Billie Lee Turner

Billie Lee Turner II is an American geographer, from August 2008 the first Gilbert F. White Chair in Environment and Society in the School of Geographical Sciences, Arizona State University, USA. For most of his career (1980-2008) he taught at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, and was latterly the Alice C. Higgins and Milton P. Professor of Environment and Society, and Director of the Graduate School of Geography.

Raised and educated in Texas and the son of B.L.Turner, a botanist, he received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1974. [ [http://geography.asu.edu/events/bio.php?id=35 asu.edu] , retrieved May 2008]

Turner's contributions to knowledge have evolved from an interest in human impacts on the natural world. His early study was on the borders of archaeology and geography - the pre-Hispanic agricultural systems of the Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico (Turner, 1983; Harrison & Turner, 1978). This geographical and archaeological work fueled an interest in agricultural pathways and livelihoods more generally, particularly patterns of agricultural intensification. As an authority of agricultural systems, Turner produced several influential texts on the theory of agrarian change (Turner and Brush, 1989; Turner, 1974; Turner, Hyden & Kates, 1993).

The environmental transformations that have accompanied population growth in Central America led to a broader engagement with cultural ecology and the human relationship with nature. A major initiative with colleagues at Clark University, which was always a centre for this type of work under Robert Kates, Roger Kasperson and others, culminated in the "Earth Transformed by Human Action" (1990), a major stocktaking of anthropogenic impacts on the planet and its ecosystems. Over the last 15 years Turner has led, or participated in, other research on the science and dynamics of global environmental change (e.g. Steffen et al, 2004).

His interest in specific impacts of populations and societies on land use change and alterations in land cover led to a return to fieldwork in Central America in the 1990s, supported by several large research grants and working with a number of PhD students. The specific focus has been to understand contemporary patterns of land use, informed by social investigations and GIS and remote sensing (Turner et al , 2004; Gutman et al, 2004). Turner is associated with the development of LUCC analysis - Land Use/Cover Change and ways to assess it, as concern grows about tropical deforestation and agricultural expansion. He has also promoted the emerging field of 'Sustainability Science', an emerging focus at Arizona State University (Rindfuss et al, 2004).

He has a lifelong interest in the promotion of geography as an academic discipline in the USA, and the development of geographic literacy. He lists, among his hobbies, "entertaining grad students", and he has supervised at least 30 PhDs through to successful careers, and been their great supporters.

Awards and Honors

* Member, National Academy of Sciences,
* Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
* Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science
* Fellow, Massachusetts Academy of Sciences
* Guggenheim Fellow
* Fellow of Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University
* Distinguished Scholarship Award—Conference of Latin Americanists Geographers
*Robert Netting Award (2001) [ [http://www.stetson.edu/artsci/cape/Honors/turner.htm stetson.edu] , retrieved May 2008] , Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group, Associstion of American Geographers

Selected bibliography

Books
*Harrison P.D. and B. L. Turner II (eds.) 1978. "Pre-Hispanic Maya Agriculture". Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
* Turner, B.L. II. 1983. "Beneath the Forest: Prehistoric Terracing in the Rio Bec Region of the Maya Lowlands". Boulder: Westview Press.
* Turner, B.L. II and P.D. Harrison (eds.). 1983. "Pulltrouser Swamp: Ancient Maya Habitat, Agriculture, and Settlement in Northern Belize". Austin: University of Texas Press. [Reprinted 2000, University of Utah Press: Salt Lake City]
* Turner, B.L. II and S. B. Brush (eds.) 1987. "Comparative Farming Systems". New York: Guilford Press.
* Turner, B.L. II, W.C. Clark, R.W. Kates, J.F. Richards, J.T. Mathews, and W.B. Meyer (eds.) 1990. "The Earth as Transformed by Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere over the Past 300 Years". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). [National Academy of Science Science Classic]
*Turner B.L. II, G. Hyden and R.W. Kates (eds.). 1993. "Population Growth and Agricultural Change in Africa". Gainesville: University Press of Florida.
* Turner, B.L. II and W.B. Mayer. 1994. "Changes in Land Use and Land Cover: A Global Perspective". Cambridge University Press.
* Turner, B.L. II, A. G. Sal, F. Bernáldez, and F. di Castri (eds.). 1995. "Global Land-Use Change: A Perspective from the Columbian Encounter". Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.
* Kasperson J.X., R. E. Kasperson and B. L. Turner II (eds.). 1995. "Regions at Risk: Comparisons of Threatened Environments". Tokyo: United Nations University Press.
* Whitmore T.M. and B.L. Turner II. 2001. "Cultivated Landscapes of Native Middle America on the Eve of Conquest". Oxford: Oxford University Press.
* Steffen W., A. Sanderson, P. Tyson, J. Jäger. P. Matson, B. Moore III, F. Oldfield, K. Richardson, H-J. Schellnhuber, B. L. Turner II, and R. Wasson. 2004. "Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet under Pressure". IGBP Global Change Series. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
* Turner, B. L. II, J.Geoghegan and D.R. Foster. 2004. "Integrated Land-Change Science and Tropical Deforestation in the Southern Yucatán: Final Frontiers". Oxford: Clarendon.
* Gutman G., A. Janetos, C. Justice, E. Moran, J. Mustard, R. Rindfuss, D. Skole and B. L. Turner II (eds.). 2004. "Land Change Science: Observing, Monitoring, and Understanding Trajectories of Change on the Earth's Surface". New York: Kluwer Academic Publ.

Important articles
*Turner, B. L. II. 1974. Prehistoric Intensive Agriculture in the Mayan Lowlands. Science, 185(4146): 118-124.
*Turner, B. L. II and P.D. Harrison. 1981. Prehistoric Raised-Field Agriculture in the Maya Lowlands. Science, 213(4506): 399-405.
*Turner, B.L. II and T.M. Whitmore. 1992. Landscapes of Cultivation in Mesoamerica on the Eve of the Conquest. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82(3): 402-425.
* Lambin E.F., B. L. Turner II, H. Geist, S. Agbola, A. Angelsen, J. W. Bruce, O. Coomes, R. Dirzo, G. Fischer, C. Folke, P. S. George, K. Homewood, J. Imbernon, R. Leemans, X. Li, E. F. Moran, M. Mortimore, P.S. Ramakrishnan , J. F. Richards, H. Skånes, W. Steffen, G. D. Stone, U. Svedin , T. Veldkamp, C. Vogel, and J. Xu. 2001. The Causes of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change—Moving Beyond the Myths. Global Environmental Change: Human and Policy Dimensions 11: 5-13.
*Rindfuss R. R., Stephen J. Walsh, B. L. Turner II, Jefferson Fox, and Vinod Mishra. 2004. Developing a Science of Land Change: Challenges and Methodological Issues. Proceedings, National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 101(39) 13976-13981.
* Reynolds J.F., D.M. Stafford Smith, E. F. Lambin, B. L. Turner, II, M. Mortimore, S. P. Batterbury, T. E. Downing, H. Dowlatabadi, R. J. Fernandez, J. E. Herrick, E. Huber-Sannvald, R. Leemans, T. Lynam, F. Mestre, M. Ayarza, and B Walker. 2007. Global Desertification: Building a Science for Dryland Development. Science 316: 847-851.

References

* [http://www.stetson.edu/artsci/cape/Honors/turner.htm Netting Award citation]
* [http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/2008/080410/pdf/nj7188-778a.pdf Article in Nature, April 10 2008]