May 24, 2022JPEG The province of Almería in southeastern Spain has some of the driest conditions in Europe Yet with access to groundwater and an abundance of sun it has become a major hub of greenhouse agriculture On May 24, 2022, the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI) on Landsat 9 captured these natural-color images of a sea of plastic greenhouses around the town of El Ejido The town sits on a small coastal plain called Campo de Dalías which has one of the highest concentrations of greenhouses in the world The greenhouses (invernaderos in Spanish) are a relatively new phenomenon Campo de Dalías was mostly covered by scrubby vegetation and a few small plots of seasonal crops grown outdoors Farmers started experimenting with adding layers of sand and mulch to soil along with a covering of plastic in the 1950s and 1960s initially to protect the soil and plants from damaging winds and salty groundwater They soon realized that crops grown under plastic were far more productive than outdoor counterparts because soils stayed warmer and retained extra moisture enough to make them a major source of off-season tomatoes By some estimates, Almería’s greenhouses now cover more than 40,000 hectares (150 square miles)—nearly all of Campo de Dalías. They have also spilled into neighboring areas. The greenhouses cover so much area that they have likely even caused a localized cooling effect because the white roofs reflect a substantial amount of sunlight NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Adam Voiland View this area in EO Explorer Clear skies and plastic have made it possible for the dry province in southeastern Spain to become a major exporter of tomatoes and other produce. The unexpected discovery of a whale skeleton hundreds of miles from the sea and more than 200 feet above sea level in 1849 is a reminder of how much sea level can change. The arrow-shaped island in the Aral Sea used to be a 35-kilometer-long visual marker, indicating the Aral Sea to astronauts. An image from the present International Space Station increment shows how much the coastline has changed as the sea level has dropped during the last three decades. Acquired July 11, 2011, this mosaic shows Arctic sea ice through largely cloud-free skies. Early demographic data show that 20% of households were headed by women in colonial Brazil São Paulo State Public Archives, Cover of the Census of São Paulo City, 1765. Office of the Provincial Government, 1765. p. 1 of the pdf The first page of a census of the city of São Paulo in 1765 stored in the State Public ArchivesSão Paulo State Public Archives the Spanish began to advance into Portuguese territories reaching as far as present-day Florianópolis,” explains Bacellar then Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Portuguese Empire used these lists to determine the number of able-bodied men available to fight along the southern border To ensure he had the means to sustain the military effort he also compiled information on food production from population lists used information from the name lists to assess the population’s wealth and the uses of agricultural properties “This was one of the ways by which the Crown was able to identify new economic activities to compensate for the decline in gold mining in the region of Minas Gerais,” says Bacellar statistics came into increasing use in informing public policies in Brazil government officials were unable to reckon how many men were available to be drafted for military strategies or to defend their borders,” he explains In analyzing early census data as part of research projects since 2000 Volpi Scott found that during the colonial period around 20% of households were headed by women in some parts of Brazil and shows that women played a more prominent role in society at that time than previously thought,” she says explains that the name lists indicate that when the head of a household died This differed from the prevailing practice in Europe even in the event of their husband’s death brother or other male relative replaced the deceased as head of the household the role of women was not as subordinate as described in historiography until the mid-1960s Recent studies of name lists have reassessed and upgraded the role of women.” Another of Volpi Scott’s research interests concerns children born out of Catholic wedlock a pioneering study carried out in the 1970s by Maria Luiza Marcílio who analyzed data collected from parish records in the city of São Paulo from 1750 to 1850 Her research found that 39 out of every 100 baptized children either were the children of unmarried parents or were “exposed.” This term indicates that the children had been raised other than by their families or had been left in foundling wheels provided by Catholic-run institutions In her research of parish records for present-day Porto Alegre 70% of children were born into Catholic wedlock access to legitimate marriage was limited for slaves,” she notes The formalization of marriage within the Catholic faith was beneficial for slaves as in many cases it prevented married couples from being separated São Paulo State Public Archives, A List of City Residents: Conceição, Juqueri, N. Sra. do Ó, Cotia, Penha, and Sto. Amaro, Year 1803. Office of the Provincial Government, 1803. pp. 5 and 6 of the pdf A name list for São Paulo dated 1803 and occupationSão Paulo State Public Archives notes that while indigenous slavery was theoretically abolished in Brazil in 1680 historical documents show that the practice continued for many years covertly “The name lists show the number of people who were under the charge of a given master the name lists contained few indigenous people described as being under a master Now they were listed as pardos or brown-skinned the same category used to list Afro-descendant mestiços,” says Bacellar describing the findings from his research since 2014 In another of his studies using name lists Bacellar retraced the development of São Paulo’s economy during the colonial period with the data showing that the growing size of farm properties led to early exports of agricultural commodities “The lists show that farm commodities began to be exported in a region that previously grew produce for local consumption only,” he says “We also found that nuclear families—families consisting of a father This differs from research up to the mid-1960s which suggested that most households included several relatives and extended family members,” notes Bacellar He is currently examining historical documentation for the village of Itu in an effort to understand how families were formed among slaves and how the property of large slave owners was transmitted in colonial society In a geoprocessing study he initiated in 2017 a historian at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) analyzed the population composition of Zona da Mata in southeastern Brazil an area between Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais now containing 143 municipalities By intersecting name lists for Minas Gerais with the slave lists introduced to enforce the Law of Free Birth in 1870 17% of the slave population in Minas Gerais lived in three cities in the southern portion of this region: Juiz de Fora “Around 60% of the population of the present-day municipality of Argirita who put up a strong resistance to abolition,” he says These demographic characteristics have left scars in the region some town squares were still designated for white people only The demographic data provide an understanding of why racial discrimination is still present in these municipalities where some neighborhoods are mostly black and others mostly white.” the average slave population never exceeded 20% of the total In these areas there were slaves even on small and medium-sized properties but smallholders had to work alongside their slaves in the field to be able to handle all the farm tasks whereas large landholders had enough slaves to handle all manual labor in these cities geographic segregation of blacks and whites in different neighborhoods is less pronounced than observed in southern Zona da Mata,” he explains Project Family life among enslaved and freed populations of the province of Popayán, Colombia (1780–1852) (nº 17/21673-4); Grant Mechanism Doctoral (PhD) Fellowships in Brazil; Supervisor Carlos de Almeida Prado Bacellar (USP); Grant Beneficiary Lida Elena Tascón Bejarano; Investment R$197,721.55 Revista Brasileira de Estudos de População – Rebep © Revista Pesquisa FAPESP - All rights reserved Thom: Or Lorraine: Be an accomplice and come with me. 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