The human response to the characteristics of a physical environment comes with consequences for both the human culture and the physical environment. One such human response is the construction of large dams.
The relationship between the natural environment and human culture is a two-way street. Too often, only one part is asserted: that the form of the natural environment influences (or, in extreme cases, determines) the human culture of a place. Mountains may prove obstacles to communication, but transport technology overcomes the barriers. Climate may limit the growth of certain crops, but irrigation or greenhouse protection can extend a plant’s natural limits. That is not to say that the natural environment does not pose risks: hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or droughts all pose risks to human settlement. But as human technology expands, people are able to adapt to the constraints once placed by the natural environment.
Besides technological adaptation, human culture has increasingly modified the natural environment, shaping it to its needs. Clearing forests for agriculture, paving surfaces for urban areas, damming rivers, exploiting minerals, polluting air, streams and oceans, are all examples of the permanent changes to the natural world resulting from human culture.
Places are the resolution of the forces of nature and adaptations by human culture. Moreover, as this relationship changes over time, so too do places. This unit will focus on how human culture is both influenced by, and adapts to, the natural world. Students should treat a human change to the environment as a diversion of energy to human society from the path it follows in the natural system.
Rather than simply comparing the nature of the physical environment with what people do with it, students should consider human perception. Thus, an environment may be considered hazardous by an objective observer, but explaining human adaptation involves knowing how the environment is perceived by those who use it. People might not be expected to settle on the sides of active volcanoes, as in Central America, or build on the shores of hurricane-prone coasts – that they do requires understanding how they perceive the environment and deal with the risk.
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