New Guinea’s mountains provide an important case study for understanding early modern human environmental adaptability and early developments leading to agriculture. Evidence is presented showing that human colonization pre-dated 35ka (ka1⁄4 thousands of uncalibrated radiocarbon years before present) and was accompanied by landscape modification using fire. Sorties into the subalpine zone may h...

We consider the problem of enumerating the different ways in which the classic Miura map fold crease pattern can be folded flat. Specifically, we aim to count the number M(n,m) of ways to assign mountains and valleys to the creases so that each vertex in a m by n Miura map fold will be able to fold flat. Recurrence relations and closed formulas are found for small n and arbitrary m. We also pro...

Generating realistic-looking but interesting terrains quickly is a great challenge. We present RiverLand, an efficient system for terrain synthesis. RiverLand creates a realistic-looking terrain by first generating river networks over the land. Then, the terrain is created to be consistent with the river networks. In this way, the terrains created have a proper drainage basin, an important feat...

The linkages between the space-time variability of observed clouds, rainfall, large-circulation patterns and topography in northern India and the Himalayas were investigated using remote sensing data. The research purpose was to test the hypothesis that cloudiness patterns are dynamic tracers of rainstorms, and therefore their temporal and spatial evolution can be used as a proxy of the spatial...

Inland valleys are becoming increasingly important agricultural production areas for rural households in sub-Saharan Africa due to their relative high and secure water availability and soil fertility. In addition, inland valleys are important as water buffer and biodiversity hot spots and they provide local communities with forest, forage, and fishing resources. As different inland-valley ecosy...

The shape of the Earth's surface, its topography, is a fundamental dimension of the environment, shaping or mediating many other environmental flows or functions. But there is a major divergence in the way that topography is conceptualized in different domains. Topographic cartographers, information scientists, geomorphologists and environmental modelers typically conceptualize topographic vari...

Topographic development in mountainous landscapes is a complex interplay between tectonics, climate and denudation. Glaciers erode valleys to generate headwall relief, and hillslope processes control the height and retreat of the peaks. The magnitude-frequency of these landslides and their long-term ability to lower mountains above glaciers is poorly understood; however, small, frequent rockfal...