1.3: How Geographers Study California

Geography is a spatial science, a systematic study of the Earth, its features, and phenomena that take place on it. For something to fall into the domain of geography, it generally needs some sort of spatial component that can be placed on a map, such as coordinates, place names, or even addresses. This has led to geography being associated with cartography and place names. Geographers study the Earth's spatial and temporal distribution of phenomena, processes, and features as well as the interaction of humans and their environment. Because space and place affect a variety of topics, such as economics, health, climate, plants, human societies, lifestyles, and animals, geography is highly interdisciplinary. The interdisciplinary nature of the geographical approach depends on an attentiveness to the interactive relationships between physical and human phenomena and their spatial patterns.

Figure 1.4: Chart of the Interdisciplinary Topics & Nature of the Geographic Approach. [1]

Geography as a discipline can be split broadly into two main branches: human geography and physical geography. Human geography largely focuses on the built environment and how humans create, view, manage, and influence space. Physical geography examines the natural environment, and how organisms, climate, soil, water, and landforms produce and interact. The difference between these approaches led to the development of integrated geography, which combines physical and human geography and concerns the interactions between the environment and humans.

Geographic Inquiry

Geography is the study of the physical distribution of, and cultural environments of the earth. What makes geography different from other disciplines is its focus on spatial inquiry and analysis. Geographers also try to look for connections between things such as patterns, movement and migration, trends, and so forth. This process is called either geographic or spatial inquiry. To do this, geographers go through a geographic methodology that is quite like the scientific method, but again with a geographic or spatial emphasis.

1. Ask a geographic question. Ask questions about spatial relationships in the world around you, such as the location of your college as it pertains to your home, high school, or work.
2. Acquire geographic resources. Identify data and information that you need to answer your question.
3. Explore geographic data. Turn the data into maps, tables, and graphs, and look for patterns and relationships by utilizing geospatial computer programs and statistics.
4. Analyze geographic information. Determine what the patterns and relationships mean concerning your question. This is where critical thinking comes to play; once observing the results you then begin to develop future work or perhaps ask even more questions.

Geospatial Technology

There are two basic types of data: spatial and non-spatial data. Spatial data, also called geospatial data, is data that can be linked to a specific location on Earth. Geospatial data is becoming “big business” because it isn’t just data, but data that can be located, tracked, patterned, and modeled based on other geospatial data. Census information that is collected every 10 years is an example of spatial data. Non-spatial data is data that cannot be specifically traced to a specific location. This might include the true number or ethnicities of people living in a household, enrollment within a specific course, or even gender information. But non-spatial data can become spatial data if it can be linked in some way to a location. An example of this could be assigning an orange tree in Ventura County a latitude and longitude. Geospatial technology specialists use a method called geocoding that can be used to give non-spatial data a geographic location. Once data has a spatial component associated with it, the type of questions that can be asked dramatically changes.

Lecture Time: Intro to California’s Geography

Want to learn more? Either scan the QR code or visit this link to watch a lecture that introduces California, and how geographers study the state. (Video length: 19 min).

Figure 1.5: Visual Representation of Themes in a GIS. [2]

Remote Sensing

Remote sensing can be defined as the ability to study objects without being in direct physical contact with them. For example, your eyes are a form of passive remote sensing because they are “passively” absorbing electromagnetic energy within the visible spectrum from distant objects and your brain is processing that energy into information. Satellite imagery is a type of remotely sensed imagery taken of the Earth's surface, which is produced from orbiting satellites that gather data via electromagnetic energy. Next is aerial photography, which is film-based or digital photographs of the Earth, usually from an airplane or non-piloted drone. Images are either taken from a vertical or oblique position. The third is radar, which is an interesting form of remote sensing technology that uses microwave pulses to create imagery of features on Earth. This can be from a satellite image or ground-based Doppler radar for weather forecasting. Finally, a fast-growing realm of remote sensing is called Light Detection and Ranging or Lidar, which is a form of remote sensing that measures the distance of objects using laser pulses of light. In 2023 a next-generation Subsea lidar was used to collect incredibly precise data about subfloor characteristics.

Figure 1.6: Remote sensing of the environment. [3]

Global Positioning Systems

Another type of geospatial technology, and a key technology for acquiring accurate control points on Earth’s surface, is global positioning systems (GPS). To determine the location of a GPS receiver on Earth’s surface, a minimum of four satellites are required using a mathematical process called triangulation. Normally the process of triangulation requires a minimum of three transmitters, but because the energy sent from the satellite is traveling at the speed of light, minor errors in calculation could result in large location errors on the ground. Thus, a minimum of four satellites is often used to reduce this error.

There is a technology that can bring together remote sensing data, GPS data points, spatial and non-spatial data, and spatial statistics into a single, dynamic system for analysis, and that is a geographic information system (GIS). A GIS views the world by overlaying physical or cultural layers, each with quantifiable data that can be analyzed. A single GIS map of a national forest could have layers such as elevation, deciduous trees, evergreens, soil type, soil erosion rates, rivers and tributaries, major and minor roads, burn areas, regrowth, animal species type, trails, and more. Each of these layers would contain a database of information specific to that layer.

The Geography of Humans

Human geography is the branch of geography that studies spatial relationships between human communities, cultures, economies, and their interactions with the environment, examples of which is studied in schools are urban sprawl, urban redevelopment etc. It analyzes spatial interdependencies between social interactions and the environment through qualitative and quantitative methods. This text will reference this perspective, of human geography, to better understand the intrarelationships between California and its people. This geographic lens becomes particularly helpful when evaluating both natural and human landscapes.

Cultural

Cultural geography is the study of cultural processes, identities, and norms - their variation across spaces and places, as well as their relations. It focuses on describing and analyzing the ways language, religion, economy, government, and other cultural phenomena vary or remain constant from one place to another and on explaining how humans function spatially.

Economic

Economic geography is the subfield of human geography which studies economic activity and factors affecting them. It can also be considered a subfield or method in economics. There are four branches of economic geography. There are: Primary sector, Secondary sector, Tertiary sector, & Quaternary sector.

Historical

Historical geography is the study of the human, physical, fictional, theoretical, and "real" geographies of the past. Historical geography studies a wide variety of issues and topics. A common theme is the study of the geographies of the past and how a place or region changes through time. Many historical geographers study geographical patterns through time, including how people have interacted with their environment, and created the cultural landscape.

Political

Political geography is concerned with the study of both the spatially uneven outcomes of political processes and the ways in which political processes are themselves affected by spatial structures. Conventionally, for the purposes of analysis, political geography adopts a three-scale structure with the study of the state at the center, the study of international relations (or geopolitics) above it, and the study of localities below it. The primary concerns of the subdiscipline can be summarized as the inter-relationships between people, state, and territory.

Population

Population geography relates spatial variations in the distribution, composition, migration, and growth of populations to the terrain. Population geography involves demography in a geographical perspective. Demography is the study of human statistics and distributions, that often involves factors such as where population is found and how the size and composition of these population is regulated by the demographic processes of fertility, mortality, and migration.

Urbanism

Urban geography is the study of cities, towns, and other areas of relatively dense settlement. Two main interests are site (how a settlement is positioned relative to the physical environment) and situation (how a settlement is positioned relative to other settlements). Another area of interest is the internal organization of urban areas about different demographic groups and the layout of infrastructure. This subdiscipline also draws on ideas from other branches of Human Geography to see their involvement in the processes and patterns evident in an urban area.

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[1] Graphic by Jeremy Patrich

[2] Image by the U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office is in the public domain

[3] from gisgeography.com