regions on the basis of leading elements entails the unpredictability of the final outcome and a considerable amount of subjectivism, at least in the choice of these elements (this is aptly illustrated by the famous dispute between D. Armand and A. Grigoriew; Armand 1975, Polish edition 1980).
The most serious limitation in using physico-geographic regions while choosing the area for research is connected with the main aim of delimiting these regions, that is with making a complete regionalization of a given area, which means creating a network of fully closed regions. Meanwhile, actual physico-geographic borders are often discontinuous (vide e.g. Armand, op.cit), which is why in many sections they do not have their counterparts in reality. To a certain extent, physico-geographic regions are thus an illusion. We must bear it in mind whenever we want to use this kind of regionalization.
The majority of Polish researchers who took a clear position on the issue of choosing the area of reference for the research in question hold diametrically opposed views. For Romer, for example, the basic unit of reference was the natural-anthropogenic region, also called geographical, treated as a nodal and functional whole, whose edges do not coincide with physico-geographic borders, but with settlement borders (to a great extent conditioned by nature), which temporarily prevent the settlement and the communicative and economic activity of man. The notion of settlement borders was introduced into scientific circulation in Polish geography de facto by Romer in his work entitled "Wst^p do fizjografii powiatu mieleckiego [Introduction to Mielec County Physiography]" (1911). The settlement border described in this publication was created by barren sands (formerly also marshes) surrounding this historically formed county. Watersheds and land relief (plains) played hardly any role. The borders of the county were therefore shaped through negative (from the point of view of humans) selection of features of natural conditions made throughout centuries (D. J^drzejczyk 1999a).
Another outstanding Polish geographer of the beginning of the 20th century, Waclaw Nalkowski (1909), perceived a geographical region "not as [...] a sum of physico-geographic features, but as a kind of whole, in which these features are connected with one another and with human beings by their mutual interaction". Nalkowski based the division into areas "in which economic-geographical phenomena can be studied" on political or administrative borders (in: J^drzejczyk 1999b, p. 87). [...] He thought that "categories of economic phenomena should be viewed as functions [...] of natural factors, and also artificial, man-made factors, which influence the former ones". [...] He stated that „in economic geography not only the basic facts, but also the very division into areas in which economic-geographical phenomena can be viewed are not expressed as rules" (l.c.).
We can meet opinions expressed in a similar vein in many later works. Stanislaw Leszczycki (1956) thought that "one should not conduct research on production distribution in physico-geographic regions (unless they are located in their entirety within one administrative unit), because usually some of their parts belong to different countries or separate economic regions [. ], which represent different socio-economic relationships" (l.c., p. 119). In a later work, the researcher added: "usually it is about areas [...] which are strongly interconnected [...]; frequently, we can single out their core, or the centre of the region, the area which shows a clear intensification of characteristic features for the given region, and a peripheral area, in which some characteristics are less distinct, or even fade away. Finally, we can also distinguish border areas in which most of the basic characteristics fade away" (Leszczycki 1965, p. 168). Similar conclusions can be drawn from later works by this author, and also from works by many other Polish researchers (e.g. K. Dziewonski 1960, 1967a, b; R. Domanski 1990; Z. Rykiel 2001).
Regions of a complex character: anthropogeographical and economic-geographical regions, but also similar historico-geographical regions (J. Tyszkiewicz, op.cit), hydrographical-planning regions (A. Piskozub, op.cit ), and finally - treated alternatively - stable politico-administrative units are almost always a better field of reference for anthropogeographical research (regional-geographical) than the physico-geographic regions, because they constitute more or less complete models of spatially expressed, functional relationships between nature and the activity of man. This is in keeping with the fact that their borders do not coincide with physico-geographic borders, with the significance of the latter for settlement and for economy, and with the results of studies done by numerous researchers.
Spatially diversified human activity can be analysed within a physico-geographic region, but its borders cross economic systems and settlements in a random way, which makes it difficult to examine human activity in relation to the surrounding nature. As a result, such a study merely enables one to note a mechanically understood diversification of aspects (manifestations) of human activity in this region, homogenous and highly simplified in comparison with the natural reality.
2. SUGGESTED PROCEDURE
An analysis of literature and the deliberations stated above lead us to the conclusion that the best approach, which should be used in establishing the procedure of delimiting the area of research, is - in the author's opinion - the latter of the ones described above. Putting it into practice would mean testing on various fields a clearly defined procedure of delimiting research areas on the basis of their territorial and functional coherence.
At the very beginning one should follow the rule that the area chosen for geographical research should be delimited from the point of view of the kind of phenomena which will be analysed, and - if possible - this should be done using methodology appropriate to these phenomena. For example, phenomena from the field of physical geography should be analysed in areas whose borders are marked out solely using natural criteria (unless there exists a very high interference of man, as in the case of highly industrialized and metropolitan areas, which would justify the adoption of modified criteria). Socio-economic regions are connected with settlement borders, which form the borders of the regions, and with axes and hubs of development, which often are also conditioned by nature (e.g. in the form of the so-called "natural passability" or physico-geographic border zones). In this approach, nature is not marginalized, even though the procedures used to examine it revolve around human actions.
The next stage should consist in delimiting the area in which we want to conduct our research. These areas should be delimited in such a way that they embrace, if possible, functional wholes which are of interest to the researcher defined at a certain level of systemic hierarchy and formed as a result of mutual relationships between nature and man. These wholes could be various kinds of anthropogeographical regions: classical "geographical regions" (in a generalized form presented in Janiszewski, 1959), historico-geographical regions, and currently: socio-economic regions and such politico-administrative units which are characterized by a considerable stability in space and time (the latter kind of region was e.g. the above-mentioned Mielec County at the turn of the 19th and the 20th centuries). Inside such regions, there will be spatially expressed socioeconomic structures in their entirety, which from the point of view of their construction rules correspond with these regions, as they are also delimited on the basis of functional and systemic criteria.
In the approach described above, the majority of the border zones important for human activity in geographical space which divide physico-geographic regions, will not be situated on the peripheries of the research area. This means that the entire zones and other naturally conditioned axes and hubs of development will be included in the area in question. This procedure will be most useful on territories characterized by a very complex natural structure, because numerous physico-geographic borders crossing these lands are often of a high rank, and thus their significance for human activity is proportionally greater.
CONCLUSION
To sum up, the best possible fields of reference for our research are not physico-geographic regions viewed as a whole, but the traditional, "geographical" regions, and if we widen the extent of the notion of "region", also historico-geographical regions, socioeconomic regions, and politico-administrative regions (which to a greater or lesser extent result from the mutual relationships between humans and nature). These regions constitute a complete synthesis of such relationships, both in the spatial aspect, and in their nodal and systemic, functional structure. They create proper frames to analyse anthropogeographical cultural wholes, especially settlement groups, which were shaped by evolution, political and administrative units stable in time, and finally culture circles, which develop on a given territory in close relation to its natural conditions. The borders of these nodal regions should be wide zones in which the influences (coming from the centres and axes of development) gradually fade out and to which human activity reaches
the least and the latest. They also include settlement borders (where they still exist): marshes, mountains, deserts, and other types of natural environment which are hard to reach for humans.
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В настоящей статье автор анализирует некоторые свойства физико-и антропогеографических регионов, выбранных на основе их полезности в исследовании природных факторов кондиционирования человеческой активности в реальном географическом пространстве. Особое внимание уделяется следующим элементам: физико-географические границы и урегулирования границ в контексте их значение для оптимизации выбора области исследований. Ключевые слова.: однородные и узловых областей, физико-географические границы, урегулирования границы, природные "проходимость", оптимизация выбора области исследований.
Гоцловсью А. Природш умови людсько!" aKTHBHOCTi в реальному географ!чному npocTopi: bh6¡p наукового простору / А. Гоцловсью // Вчеш записки Тавршського нацюнального ушверситету ¿меш B.I. Вернадського. Сер1я: Географ1я. - 2011. - Т.24 (63). - № 2, ч. 1 - С. 219-225.
У цш стати автор анал1зуе деяю властивосл ф1зико-1 антропогеограф1чних регюнах, обраних на ochobí IX KopHCHOcri в дослщженш природних фактор1в кондицюнування людсько! активносп в реальному географ1чному npocTopi. Особливу увагу придшяеться наступним елементам: ф1зико-географ1чш корд они i врегулювання кордошв в контексл ix значения для оптим1зацй вибору галуз1 досл1джень. Ключов1 слова: однор1дт i вузлових областей, физико-географ1чш меж1, врегулювання меж1, природш "прох1дтсть", оптим1зац1явибору област1 досл1джень.
Поступила ередакцию 08.04.2011 г.
