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Jennifer BrownPhD Research StudentBSc Agricultural Studies, Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, Venezuela (2000) Supervisors: Start Date: 1st August 2006 tel: +44 1786
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Myvatn farms questionnaire
Research Project: "Historical Dynamics of Human Pressures and Landscape Responses in Mývatnssveit, Northern Iceland"
Unfavourable environmental change is often considered the primary explanation for the collapse of historical societies that were dependent upon renewable resources for their subsistence. However, studies considering solely the climatic explanation are increasingly seen as too simplistic and more recently such collapses are acknowledged as multi-causal. Moreover, it has been recognized that complex societies have built-in social, economic, and technological mechanisms to deal with and adapt to environmental stresses. The concepts of resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity have been used in recent years to integrate different variables in the study of present and future human responses to environmental and climatic change. Due to limited historical information, to date no studies of this type have been applied to long-term historical situations. The late colonization of Iceland (A.D. 871), the extent of written records (i.e. journals, sagas, land registries) and the tephrochronological and archaeological data available makes it possible to carry out this kind of research. I aim to apply the theoretical framework explained above to investigate farm success and abandonment in Mývatnssveit, northern Iceland. This local level study will contribute to a better understanding of the causes for success and failure in historical rural societies and of the processes that lead to their adaptation to climatic and environmental change. Additionally, it will serve to assess the usefulness of indicators in climate change policy formulation.
Research Interests
My main interest is the study of cultural landscapes and historical human-environmental interactions. To this end I have used different scientific research tools such as simulation modelling, GIS and remote sensing, micromorphology, tephrocronology; and data from different disciplines (history, archaeology, climatology, palynology, etc). Although my research has been focused on North Atlantic marginal environments (i.e. Greenland, the Faroe Islands and Iceland) the scope of this work is international and I'm hoping to develop this area of research in tropical environments in the future.
Publications
Thomson, A. M., Simpson, I. A. and Brown, J.L. (2005) Sustainable Rangeland Grazing in Norse Faroe. Human Ecology, 33 (5) 737-761
Brown, J., Laurentin, H. and Davila, M. (2003) Genetic relationships between nine Annona muricata L. accessions using RAPD markers. Fruits 58, 255-259
