GeoJournal (2006) 65: 239–240 DOI 10.1007/s10708-006-0003-3

Book review

Seppa¨la¨, Matti (ed.), The physical geography of Fennoscandia. Oxford regional environments, Oxford University Press, 2005, 432 pp. The series ÔOxford Regional Environments’ is devoted to major regions of the world. Thus far, its issues have covered very extensive areas such as Africa, North America and Southeast Asia. The book about Fennoscandian physical geography focusses into a more limited international area, i.e. the countries of Finland, Sweden and Norway. A compendium about the physical geography of Fennoscandia is welcome indeed. In a global comparison, Fennoscandia undoubtedly belongs to the most studied land areas. However, most of the research has been confined within the national territories of each of these countries. What has been missing is a comprehensive regional geography that makes good use of the potential of joining together the wealth of research done separately in different countries. Many specialists hesitate to take such an approach as a challenge. Editor Seppa¨la¨’s remark in the preface is illustrative: ‘‘... it was difficult to find contributors willing to handle Fennoscandia as one borderless whole’’. Why is this area, then, so unique that it deserves a book of its own? In my view, this question should have been addressed in an overall introductory chapter at the beginning of the volume. As a reader of a regional geography, I would prefer first to read broad-spectrum text about the region in general, putting in this case the Fennoscandian region into a global perspective. What is unique in the physical geographical conditions of this region, and which areas resemble it and why? Is it really an entity or rather an arbitrary limitation based on political borders? The preface briefly addresses some of these points but it is definitely insufficient for this purpose. Connected to the previous point, the book also lacks a general map about Fennoscandia. A good map would help the reader to get an idea of the major geographical features in the region, before entering into specific texts that are rich in regional details. The articles written by different specialists abound with place names that are never shown in any form of map. Also a chronological chart could have been elaborated in order to pinpoint the schedule of some key factors and processes that have shaped the region. A good level of geographical tacit knowledge, specific to this area, is now needed to put the details of the separate articles into their right perspective. The book is divided into three parts. In the first part, the physical geography of Fennoscandia is described

according to diverse topics. Each chapter makes an effort to gather together and synthesize results from numerous national-level studies. Some of the chapters are more able than others to do the job. The opening chapter of the book describes the major landforms and bedrock features of Fennoscandia. Being loaded with densely packed geological jargon from its very beginning, it is a tough start for the volume. The article turns in more process-oriented direction in its latter parts. Perhaps the order of these approaches should have been changed in order to make the article more attractive to read? Later chapters about land uplift, landforms and geomorphic processes complete the geology–geomorphology treatment and together they provide valuable information about the geological structure and dynamics of Fennoscandia. The succeeding chapters cover a broad and relevant range of physical geographical issues specific to this region: mires, climate, rivers and lakes, snow and glaciers. Unfortunately, the living nature is not covered in a similar depth. One chapter is dedicated to boreal forests, but its focuses particularly on timberline questions. Being well studied and internationally interesting, the biogeography of Fennoscandia could deserve much more attention. For example, the phytogeographical patterns of this region have been shaped during a relatively short period of colonization (mostly less than 10,000 years) from different directions (south, east, possibly north), being further influenced by spatially and temporally varying climatic and edaphic conditions. Also, soils (their formation processes and distribution) remain unexpectedly poorly covered in this volume. The second part of the book describes selected physiographic regions in Fennoscandia, such as the Atlantic coast, the Scandes mountains, archipelagos in the Baltic Sea and the lake district of Finland. It has obviously been easier for the authors to write geographies in this way. Most texts are easy to read and they indicate a good degree of personal experience of the respective areas. At places the texts abound with small details that may interest only a small reader group, but this is of course acceptable. Some of the details in these chapters could be challenged, though. For example, the Baltic Sea archipelago areas are divided into 11 regions using a combination of different criteria. The distinction of the ÔA˚land Skarga˚rd’ and ÔA˚boland Skarga˚rd’ as separate archipelago environments, at this scale, appears to respect administrative dignity rather than undisputable physical geographical conditions. The third part is dedicated to humans in the environment. It contains four chapters, describing the

240 human impact in the region, acid rain, lake water pollution and biodiversity conservation. These chapters contain useful information as such, but remain rather isolated from other parts of the book. For example, since biogeographical issues were hardly addressed in earlier parts of this book, a chapter dedicated to biodiversity conservation does not appear a necessity. Overall, this book is a valuable contribution to the regional environments series. It brings together results from numerous studies that are often published in national languages only. Moreover, it presents a good selection of thematic maps that cover the entire Fennoscandian region as single entity. Examples of informative newly compiled maps include those showing the distribution of drumlins, peatlands, surface water run-off regimes and drained wetlands in all the three countries. The style of writing varies among the chapters written by the almost 30 authors. Some of the texts are

strictly scientific and restrict to a specific theme only, while others try to be more pedagogic and general in nature. Being an edited book, this condition is understandable and acceptable. The selection of contributors, however, yields, a somewhat biased overall structure in the book. Probably as a reflection of this condition, the book has a noteworthy orientation to northerly issues in particular. Presumably also the reality that half of the book’s authors are Finns has resulted into some type of predisposition in the selection of themes and topics. Restrictions of this kind are, however, common to any edited book. As a general assessment, I would like to conclude that the long-lasting lack of a basic physical geographical description of the Fennoscandian region, as a whole, has now ended. Risto Kalliola University of Turku