Environmental dependency: Maquiladoras as drivers of land use and land cover change in Chihuahua, Mexico.

摘要

The thesis of this dissertation is that globalization has a measurable, significant effect on local land cover change—that a global process is a significant driver of local environmental change that can be distinguished from local processes. Concepts of environmental dependency—the theoretical constructs used to describe processes of global-local interaction in human-environment systems—are tested for the case of northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico, a predominantly rural, resource rich area that borders the US and is proximate to some of Mexico's largest industrial establishments (i.e. maquiladoras). Maquiladoras have clear environmental consequences in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua—pollution in the form of toxic chemical leaks and inappropriate waste disposal, for example. Perhaps more importantly, maquiladoras also have an effect on the pattern of population distribution within the State of Chihuahua—cities housing maquiladoras attract large populations from distant, rural places. The hypothesized process by which growth in the maquiladora industry affects local environmental change in distant places is tested by (1) linking growth in the maquiladora industry with the spatial concentration of population and income, and (2) linking spatial concentration with local land cover change, measured via the classification of remotely sensed imagery. Results show that maquiladoras are concentrated in Ciudad Juarez; that population is concentrating in Ciudad Juarez and deconcentrating in distant regions; and that significant relationships exist between population deconcentration and changes in certain local land cover types. The conclusion is that concepts of environmental dependency effectively link globalization with distant land cover change in this case, and may be effective in other situations.