The Field Guide to Mixing Social and Biophysical Methods in Environmental Research - cover image

Book Series

Copyright

Rebecca Lave; Stuart Lane. Copyright of individual chapters are maintained by the chapter author(s).

Published On

2025-02-25

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-366-9
Hardback978-1-80511-367-6
PDF978-1-80511-368-3
HTML978-1-80511-370-6
EPUB978-1-80511-369-0

Language

  • English

Print Length

644 pages (xvi+628)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 45 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.77" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 48 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.89" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback1205g (42.51oz)
Hardback1395g (49.21oz)

Media

Illustrations40
Tables10

OCLC Number

1503551623

THEMA

  • TQ
  • RNF
  • YPMP6

BISAC

  • SCI026000
  • SCI043000
  • SCI019000
  • REF020000

Keywords

  • Anthropocene
  • Mixed-Methods Research
  • Environmental research
  • Critical Physical Geography
  • Earth Systems Sciences
  • Field Guide

The Field Guide to Mixing Social and Biophysical Methods in Environmental Research

Despite ongoing debates about its origins, the Anthropocene—a new epoch characterized by significant human impact on the Earth's geology and ecosystems—is widely acknowledged. Our environment is increasingly a product of interacting biophysical and social forces, shaped by climate change, colonial legacies, gender norms, hydrological processes, and more. Understanding these intricate interactions requires a mixed-methods approach that combines qualitative and quantitative, biophysical and social research.

However, mixed-methods environmental research remains rare, hindered by academic boundaries, limited training, and the challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration. Time, funding, and the integration of diverse data further complicate this research, whilst the dynamics and ethics of interdisciplinary teams add another layer of complexity.

Despite these challenges, mixed-methods research offers a more robust and ultimately transformative understanding of environmental questions. This Field Guide aims to inspire and equip researchers to undertake such studies. Organized like a recipe book, it assists researchers in the preparation of their field work, as well as offering entry points to key methods and providing examples of successful mixed-methods projects.

This book will be of interest to scholars wishing to tackle environmental research in a more holistic manner, spanning ‘sister’ disciplines such as anthropology, statistics, political science, public health, archaeology, geography, history, ecology, and Earth science.

Additional Resources

[document]EPUB Accessibility Check

Contents

1. Introduction to the Field Guide

(pp. 1–8)
  • Rebecca Lave
  • Stuart Lane

2. Introduction to building your research 'kitchen'

(pp. 11–14)
  • Stuart Lane
  • Rebecca Lave

3. Framing, disciplines and mixing methods in environmental research

(pp. 15–38)
  • Stuart Lane
  • Rebecca Lave

4. Mixed methods in tension: lessons for and from the research process

(pp. 39–58)
  • Christine Biermann
  • Cerian Gibbes

5. Expanding research ethics for inclusive and transdisciplinary research

(pp. 59–86)
  • Alison M. Meadow
  • Hailey Wilmer
  • Daniel B. Ferguson

6. Embracing and enacting critical and constructive approaches to teaching Critical Physical Geography

(pp. 87–118)
  • Jennifer Salmond
  • Gary Brierley

7. Integrating ethnographic and physical science methods in interdisciplinary research projects: Reflections on pedagogy and practice for ‘deep interdisciplinary’ engagement within the Sajag-Nepal Project

(pp. 119–144)
  • Amy Leigh Johnson
  • Katie Oven
  • Nick Rosser
  • Dipak Basnet
  • Nyima Dorjee Bhotia
  • Tek Bahadur Dong
  • Anuradha Puri
  • Sunil Tamang
  • Mark Kincey

8. The environmental impacts of fieldwork: making an environmental impact statement

(pp. 145–152)
  • Stuart Lane

9. Inclusive practices in fieldwork

(pp. 153–170)
  • Floreana Miesen
  • Marjolein Gevers

10. Fieldwork safety planning and risk management

(pp. 171–180)
  • Floreana Miesen

11. Introduction to the research recipes

(pp. 183–188)
  • Stuart Lane
  • Rebecca Lave

12. On the dialogue between ethnographic field work and statistical modelling

(pp. 189–206)
  • Karen Lebek
  • Tobias Krueger

13. Revealing the social histories of ancient savannas and intact forests using a historical ecology approach in Central Africa

(pp. 207–246)
  • Gretchen Walters
  • Olivier Hymas
  • Stevens Touladjan
  • Kevin Ndong

14. The interface between hydrological modelling and political ecology

(pp. 247–278)
  • Maria Rusca
  • Maurizio Mazzoleni

15. ‘A hydrologist and a rhetorician walk into a workshop,’ or How we learned to collaborate on a decade of mixed-methods river research across the humanities and biophysical sciences

(pp. 279–308)
  • Eric G. Booth
  • Caroline Gottschalk Druschke

16. Using mixed methods to confront disparities in public health interventions in urban community gardens

(pp. 309–326)
  • Melanie Malone

17. Space and place in participatory arts-based research

(pp. 327–354)
  • Javier Arce-Nazario

18. Antarctic mosaic: Mixing methods and metaphors in the McMurdo Dry Valleys

(pp. 355–376)
  • Stephen M. Chignell
  • Adrian Howkins
  • Andrew Fountain

19. Engaging remote sensing and ethnography to seed alternative landscape stories and scripts

(pp. 377–402)
  • Lisa C. Kelley

20. Mixing geoarchaeology, geohistory and ethnology to reconstruct landscape changes on the longue durée

(pp. 403–424)
  • Ninon Blond

21. Introduction to the list of ingredients

(pp. 427–430)
  • Rebecca Lave
  • Stuart Lane

22. Archival methods

(pp. 431–440)
  • Meghan Cope

23. Arts-based environmental research

(pp. 441–446)
  • Mrill Ingram

24. Case studies

(pp. 447–454)
  • Stuart Lane

25. Descriptive statistics

(pp. 455–460)
  • Stuart Lane

26. Environmental modelling

(pp. 461–468)
  • Tobias Krueger

27. Focus groups

(pp. 469–474)
  • Robyn Longhurst
  • Lynda Johnston

28. Geochronological Methods

(pp. 475–480)
  • Georgina E. King
  • Peter M. Abbott

29. Historical ecology

(pp. 481–486)
  • Diana K. Davis

30. Hydraulic modelling

(pp. 487–492)
  • Stuart Lane

31. Hydrological modelling

(pp. 493–502)
  • Lieke Melsen

32. Interviews: Structured, semi-structured and open-ended

(pp. 503–508)
  • Lynda Johnston
  • Robyn Longhurst

33. Oral history

(pp. 509–514)
  • Alexandra Chakov
  • Tom Chang
  • Henry Covey
  • Taylor Dickson
  • Sydney Goggins
  • Nora Harris
  • Sujash Purna
  • Sydney Widell
  • Caroline Gottschalk Druschke

34. Participant observation and ethnography

(pp. 515–520)
  • Nathan F. Sayre

35. Participatory modelling

(pp. 521–526)
  • Catharina Landström

36. Participatory methods

(pp. 527–534)
  • Jennifer Mokos

37. Q method

(pp. 535–542)
  • Eric Nost

38. Sampling

(pp. 543–548)
  • Nicolena vonHedemann

39. (Critical) Satellite Remote Sensing

(pp. 549–554)
  • Andreas Ch. Braun

40. Social network analysis

(pp. 555–562)
  • Stephen M. Chignell

41. Soil toxicological analysis

(pp. 563–570)
  • Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro

42. Statistical inference

(pp. 571–576)
  • Stuart Lane

43. Survey and questionnaire methods

(pp. 577–584)
  • Fikriyah Winata
  • Sara L. McLafferty

44. Textual analysis

(pp. 585–592)
  • Marcus A. Doel

45. Uncrewed airborne systems

(pp. 593–600)
  • Elina Kasvi

Contributors

Rebecca Lave

(editor)
Professor of Geography at Indiana University
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5335-9058

Rebecca Lave is Professor of Geography at Indiana University and the 2022-2025 American Association of Geographers Vice-President/President/Past-President. Her research takes a Critical Physical Geography approach, combining political economy, STS, and fluvial geomorphology to analyze stream restoration, the politics of environmental expertise, and community-based responses to flooding. She has published in journals ranging from Science to Social Studies of Science and is the author of two monographs: Fields and Streams: Stream Restoration, Neoliberalism, and the Future of Environmental Science (2012, University of Georgia Press) and Streams of Revenues: The Restoration Economy and the Ecosystems it Creates (2021 MIT Press; co-written with Martin Doyle). She has co-edited four volumes, including the Handbook of Critical Physical Geography (2018, with Christine Biermann and Stuart N. Lane).

Stuart Lane

(editor)
Professor of Geomorphology at University of Lausanne
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6077-6076

Stuart N. Lane is Professor of Geomorphology at the University of Lausanne. He is a geographer and civil engineer by training who has held posts at the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Durham in the U.K. and Lausanne in Switzerland. His work has sought to bring a geographical perspective to contemporary environmental concerns such as flooding and pollution. The primary focus of his current work is the environments created by disappearing glaciers in terms of ice, water, sediment and ecosystems and the consequences of these changes for environmental management. An important thread through his most recent research criticizes the current alignment of geography as a discipline with the ever more neo-liberal academy; and then argues for the rediscovery of a more scientific geographical science better able to cope with the crises the world is experiencing today.