ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts presents in the subsequent chapters. This part describes the topographic and hydrologic deterioration of the landscape that results from man’s deliberate design to modify terrain by construction of roads, railroads, buildings, and new channels. It presents one of the first and clearest documentations of what can occur when man attempts to change river courses. The concept of “channelization,” the artificial alteration of a stream bed, is taking on increased importance and has been drawing much attention in the last half of the twentieth century. R. M. Haugen and Carl B. Brown summarize some of the unusual characteristics of the terrain in terms of man: The extreme sensitivity of tundra-taiga vegetation and the underlying permafrost to stresses and disturbances is particularly evident in the ice-rich permafrost regions of Alaska.
