Look Who it Was Random video

Olav Slaymaker - Drivers of environmental change during the present century

811 views · Published 17 February 2011 · 50:41 · Indexed 22 October 2026

Channel: The University of British Columbia · 2011 · Education

Watch on YouTube

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by St. John's College, this lecture features Dr. Olav Slaymaker.  Over geological time scales, landscapes evolve under the influence of tectonic plate movements, cyclically changing Earth-Sun relations, spatial variations in rock strength and cyclically changing climate. However, within the time frame of the present century, it is proposed that there are four different drivers of landscape change, namely relief (an expression of the current state of tectonics which propagates its effect into erosion potential), warming climate, rising sea level and increasing human activity. It can be argued that sea level is a derivative of climate but it is useful to consider it separately because of its distinctive mode and place of action. Climate, especially temperature change, is probably the least important of these four drivers in most temperate and tropical environments. Arctic landscapes are different in the sense that phase changes in the cryosphere are of such overriding importance. It is further claimed that human activity, in the form of land use and land cover change, has become the most important driver of landscape change globally. It is anticipated that human activity will become increasingly dominant as the 21st century progresses. The integrity of the argument depends on defining and comparing effects at specific temporal (century) and spatial (landscape) scales.

More from this channel