Editorial Notes

Welcome to volume seventy-seven of the Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers. Besides a full slate of articles and reviews, the Yearbook is of course the publication of record for all things related to our annual meetings. This issue of the Yearbook contains all the material related to the seventy-seventh annual meeting, held September 24–27, 2014, on the campus of The University of Arizona in Tucson. We most humbly present the Presidential Address, the Meeting Report, the Student Paper Award winners, the Resolutions, the Abstracts, and our two Distinguished Service Award recipients. Thanks to Chris Lukinbeal and his hard-working group of faculty and students at UA who made the meeting a tremendous success. There was a nice variety of field trips that included a trip to Biosphere 2, an architectural tour of Tucson, and a visit to UA’s Tree Ring and Mirror labs. Attendees enjoyed a wonderful banquet highlighted by President Sriram Khe’s talk on “Geography and Public Scholarship.” Our special thanks goes out to Bill and Marilyn Bowen for their continued support of student presenters.

The Yearbook presents a diverse collection of articles this year, including submissions highlighting the geography of our region plus an exploration of desertification in China. Ed Jackiewicz and Olga Govdyak present their research on lifestyle migration in Belize and the effects these amenity-seeking migrants have on the indigenous populations. Bowlick et al. use a GIS-based overlap analysis in an attempt to better define the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The authors present a detailed history of the various definitions of the Palouse over time and, in the end, give us much better clarity and understanding of this important region. Warren et al. explore the history of Chinese migrants in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands and, through their historical experience, we get some sense of the Chinese cultural imprint on the landscapes of contemporary Mexico. Kim Young-Il, from Dong Busan University in Korea, offers an update on desertification prevention and mitigation in the steppe regions of Fengnig County in the Hebel Province of China. The study looks at how reductions in wind velocity can reduce evaporation rates, thus relieving the pressures of desertification in the region. Ron Davidson reviews William Koelsch’s wonderful book, Geography and the Classical World: Unearthing Historical Geography’s Forgotten Past. For many geographers in the United States, our understanding of the discipline often begins with William Morris Davis. Koelsch documents geography’s close relationship with the humanities, particularly “archaeography”—the precise measurement and study of ancient ruins in their topographical and cultural contexts and how that eventually evolved into De La Blache’s French School. Koelsch presents an engaging argument for the reintroduction of classical history into geography and, as Davidson points out, perhaps it is time for renewed cooperation between classicists and geographers.

It is also our pleasure to include Sriram Khe’s Presidential Address, “Geography and Public Scholarship.” The address brings up the question of our possible over-reliance on the various technologies of geography, at the cost of our sense of observation. A good question indeed. Finally, congratulations are also in order for the selection of Jim Keese and Michael Schmandt as the recipients of the APCG’s Distinguished Service Award.

This is my ninth volume of the Yearbook and again I extend my gratitude to Dave Deis, the Yearbook graphics editor, and to Rick Cooper, the Yearbook copy editor. Thanks also go to Laura Sharpe, this year’s student assistant, and to Aleksandra Ilicheva for her graphics assistance. I am also very grateful to all those who contributed, particularly Ron Davidson for his editorial help and for his contributions in the book review department (as a note, we ran into time issues, so Ron’s review of the geographical thriller The City Under The Skin will appear next volume, along with a couple other geography-related books). All concerned, from authors to staff, worked hard to continue our reputation for producing a high-quality publication, and I can’t thank everyone enough for their time and commitment to turning out another great Yearbook. Thanks also to...