“DESICCATION OF THE EARTH”? THE CLIMATE CHANGE THAT SURVEY
EXPEDITIONS IN CHINESE
P. Foret
ETH
foret@karto.baug.ethz.ch
The exact meaning given to the
cartographical information collected on
More attention should thus be granted to
the cartographic work done by Europeans in
1. Describe the various expeditions sent to comprehensively map the terrain and document the environmental history of the region,
2. Explain how maps led the contemporary debate on climate change, and how they were read by the preeminent geographers of the time (Kropotkin, Huntington, Hedin, and Gregory, especially),
3. Ascribe a cause to the discrepancy I have noticed between assumptions on climate, the topographical observations made in situ, and the resulting maps and atlases,
4. And conclude on the importance of positioning any cartographic enterprise within its historical context. My conclusion would amplify Chris Perkins’ observations in his seminal “Cartography – Cultures of mapping: power in practice” article (Progress in Human Geography 28-3).
I hope this topic will generate a
discussion on the rich interaction we have seen between mapping activities,
scientific objectives, and political agendas. My paper may also be seen as a
prelude to the history, not yet fully written, of the Chinese, Soviet and
Sino-Soviet expeditions that explored the whole of