: Encountering indigeneity: re-imagining and decolonizing geography. Geogr. Ann., 88 B (3): 267-276.ABSTRACT. In an era of postcolonialism and postcolonization, Indigenous struggles continue. Within 'settler societies' issues of dispossession -particularly of lands -remain largely unresolved. As part of the discipline of geography's active movement away from its colonizing project, this introduction to this special edition of Geografiska Annaler B seeks to (re)focus a disciplinary lens, and (re)open a dialogue -and potential research trajectory -about 'indigenous geographies'. As the papers in this special issue demonstrate, new cultural geographies have begun a process of re-engagement with issues of indigeniety through careful, sensitive, inclusive, representative and emancipatory research projects.
Forests provide the most stable and highest quality water supplies among all land uses. Quantitatively evaluating the benefits of forest water supply functions is important to effectively mitigate the impacts of land development, climate change, and population growth. Here, by integrating a water balance model and national drinking water data, we determined the amount of surface water yield originating on different forest ownership types at a fine resolution (88,000 watersheds) and tracked that water through the river network to drinking water intakes and the populations they serve. We found that forested lands comprised 36% of the total land area but contributed 50% of the total surface water yield. Of the 23,983 public surface drinking water intakes depending on surface water sources, 89% (serving around 150 million people) received some (>0.01%) surface water from forested lands, and 38% (serving about 60 million people) received more than 50% of their surface drinking water supply from forested lands. Privately-owned forests were the most important water source in the eastern U.S., benefiting 16 million people, followed by federal forests (14.4% of the total water supply). In contrast, federally-owned forested lands were the dominant water source (52% of the total water supply) in the West. Privately-owned forests are the most vulnerable to future land use change and associated water supply impacts. Continuing programs that support private forest landowners with financial and technical assistance through federal and state forest management agencies and potentially developing payment for ecosystem service schemes could maximize benefits for landowners so they may retain their land assets while minimizing forest loss and associated impacts on critical ecosystem services including the provisioning a clean and reliable water supply for the American public.
Fresh water shortage to meet human and ecosystem needs is recognized globally (Gosling & Arnell, 2016;Vörösmarty et al., 2000). Water stress is already common in the dry western United States (U.S.; Milly & Dunne, 2020). With rapid population growth and climate change, water stress is predicted to increase even in the water-rich southeastern U.S (Brown et al., 2019;G. Sun et al., 2008). Annual total water withdrawal in the U.S. increased from about 300 billion m 3 in 1950 to 580 billion m 3 in 2010 (Dieter & Maupin, 2017), coinciding with a doubling of the U.S. population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Even though total water consumption per capita has decreased since 1980 in the conterminous United States (CONUS; Dieter & Maupin, 2017), water demand is projected to grow with population, and water withdrawals are projected to increase (Brown et al., 2013) except in areas where water supply is already overallocated. Exurban growth, as the most persistent and permanent land use change, increased considerably over the past four decades (
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.