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AGE 201: QUANTITATIVE REVOLUTION

The Quantitative Revolution

After the Second World War, most American universities were expected
to produce problem solvers or social technologists to run increasingly
complex economies. This was because of the damage caused by the war.

Geographers had a problem because they did not have theories and laws
like other natural and social sciences. As a result, their works and
research were not considered to be of social relevance. As a result,
geographers realized the significance of mathematical language over the
language of literature.

They wanted to be more precise since the social problems at the time
needed more precision and not mere description. This meant that the
nature and definition of geography had to change to reflect the
prevailing circumstances at the time.

Geography therefore became regarded as a science concerned with

rational development and testing of the theories that explain and
predict spatial distribution and location of various characteristics of the
earth’s surface.
Earlier, geography had been concerned with the task of describing the
earth’s surface. To achieve this objective, geographers started to use and
apply quantitative techniques and tools. The diffusion and spread of
statistical techniques in geography to make the subject more precise is
known as the Quantitative Revolution in geography.

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It was mathematical and required rigorous thinking and sophisticated

techniques. Around this time, descriptive geography was discarded.
More emphasis was laid on the formulation of abstract models, theories
and laws so that geography would be at par with the other natural
sciences.
a. Model is a simplified representation of reality (map, photograph,
equation)
b. A law is a hypothesis which has been confirmed as being true
c. Theories are laws and rules by which these laws are put together.
The quantitative revolution enabled the development of more refined
theories and models, but it was after the revolution that geographers
began concentrating on field studies, generating primary data, utilizing
secondary data and applying sampling techniques to come up with
precise information.

From 1955, there were geographers led by Garrison, W.G. who were
interested in urban and economic geography. He introduced location
theory based on concepts from economics with associated mathematical
methods and statistical procedures. Geography was trying to deviate
from the theoretical approach to the mathematical approach which was
a precise means of location.

Alfred Weber came up with the least cost model of analysis as a model
to explain how to derive optimum locations. According to this model,
the optimum location is defined as the point at which the transport cost
per unit of production are least; or where the benefit of agglomeration

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and or labour availability is sufficient to offset the disadvantages of

transport costs.

The Advantages of the Quantitative Revolution

1. Quantitative techniques enable the geographer to do studies more
quickly and accurately than before. This is because the techniques
are firmly based on empirical observations which are readily
verifiable since they are carried out using a procedure.
2. The concept of statistical significance. We can use statistical tests
to determine whether there are some relationships between the
phenomena being studied.
3. Testing hypotheses laws or models have become the order of the
day, because, in geography, statistical techniques allow the
formulation of theories and ideas which can be tested under
assumed conditions.

Negative Effects of the Quantitative Revolution

Stamp (1956) referred to the quantitative revolution as a civil war.
According to him, it was more of a religion to its followers whereby
anything that could not be quantified was discarded.
- He pointed out that there are many fields whereby quantification
may falsify or debit rather than aid progress. Ethical and
aesthetical values were ignored since they could not be accorded
numerical values.
- Theories and models developed based on empirical data do not
take into consideration the normative questions (things to do

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with norms and beliefs, attitudes and hopes and emotions). As

such they cannot be taken as tools explaining exact geographical
realities. As a result, over-enthusiastic preachers of quantification
have sacrificed many good qualitative statements which have
been quite useful in the interpretation of regional personality
- According to Minshell, the landscape was becoming a nuisance to
geographers as some of these models would only apply to flat
surface features. He warned that such ideal generalizations could
be mistaken to be statements about reality itself.
- Broeck, 1965 stated that the search for general laws at very high
levels of abstraction (models were abstracts) went against the
grain of geography. This is because it removes place and time
from geography. He gave the example of urbanization which to him
would change from place to place and from time to time depending
on the various economic and political systems. He argued that there
cannot be a universal urban geography because different urban
systems work in different parts of the world. E.g. America and
Australia have free market economies, in Western Europe there are
well-planned welfare economies and in the third world there is both
modern and traditional economy. The urban system cannot
therefore be uniform.

The quantitative revolution advocates a universal model which may

not be realistic to study different situations.

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- Quantitative techniques demand considerable mathematical

power. Relatively few geographers have strong backgrounds in
mathematics.
- Quantitative techniques demand sophisticated data which are
rarely attainable outside the developed countries. Data collected
in developing countries have many pitfalls and shortcomings. The
theory developed based on weak data and unreliable information
is bound to give a distorted and faulty picture of reality.

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The Environmental Movement in Geography

The term environment refers to the total of the surrounding external
conditions and influences that affect the life and development of a
community, or an object. In the case of man, an environment as a system
includes land, both lithosphere and pedosphere, soil and water, living
organisms, biosphere (plant and animals, air or (atmosphere) and any
other influence within/outside the earth that affects man, also time,
extraterrestrial bodies e.g. the sun.

Early Environmental Concerns

There has always been a profound interaction between people and the
environment. E.g. early human beings lived by hunting and gathering
and as a result they greatly modified many areas of the earth and caused
the extermination of several animal species. About 10,000 years ago,
humans started cultivating food plants, rather than gathering and
keeping animals rather than hunting them. This witnessed the
beginning of agricultural communities. During those early times, people
learned that their actions could damage the natural resources by which
they lived.

As early as that there was tree cutting, soil erosion, and overgrazing
disrupting actions along the Mediterranean areas, some parts of Central
China and Central America. Also, historical records indicate that some
species of animals were protected by religious taboos. Some religious
sanctions also prevented the destruction of some forests, grooves and
plants. However, the greatest expansion of human requirement of

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natural resources followed the Industrial Revolution and as a result,

students focusing their studies on the environment expressed concern
about the impacts of human transformation on the landscape. E.g.
Alexander pointed out that deforestation and soil erosion were the main
causes of the gradual decline of some lakes. Later in 1864, geographer
George Perkins published a book on man-nature and the focus was on
the role of humans in changing the face of the earth. During the same
year, the first national park was established in California U.S.A.

Current Environmental Concerns

N/b Technological advancement especially in the 1st half of the 20th
century raised fundamental questions about the future capacity of the
globe to support its rapidly growing population and also the
appropriateness of technology itself. There were air pollution episodes
in USA and Belgium. There was also the Minamota disease in Japan, the
reduction in aquatic life in some Scandinavian lakes as a result of
acidification. At the same time, around the 1950s there was the death of
birds caused by the side effects of pesticides and there were incidents of
marine pollution. All these incidents stimulated debates on
environmental issues.

In the 1960s, scientific and technical understanding of environmental

issues increased steadily. In the 1970s environmental issues became
established as a permanent feature of national and international policy
and as a result there was the United Nations Conference on Human
Environment held in Stockholm 1972. The environmental movement

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has become concerned with all aspects of the natural environment. E.g.
land, water all living organisms and life processes, minerals, the
atmosphere and climate.

The Role of Geography in Environmental Management

N/B An illiterate society provides poor human resources for
development hence geographical education whether formal or informal
has a special role in creating full awareness as to human relationships
and therefore the need for responsible attitudes towards the
environment.

As delicately balanced and easily polluted, the environment should be

regarded as partly renewable and partly non-renewable, an actual and
or potential resource. Therefore geographical knowledge about the
environment as an and or potential resource should be disseminated
both formally (through Individuals, schools and universities) and
informally through adult mass education, especially in matters of
environmental management including protection and conservation. The
late 1960s was a period of rapidly increased concern about
environmental problems and there was a disagreement about the cause
of the problems. There were two groups. One argued that there was a
population explosion and as a result, the group advocated for zero
population growth. The second group argued that technological
advances in the deposition of pollutants created major problems. Both
of these arguments have clear geographical components.

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Why is geography unique in handling environmental problems?

What special role can be played by geographers?

Geographers have a considerable record of activity in resource

conservation. It is therefore the students of geography who express
concern about the impact of human transformation on the landscape e.g.
in USA, George Perkins published a book “Man – Nature: the Role of
Humans in Changing the Face of the Earth” in 1930s, Warren had been
involved in the soil conservation movement. In 1987, Kates argued that
because of the dominance of spatial science within geography, no
discipline is better situated than geography to provide intellectual and
scientific leadership when environmental issues become important on
the public and political agenda. So the natural science for the
environmental revolution is the science of human environment which is
geography. It has been reported that geographers would make excellent
leaders for the educational tables on environmental quality because of
1. The breadth of their training and their ability to handle and
synthesize materials from a wide range of resources.
2. Their acceptance of the complexity of causation.
3. The range of information they are trained to tackle
4. Their interest in the distribution of phenomena
5. Their long tradition of study in this area.

- Geographers unlike non-geography scholars of the earthy science

are concerned with the earth as the environment of man, an
environment man himself has helped to modify and build.

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- Geographers are sensitive to the richness and variety of the earth.

They do not believe in blanket solutions to development problems
instead, they feel that policy should be carefully tuned to the
spatial variety concealed in terms such as equatorial highlands,
Pole Ice., and regional personalities as each region has its own
peculiar and unique characteristics, hence should be analysed
separately.
- Geographers have been careful about utilising their skills as link-
people between physical and social sciences through which their
analysis and prescriptions may increase the manipulation and
alteration of environmental systems
- Geographers are involved in radical analysis of society-nature
relationships based on linkages between society and nature and
produce an alternative theory of development based on the
concept of sustainability.
- Through perception studies, geographers have been able to think
about how problems are formed in the minds of different actors
and how issues are presented for solutions to be offered.
Geographers also have been considering more carefully for whom
they are working. Therefore, geographical educational
programmes should be able to promote consciousness of the
environment as a renewable and non-renewable resource thereby
developing an attitude of involvement in proper assessment,
protection and conservation of natural resources.

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- Geographers also venture into the problem of environmental

management, and issues of pollution to make the environment
conducive for proper development.

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