When all her islands are taken into consideration, the British coastline spans almost 8,000 miles, which is longer than both Brazil's and Mexico's. From the clear blue waters of serene Cornish bays to the tempestuous seas around rugged Pembrokeshire headlands, this new book journeys around the varied shorelines of England and Wales to complete the most comprehensive survey ever taken.

Stuart Fisher, bestselling author of the similarly comprehensive Canals of Britain, visits all the places of interest along the entire coastline of England and Wales: from remote countryside to modern cities, exploring history and heritage, striking architecture and dramatic engineering, wildlife, wonderful flora and fauna, art and literature.

His journey takes him from industrial hubs to small villages and fishing communities, providing a keen insight into what makes each stretch of Britain's shoreline unique and special. Evocative and often dramatic colour photographs help capture the great variety of the coast, and maps, book covers, stamps and local artefacts help convey the character of each area.

This comprehensive and absorbing survey is a treasure trove of interest and knowledge for walkers, cyclists, boaters, holidaymakers and indeed anyone with an interest in coastal Britain.

The Columbia River Basin is one of the nations largest watersheds and extends mainly through four Western states and into Canada. Activities such as power generation and agricultural practices have impaired water quality in some areas, so that human health is at risk and certain species, such as salmon, are threatened or extinct. Chapter 1 reports on the actions related to restoration efforts in the Basin. The San Francisco Bay Delta watershed -- which drains a vast area of California from the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Pacific Ocean -- supplies drinking water for 25 million people and provides irrigation for about half the nations fruit and vegetable production. Decades of development and agriculture have led to large reductions in water quality and supply, natural flood protection, and habitats across the watersheds three major regions: the Bay, the Delta, and the upper watershed. As described in chapter 2, federal entities have been working with nonfederal entities for decades to protect and restore the watershed. The Long Island Sound, an estuary bordered by Connecticut and New York, provides numerous economic and recreational benefits. However, development and pollution have resulted in environmental impacts, such as the degradation of water quality. Chapter 3 focuses on the Study to restore and protect the Sound. Puget Sound is the nations second-largest estuary and serves as an important economic engine in Washington State, supporting millions of people, major industries, and a wide variety of species. However, according to the CCMP, human use and development have degraded water quality and habitats and harmed critical species such as salmon. Chapter 4 reviews the efforts to restore Puget Sound.

The Geologic Resources Inventory (GRI) is one of 12 inventories funded by the National Park Service (NPS) Inventory and Monitoring Program. The GRI, administered by the Geologic Resources Division of the Natural Resource Program Center, is designed to provide and enhance baseline information available to park managers. The author's goal of detailing the GRI is to increase understanding of the geologic processes at work in parks and to provide sound geologic information for use in park decision making. Sound park stewardship requires an understanding of the natural resources and their role in the ecosystem.

The Long Island Studies (LIS) Program of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has noticed the habitat changes indicative of sea-level rise in many coastal wetlands. In 2005, DEP provided funds to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to conduct a trends analysis of selected salt marshes along the southwestern coast of the state to document habitat changes.

From Treasure Island to Robben Island, from the paradise of Thomas More's 'Utopia' to Napoleon's purgatory on Elba, islands have proved irresistible to mankind's imagination since time immemorial. Self-confessed islomane Barry Smith explores how islands bewitch us so, and examines the kind of human experiences that islands inspire. Journeying all around the globe to take in the most fascinating stories of Earth's half a million islands, this book considers the unique geography, politics and economics of islands and their cultures. It traces their singular place in literature, religion and philosophy, and disentangles the myths and the facts to reveal just why islands exert such an insistent grip on the human psyche.

This is a tribute to the sea, or the Ocean, or all the water around us. The sea, the world ocean, or simply the ocean, is the connected body of salty water that covers over 70 percent of the Earth's surface. It moderates the Earth's climate and has important roles in the water cycle, carbon cycle, and nitrogen cycle. Although the sea has been travelled and explored since ancient times, the scientific study of the sea dates broadly from the voyages of Captain James Cook who explored the Pacific Ocean between 1768 and 1779. In geography, "sea" is used in the names of smaller, partly landlocked sections of the ocean, for example the Irish Sea, while "ocean" is used in the names of the five largest sections, such as the Pacific Ocean. The most abundant ions in sea water are chloride and sodium. The water also contains magnesium, sulfate, calcium, potassium, and many other components, some in minute concentrations. Salinity varies widely, being lower near the surface and the mouths of large rivers and higher in the depths of the ocean; however the relative proportions of dissolved salts vary little across the oceans. Carbon dioxide from the air is currently being absorbed by the sea in increasing amounts, lowering seawater pH in a process known as ocean acidification, which is likely to damage marine ecosystems in the near future. Winds blowing over the surface of the sea produce waves, which break when they reach shallow water. Winds also create surface currents through friction, setting up slow but stable circulations of water throughout the oceans. The directions of the circulation are governed by factors including the shapes of the continents and the rotation of the earth. Deep-sea currents, known as the global conveyor belt, carry cold water from near the poles to every ocean. Tides are caused by the rotation of the Earth and the gravitational effects of the orbiting Moon and, to a lesser extent, the Sun. Tides may have a very high range in bays or estuaries. A wide variety of life, including viruses, bacteria, protists, algae, plants, fungi and animals, lives in the sea, which offers a wide range of marine habitats and ecosystems, ranging from sunlit surface waters to the enormous depths and pressures of the cold, dark abyssal zone. The sea also varies in latitude from the cold waters beneath the Arctic ice to the colourful diversity of coral reefs in the tropics. Many of the major groups of organisms evolved in the sea and life may have started there. The sea provides people with substantial supplies of food, mainly fish, but also shellfish, mammals and seaweed, whether harvested in the wild or farmed underwater. The sea also serves other purposes, including trade, travel, mineral extraction, power generation, warfare, and leisure activities such as swimming, surfing, sailing and scuba diving. The sea has played an important part in culture throughout history, with major appearances in literature at least since Homer's Odyssey, in marine art, in cinema, in theater, and in classical music. Symbolically, the sea appears as monsters such as Scylla in mythology and represents the unconscious mind in dream interpretation. The sea is the interconnected system of all the Earth's oceanic waters, including the five named "oceans," the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Southern and Arctic Oceans. The word "sea" is used in the names of specific, smaller bodies of seawater, such as the North Sea or the Red Sea. There is no sharp distinction between seas and oceans, though seas are smaller, and are partly (as marginal seas) or wholly (as inland seas) bordered by land, on a smaller scale than say the Atlantic Ocean. However, the Sargasso Sea has no coastline and lies within a circular current, the North Atlantic Gyre. Seas are generally larger than lakes and contain salt water, but the Sea of Galilee is a freshwater lake. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea states that all of the ocean is "sea."

This report details the results of the 22nd year of the western snowy plover (Charadriusalexandrinus nivosus) monitoring program within Point Reyes National Seashore, Marin County, California (PRNS). The goal of the 2011 monitoring effort was to determine abundance, distribution, and breeding success of snowy plovers nesting on federal lands within PRNS. The report provides an overview of the 2011 snowy plover monitoring program on federal lands and summarizes the results of the data collected during the field season.