Landscape Change and Resource Utilization in East Asia

Covering the ancient period through to the 21st century, this book examines how landscapes have changed across East Asia over time. Featuring examples of a variety of landscapes, from the riverine and agricultural to the urban and aesthetic, this books thus presents a comprehensive review of East Asian environmental history. The eleven chapters, written by an international team of leading scholars, provide analysis of a wide range of spatial, temporal, and thematic considerations. Seeking to use the concept of landscape to evaluate the opportunities and constraints faced by East Asian communities, it also explores the relationship between landscape transformation and human agency. In so doing, it aims to survey the current methodology and scholarship in the field and demonstrate a new approach which encompasses socio-economic and cultural history, as well as GIS-based geographical studies. Providing an in-depth examination of landscape change across the sub-regions of China and Japan, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Asian History and Environmental Studies.

Ts'ui-jung Liu is Adjunct Research Fellow at Academia Sinica, Taiwan. Andrea Janku is Senior Lecturer in Chinese History at SOAS, University of London, UK. David Pietz is Professor of Chinese History, Director of Global Studies, and the UNESCO Chair in Environmental History at the University of Arizona, USA.

Introduction, Ts'ui-jung Liu, Andrea Janku and David Pietz Part I: Landscape Organization 1. Borders and Mosaics, East and West: Landscape Organization in Environmental History, J. Donald Hughes Part II: Managing the Rivers 2. Writing the Twentieth-Century History of Water on the North China Plain, David Pietz 3. Land Use Change in a Mountainous Area During the Last 300 Years from the Perspective of Spatial Evolution of Settlements: The Case of the Zhangjiu River Basin in Yunnan Province, China, Renlong Huo 4. Taming the Black Snake: Flooding Disasters and River Regulation of the Zengwen River in Colonial Taiwan, Ya-wen Ku Part III: Land Use and Food Production 5. Transformation Through Inundation: Riziculturing Muslim Identity in Qing Dynasty Khotan, David A. Bello 6. The Role of Plant Factory on Food Production and Technology in Japan, Kaihei Koshio Part IV: Development of Eco-cities 7. Eco-city Development in Japan, Kentarou Inoue 8. Ecological Constructions in Coastal Southeast China, Ts'ui-jung Liu 9. Building the Sustainable City of Yilan: The Development of Environmental Governance Learning Capacity, Huang-Jyuhn Wang and He-Liang Huang Part V: Folk Belief and Environment 10. Natural Worship and the Environment in Song China, Jin Liu and Lei Kang 11. The Mountain Spirits and Lake Monsters of Xinjiang Province During the Qing Dynasty, Chuanfei Liu