Introduction

My main academic interest is the relationship of people with their physical environment through time - as expressed in landscapes.  Most of my research has been in the tropical lowlands of Mexico; I work with various types of information and undertake frequent ground exploration, but I much prefer to  consider landscapes from the open door of a light plane.

Since 1998 I have been a visiting investigator at the Institute of Ecology in Xalapa, the capital of the state of  Veracruz in Mexico, while remaining a professor emeritus in the Geography Department at the University of British Columbia.

Together with Mexican colleagues I have recently concentrated on an attractive but also ecologically problematic volcanic mountain region known as The Tuxtlas, on the southern Gulf Coast of Mexico. Link to publications

For some years I focussed my research on Prehispanic wetland agriculture  in the tropical lowlands of Mesoamerica. Link to publications.

asiemens@interchange.ubc.ca