Are states more interested in claiming territories that have economic resources? While previous theories of international relations assume that resources make a territory more tempting to claim, all else equal, I argue that certain types of economic resources can make states less willing to claim a territory. The presence of capital-intensive resources—such as oil or minerals—raises concerns about how the benefits of acquiring the territory would be distributed within the nation. These distributional concerns make it harder and costlier for leaders to mobilize widespread and consistent support for claiming resource-rich lands. Using original geocoded data on territorial claims in South America from 1830 to 2001, I show that states are indeed less likely to claim lands that have oil or minerals, even when they can be claimed for historical or administrative reasons. I then illustrate the theoretical mechanism through a case study of Bolivia, comparing Bolivian attitudes toward reclaiming its two lost provinces, the Chaco and the Litoral. By showing how the presence of economic resources can become a liability in mobilizing unified support, this paper questions the widespread assumption that resources make territories more desirable to claim.

Glaciers depicted on old maps reveal their historical extents, before the advent of aerial and satellite remote sensing. Digital glacier inventories produced from these maps can be employed in assessments of centennial-scale glacier change. This study reconstructs the ~1899 (covering the period 1882–1916) glacier extent in Nordland, northern Norway, from historical gradteigskart maps, with an emphasis on examining the accuracy of the mapped glaciers. Glacier outlines were digitised from georectified scans of the analogue maps in a raster graphics editor and were subsequently inventoried in a GIS. The accuracy of the historical glacier extent was established from written descriptions and landscape photographs created during the original field surveys, and further validated against independent glacier outlines of (1) the maximum Little Ice Age extent derived from geomorphological evidence, and (2) the 1945 extent derived from vertical aerial photographs. An overall uncertainty of ±17% is associated with our inventory. Nordland's glaciers covered an area of 1712 ± 291 km2 in 1899. By 2000, total ice cover had decreased by 47% (807 ± 137 km2) at a rate of 6% 10 a−1 (80 ± 14 km2 10 a−1). The approach presented here may serve as a blueprint for future studies intending to derive glacier inventories from historical maps.

This paper describes the landscape evolution of the Waasland Scheldt polders in the north of Belgium from the Late Glacial – early Holocene to the present time, and the effects of this changing landscape on the human settlement. The regional landscape evolution has been visualised in a series of palaeogeographical maps for successive time frames. Two different map series were produced: a series of Holocene palaeogeographical reconstructions (11,000–950 cal BP) based on geotechnical, geological and archaeological data, and a series of post-Medieval landscape reconstructions (16th- to 19th-century) based on historical maps, land registers and soil data. Additional palaeoenvironmental information from fossil pollen and plant remains allowed reconstruction of the vegetation and wetland changes, particularly for the middle to late Holocene. Peat growth was the main key to understanding the landscape evolution of the Waasland Scheldt polders. Whereas the landscape evolution during the Holocene was mainly sea-level driven, the transformation of the landscape during the last millennium was largely due to human interventions.

Local knowledge is increasingly seen as a critical information source for environmental management and habitat restoration, particularly in Australia. To assess the reliability of this information source, community perceptions of the salinity history of Lake Ainsworth (New South Wales, Australia) were investigated. Lake Ainsworth is a coastal dune lake classified as ‘permanently’ freshwater, although diatom evidence indicates a saline phase that ended in the 1930s. Local accounts of the Lake's history rarely reached consensus and local perceptions frequently contrasted with alternate evidence, including that derived from historical maps and aerial photographs. Given there was an inconsistent and unreliable local perspective about a relatively simple environmental issue, calls for environmental management and restoration to be based on local priorities should be viewed with scepticism.