Antropogeenseteks

Antropogeenseteks is a term used in Dutch-language scholarship to describe the observable signs of human influence on the Earth's geophysical and ecological systems. The neologism blends elements meaning anthropogenic with signs or markers and is commonly invoked in discussions about landscape change and the Anthropocene. In practice, it denotes the material, spatial and cultural traces that humans leave in the natural world.

Scope and components include physical modifications (roads, mining scars, dams), altered land cover, and built environments; material residues (pollutants, altered sediments); cultural markers (place names, industrial heritage) and data traces (remote-sensing signatures, sensor networks, geotagged data). Signs are interpreted across scales, from a field site to entire regions, to understand human-environment interactions.

Methodology and aims: researchers inventory and classify signs by type and process, then analyze the social, economic and ecological drivers behind them. The goal is to read landscapes as layered palimpsests that reveal how production, consumption and governance shape ecosystems, and to inform planning, conservation and risk management.

Reception and relation to other concepts: the term is not as standardized as many established terms, and usage varies by discipline. Some scholars prefer existing frameworks such as Anthropocene discourse, landscape ecology or cultural geography, while others see antropogeenseteks as a unifying lens for integrating human and environmental data.

See also: Anthropocene, landscape ecology, environmental humanities, human geography, urban geography, toponymy.