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Abstract:
The study of human settlements is diverse in the literature. Research often focuses on core issues or aspects of human settlements rather than on advancing a coherent integrated body of knowledge of their general characteristics, patterns of development or types. It has become far more practical to attend to specific concerns that emphasise human social organisation, community dynamics, economic flow and capital value, demographic and cultural characteristics, or physical structures and spatial designs. Few articles have attempted to address coherency of human settlements across space and time, or to examine the degree to which types of settlements may not only be products of their natural advantage shaped by their inhabitants, but also as linked up systems that in their totality provide feedback effects on the ecology, economy and livelihoods of those who access and transform them. Where a deal of research has occurred, much pertains to what we may refer to as large settlements such as urban localities, major towns and cities. Very few articles exist that focus on the forms of settlement that may be described as very small and usually remote. Fewer still address typologies of remote desert settlements globally, let alone specific to Australia’s desert regions. Sustainable Desert Settlements, Desert Knowledge Cooperative Research Centre (DKCRC) commissioned this report to capture the diversity of literature published in the field and to explore a rational approach to the possibility of a typology of desert settlements. A typology can facilitate the research challenge of representation and yet can also, if not done carefully, funnel thinking towards ideals that have minimal value to policy and inhabitants alike. This report has made an important first step to fill the above voids in the literature.
