Physical and environmental geography and Area

In this, my first editorial since becoming the new Co-Editor of Area, I would like to revisit the ideas of the outgoing Co-Editor, Heather Viles. I do this to highlight the success of Area (and especially Heather) in widening the subject base of the journal and also to evaluate where Area (and myself in particular) should focus our efforts in the future. Heather's task to encourage the submission of more papers from geographers working in the fields of physical and environmental geography was not easy but, in 2005, 30 per cent of the output of Area focused on these subjects (Bonnett 2006). However, the number and types of articles published need to be analysed in more detail to establish the underlying trends and the types of papers that are still not being contributed. Before I present my analysis, I would like to note that I have classified journals according to my understanding of the focus of the paper. I realize this is subjective and apologize if I offend anyone by classifying their paper ‘wrongly’. I also recognize that someone else conducting this analysis may get slightly different results. Figure 1 presents the trend in physical and environmental articles published in Area. The data presented goes back to 1997 to enable the situation prior to the introduction of the Co-Editor's position to be considered, but also because this is the date from which articles are available on-line. The graph shows that an increasing number of physical and environmental papers are being published in the journal. The large spikes in Figure 1 are caused by the themed or part-themed issues. The relatively large spike in 1998 is due to the issue which contained a series of papers on women in physical geography. What is noticeable is a take-off in physical and environmental articles since the introduction of the position of Co-Editor. Prior to this time there was only the occasional contribution (accounting for approximately 9 per cent of papers published annually). Following the introduction of the Co-Editor, only two issues have been composed of human geography based articles alone and these, understandably, appeared either side of the special issue on African Environments, which was dominated by physical and environmental papers. For the first two issues of 2006, physical and environmental papers have accounted for 55 per cent of papers published; a remarkable change. The proportion of papers published in each issue of Area which have a physical or environmental focus In Heather's first editorial (Viles 2001) she suggested that papers based on the following themes were suitable for publication in Area: issues of applying science to environmental problems (science); philosophical issues within physical geography (philosophical); the current state of physical and environmental geography (state); doing physical geography (doing); and the future of physical geography (future). I have, therefore, classified and analysed the physical and environmental papers published in terms of focus according to these themes and the results are presented in Figure 2, using the headings outlined in brackets. The main trend identified is that the increased contribution to Area has come from papers focused on applying science to environmental problems and is probably due to the recognition amongst authors that Area is a suitable outlet for such papers. Since 2001 there is also a small contribution from papers focused on issues of methodology and practice. Some papers continue to focus on philosophical issues, which traditionally may well have formed the backbone of physical and environmental articles, but there have not been any papers which have considered the future of physical and environmental geography. Heather noted this trend after she had been in the role of Co-Editor for about six months (Viles 2001), but it is encouraging to see it continuing so strongly. The themes of physical and environmental papers published in Area by year Physical and environmental papers can also be analysed by the subject focus of the paper as well as the theme (Figure 3). This graph is not as illuminating as Figure 2, although it does highlight that papers with a watery or land use focus are on the increase (helped by the part-themed issues in March 2006 and December 2003 respectively), climate and ecology based papers have been an intermittent staple and that theory and techniques papers are, perhaps, on the decrease. The subject of physical and environmental papers published in Area by year So what does all this mean? Firstly, this analysis shows that physical and environmental geographers are choosing to publish in Area, especially for communicating results that apply science to environmental problems. Common subjects include water and land use management issues, sustainability, and climate change. With the concentration of themed and subject based papers that Area now publishes, I hope that more physical and environmental geographers are reading Area on a more regular basis, or at least starting to think that they should. I, therefore, want to support the continued submission of this type of paper to Area to continue to develop our readership and author base. Secondly, I would like to encourage wider debate about practices within, and the future of, physical and environmental geography. I am sure there is a wealth of ideas, practices, data and debates that would benefit us all, and Area is an ideal outlet for papers engaging with these ideas. Thirdly, there is more funding than ever before for interdisciplinary research projects, many of which seem to be focused on land use/climate change and/or water resources. I would like to encourage people involved in these projects to publish results in Area, and in this I include those ideas and thoughts concerning practices and methods of interdisciplinary research that may not be suitable for publication in discipline-based journals. Finally, I also want to encourage those who do not think of themselves as geographers, yet work on related and relevant issues, to consider publishing in Area. As this editorial demonstrates, Area has a strong foundation in water, climate sustainability and environmental issues and these links go beyond the geographical community. You do not have to be a geographer to publish in Area. Alastair has already thanked Heater Viles, the out-going Co-Editor, for her dedication and talent in the previous issue of Area, but I would also like to add my thanks for making the handover between us so smooth and informative. Hopefully all those authors with papers within the review process will not have noticed any delays or hiccups. I would also like to thank Alastair Bonnett (Editor), Gwen Lowman (Managing Editor), and Sal Moore and her team (Production) in helping me settle in to my post as Co-Editor. I look forward to being inundated with papers and ideas for themed issues! 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Focus (optics) · Library science · Sociology · Subject (documents) · Computer Science · Geographic Information Systems Studies