This classic text explores the multitude of impacts that humans have had over time upon vegetation, animals, soils, water, landforms, and the atmosphere. It considers the ways in which climate changes and modifications in land cover may change the environment in coming decades. Thoroughly revised for the 8th edition to cover the remarkable transformation in interest that humans are having in the environment, this book examines previously uncovered topics, such as rewilding, ecosystem services, techniques for study, novel and no analogue ecosystems, and more. It also presents the latest views on big themes such as human origins, the anthropocene, domestication, extinctions, and ecological invasions.
Extensively re-written, Human Impact on the Natural Environment, Eighth Edition contains many new and updated statistical tables, figures, and references. It offers enlightening chapters that look at the past and present state of the world examining our impact on the land itself and the creatures that inhabit it; the oceans, lakes, rivers and streams; and the climate and atmosphere. The book also takes a deep look at our future impact on the planet and its resources our affect on the coastal environments, the cryosphere and the drylands, as well as the hydrological and geomorphological impacts.
Andrew Goudie is Master of St Cross College, Oxford, President of the International Association of Geomorphologists, and a Professor of Geography in the University of Oxford.
Reviews of the sixth edition:
"The new edition of this student text provides an up-to-date and comprehensive view of the major environmental issues facing the world today and serves as an introduction to the past, present, and future impact of humans on Earth. Specifically, it explores the impact of humans on vegetation, animals, soils, water, landforms, and the atmosphere. Four completely new chapters explore how global climate change may impact Earth in the future."
– Natural Hazards Observer
"The book is filled with new information and intriguing examples that Goudie has selected to illustrate in each of his well-organised chapters."
– Environmental Geology
Reviews of the fifth edition:
"This is a splendid compendium of what we know and understand about environmental problems. The author is to be congratulated on a work that is suitable as a textbook or a supplementary reader for courses at all university levels."
–Quarterly Review of Biology
"A well-illustrated textbook, it is a brilliantly concise examination of just how much we are changing the world around us. A classic. Geography at its best."
–New Scientist
"For all those who are interested in how humans have and are changing the face of the Earth, The Human Impact has become something of a classic text [...] Indeed, as a classic, it has an important part to play in colouring our perception of humans' relationship with the natural environment [...] altogether readable, stimulating and instructive [...] it is an essential textbook for all who are interested in human impacts on the environment."
– Scottish Geographical Journal