This book begins with an overview of current thinking on bioavailability, its definition, cutting edge research in speciation and advancement in tools for assessing chemical bioavailability in the terrestrial environment. The second section of the book focuses on the role of chemical speciation in bioavailability. Section three addresses bioavailability and ecotoxicity of contaminants and leads into the next section on bioavailability of nutrients and agrichemicals. Subsequent sections provide an overview of tools currently being used and new cutting edge techniques to assess contaminant bioavailability. The last section of the book builds on previous sections in relating bioavailability to risk assessment and how this could be used for managing risks associated with contaminated land.
* Provides the latest information on developing concepts and definitions of bioavailability
* Includes a discussion of bioavailability and ecotoxicity of contaminants and bioavailability of nutrients and agrichemicals for applications in agriculture
* Analysizes tools for assessing bioavailability and the role of bioavailability in risk assessment and remediation

This series, originally published between 1990 and 1994 arose out of the increasing need for the international debate and dissemination of on-going empirical and theoretical research associated with rural areas in advanced societies. Rural areas, then, as now, their residents and agencies, are facing rapid social, economic and political change. Local, national and international political forces have direct influence upon rural areas, not only for those concerned with agriculture but also regarding rural development initiatives, overall economic and social policy and regional and fiscal arrangements. The volumes are designed to appeal to a wide audience associated with international comparative research. They provide reviews of research available at the original time of publication, taking as their focus one major theme per volume.

One of the earliest scientific works on all aspects of compost and manure. Still of value today, especially to those interested in organic agriculture. Howard is the author of the very ground breaking "An Agricultural Testament."

"Healing the Herds: Disease, Livestock Economies, and the Globalization of Veterinary Medicine" offers a new and exciting
comparative approach to the complex interrelationships of microbes, markets, and medicine in the global economy. It draws upon fourteen case studies from the Americas, western Europe, and the European and Japanese colonies to illustrate how the rapid growth of the international trade in animals through the nineteenth century engendered the spread of infectious diseases, sometimes with devastating consequences for indigenous pastoral societies.
At different times and across much of the globe, livestock epidemics have challenged social order and provoked state interventions, which were sometimes opposed by pastoralists. The intensification of agriculture has transformed environments, with consequences for animal and human health. But the last two centuries have also witnessed major changes in the way societies have conceptualized diseases and sought to control them. The rise of germ theories and the discovery of vaccines against some infections made it possible to move beyond the blunt tools of animal culls and restrictive quarantines of the past. Nevertheless, these older methods have remained important to strategies of control and prevention, as demonstrated during the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain in 2001.
From the late nineteenth century, advances in veterinary technologies afforded veterinary scientists a new professional status and allowed them to wield greater political influence. In the European and Japanese colonies, state support for biomedical veterinary science often led to coercive policies for managing the livestock economies of the colonized peoples. In western Europe and North America, public responses to veterinary interventions were often unenthusiastic and reflected a latent distrust of outside interference and state regulation. Politics, economics, and science inform these essays on the history of animal diseases and the expansion in veterinary medicine.