This book removes the mystery and pressure from calculations by equipping readers with the tools they need to understand calculations and how they work. This is done by using straight-forward language and showing fully worked out, rig-based examples throughout. The book comprises of mini lessons which are never more than two pages long and a complete lesson is always in view when the book is open in front of you. Lessons progress in a logical manner and once the book is finished, the reader is ready for any calculations that could be encountered at well control school. It is a great tool for rig crew members who are afraid of calculations or have not done any math since school. I found it easy to follow with clear explanations and it flowed from topic to topic. A definite addition to the rig crews training toolbox. Malcolm Lodge (at the time of writing Technical Director of the Well Control Institute)

This book presents chapters, written by leading coastal scientists, which collectively depict the current understanding of the processes that shape barrier islands and barrier spits, with an emphasis on the response of these landforms to changing conditions. A majority of the world's population lives along the coast at the dynamic intersection between terrestrial and marine ecosystems and landscapes. As narrow, low-lying landforms, barriers are especially vulnerable to changes in sea level, storminess, the geographic distribution of grass species, and the rate of sand supply-some barriers will undergo rapid changes in state (e.g., from landward migrating to disintegrating), on human time scales. Attempts by humans to prevent change can hasten the loss of these landforms, threatening their continued existence as well as the recreational, financial and ecosystem service benefits they provide. Understanding the processes and interactions that drive landscape response to climate change and human actions is essential to adaptation. As managers and governments struggle to plan for the future along low-lying coasts worldwide, and scientists conduct research that provides useful guidance, this volume offers a much-needed compilation for these groups, as well as a window into the science of barrier dynamics for anyone who is generally interested in the impacts of a changing world on coastal environments.

This book outlines the current status of the environment in the Republic of Adygea in Russia. The book assesses the environmental conditions, ecological state, climate and vegetation change, anthropogenic loads to soil, water and atmosphere as well as highlighting the potential of water resources, renewable energy and development of tourism, agriculture and industry in this region. It also presents the mechanisms of legal, ecological and economic regulation and environmental insurance in the Republic of Adygea. This book introduces the Republic of Adygea to readers who are not familiar with the Republic and its beautiful landscapes, history and people. It offers a valuable source of information for a broad readership, from students and scientists interested in environmental sciences, to policymakers and practitioners working in the fields of environmental policy and management.

The book presents high-quality research papers from the Seventh International Conference on Solid Waste Management (IconSWM 2017), held at Professor Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University, Hyderabad on December 15-17, 2017. The conference, an official side event of the high-level Intergovernmental Eighth Regional 3R Forum in Asia and the Pacific, aimed to generate scientific inputs into the policy consultation of the Forum co-organized by the UNCRD/UNDESA, MoEFCC India, MOUD India and MOEJ, Japan. Presenting research on solid waste management from more than 30 countries, the book is divided into three volumes and addresses various issues related to innovation and implementation in sustainable waste management, segregation, collection, transportation of waste, treatment technology, policy and strategies, energy recovery, life cycle analysis, climate change, research and business opportunities.

Blowout and Well Control Handbook, Second Edition, brings the engineer and rig personnel up to date on all the useful methods, equipment, and project details needed to solve daily well control challenges. Blowouts are the most expensive and one of the most preventable accidents in the oil and gas industry. While some rig crews experience frequent well control incidents, some go years before seeing the real thing. Either way, the crew must always be prepared with quick understanding of the operations and calculations necessary to maintain well control. Updated to cover the lessons learned and new technology following the Macondo incident, this fully detailed reference will cover detection of influxes and losses in equipment and methods, a greater emphasis on kick tolerance considerations, an expanded section on floating drilling and deepwater floating drilling procedures, and a new blowout case history from Bangladesh. With updated photos, case studies, and practice examples, Blowout and Well Control Handbook, Second Edition will continue to deliver critical and modern well control information to ensure engineers and personnel stay safe, environmentally-responsible, and effective on the rig.

This book presents an important discussion on soil and sustainable agriculture from a range of perspectives, addressing key topics such as sustainable intensification, the FAO Voluntary Guidelines, and the crucial role of appropriate tenure rights. This second volume of the International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy is divided into four parts, the first of which deals with several aspects of the theme "soil and sustainable agriculture." In turn, the second part covers recent international developments, the third part presents regional and national reports, and the fourth discusses cross-cutting issues. Given the range of key topics covered, the book offers an indispensable tool for all academics, legislators and policymakers working in this field. The "International Yearbook of Soil Law and Policy" is a book series that discusses central questions in law and politics with regard to the protection and sustainable management of soil and land - at the international, national and regional level. The Chapter "The Use of Property Law Tools for Soil Protection" by Jessica Owley is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.

This volume addresses major evolutionary changes that took place during the Mesozoic and the Cenozoic. These include discussions on major evolutionary radiations and ecological innovations on land and at sea, such as the Mesozoic marine revolution, the Mesozoic radiation of vertebrates, the Mesozoic lacustrine revolution, the Cenozoic radiation of mammals, the evolution of paleosol biotas, and the evolution of hominins. The roles of mass extinctions at the end of the Triassic and at the end of the Cretaceous are assessed. This volume set provides innovative reviews of the major evolutionary events in the history of life from an ichnologic perspective. Because the long temporal range of trace fossils has been commonly emphasized, biogenic structures have been traditionally overlooked in macroevolution. However, comparisons of ichnofaunas through geologic time do reveal the changing ecology of organism-substrate interactions. The use of trace fossils in evolutionary paleoecology represents a new trend that is opening a window for our understanding of major evolutionary radiations and mass extinctions. Trace fossils provide crucial evidence for the recognition of spatial and temporal patterns and processes associated with paleoecologic breakthroughs.

This volume represents an effort to bring together communities of land-based hydrogeology and marine hydrogeology. The issues of submarine groundwater discharge and its opposite phenomenon of seawater invasion are discussed in this book from the geophysical, geochemical, biological, and engineering perspectives. This is where land hydrogeology and marine hydrogeology overlap. Submarine groundwater discharge is a rapidly developing research field. The SCOR and LOICZ of the IGBP have recently established a working group for this research. IASPO and IAHS under IUGG also recently formed a new joint committee "Seawater/Groundwater Interactions" to collaborate with oceanographers and hydrologists.

The other articles introduce frontier research topics in more typical land and marine environments, such as fluid flow in karst aquifers, the biological aspects of fluids in sedimentary basins and submarine sedimentary formations, respectively, and vigorous fluid flow in subsea formations and their significance in global tectonics. Geochemical characteristics of hydrothermal activities at a number of active continental margins are also reviewed, and multidisciplinary geophysical constraints of the permeability of young igneous oceanic crust are summarized. A variety of driving mechanisms for fluid flow is discussed in land and subsea formations; terrestrial hydraulic gradient, buoyancy driven free convection, tidally induced flow, flow induced by tectonic strain, flow due to sediment compaction.

The book examines a new concern in water quality policy, namely aquatic micropollutants. Micropollutants are chemicals detected in small concentrations in waterbodies today, originating from pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, or detergents, among others. Since the regulation of micropollutants is a fairly new issue, it has been largely neglected in social sciences. However, the search for appropriate solutions is of high political relevance at both the national and international levels, with many open questions arising that concern the most adequate governance structures and steering mechanisms. Solutions suitable for classical, macro-pollutants, such as nutrients, do not necessarily apply to micropollutants because of the diversity of compounds and sources, and for technical, financial, and societal reasons. The book addresses this knowledge gap by investigating the steering mechanisms at hand and their prospect for problem solving. In this regard, the research provides a systematic depiction and comparison of policy designs in place for the reduction of micropollutants in the Rhine basin. Moreover, the study yields insights into the governance structures in place, into actors' responsibilities and constellations, and policy processes regarding micropollutants. The study is furthermore embedded into broader theoretical questions of policy research. More precisely, this research is a contribution to policy analysis that aims to achieve more optimal policy results by providing for a better understanding of the nature of policy designs and the social mechanisms behind the choice of them. Despite the intrinsic aim of policy analysis at contributing to more optimal policy outcomes, there remains a lack of research regarding analytical tools that enable an ex-ante assessment of policy designs' problem-solving abilities. To explore such a research path, this book proposes a novel index of policy comprehensiveness for quantifying the prospective performance of policy designs in alleviating an underlying policy issue, e.g. reducing pollutants in waters. Furthermore, the book uncovers the social mechanisms behind policymaking and turns to the question: In which social settings is it possible to achieve a comprehensive policy design? Compared to purely micro-level explanations, the advantage of the network approach is that it goes beyond the mere aggregation of policy actors' attributes by taking into consideration actors' interdependencies. In order to take the network approach seriously, the study systematically links the structure of a policy network with comprehensive policy designs. Network concepts, such as coalition structure, interconnectedness, and belief similarity, are employed from policy change research here in order to explore the link between structural network characteristics and comprehensive policy design. By studying how network structures affect policy design, the book critically examines the explanatory value of the network approach.

This is the third book in a series on Computational Methods in Earthquake Engineering. The purpose of this volume is to bring together the scientific communities of Computational Mechanics and Structural Dynamics, offering a wide coverage of timely issues on contemporary Earthquake Engineering. This volume will facilitate the exchange of ideas in topics of mutual interest and can serve as a platform for establishing links between research groups with complementary activities. The computational aspects are emphasized in order to address difficult engineering problems of great social and economic importance.

These proceedings of the EPS 2018: 5th International Conference on Geofoam Blocks in Construction Applications, held in Kyrenia, Northern Cyprus on May 9 to 11, 2018, present a collection of contributions on the state-of-the-art of research and applications relating to geofoam. Geofoam researchers, consultants, molders, contractors and practitioners from all around the globe discuss the recent developments and future trends of expanded polystyrene (EPS)-block geofoam technology and its construction applications. EPS'18 contributes to the development of geofoam applications, following on from successful conferences in Oslo (1985), Tokyo (1996), Salt Lake City (2001) and Oslo (2011). The book discusses topics including, but not limited to, current use of geofoam, design specifications, applications, new concepts, material properties, modeling and specific topics in geofoam blocks in construction applications.

The book is a practical manual which has been created to support the syllabus of agro-meteorology courses specifically designed for graduate and post-graduate students. The topics covered in the manual include working with meteorological instruments for measurement of various meteorological parameters like temperature, humidity, sunshine hours, precipitation, etc. Separate chapters have been included for computation of growing degree days, agro-climatic zones, crop modelling and agro-advisory services. The book will have great appeal to students of agriculture, horticulture, and forestry.

This book examines energy efficiency in the Australian built environment and presents current developments with a particular focus on the temperate setting of Victoria state. It is divided into four main parts discussing policies, climate, and carbon footprint and presenting case studies on the energy performance and indoor environmental quality of various building types. The book is intended for readers wanting to understand the various policies related to different buildings types and their energy performance.

This book documents analyses of the Late Cretaceous dinosaur nesting sites of the Lameta Formation at Jabalpur, Districts Dhar and Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh; Districts Kheda and Panchmahal (Gujarat); and the Pisdura, Dongargaon and Pavna sectors in the Chandrapur Districts of Maharashtra, which are exposed in India along an east-west and central axis. In this work, special emphasis has been given to the dinosaur nesting sites of the east-central Narbada River region, including its regional geology. The work was undertaken to provide detailed information concerning dinosaur eggs, eggshell fragments, nests and clutches found in the Lameta Formation of peninsular India. Prior to the present work there had been no detailed review of systematic work on the taxonomy, and of micro- and ultrastructural studies of dinosaur eggs and eggshells from the Lameta Formation. The study documents the field and laboratory investigations that facilitated the reconstruction of the morphotaxonomy, models for the burial pattern of eggs and eggshells, taphonomic implications,and the palaeoenvironmental context and palaeoecological conditions during the Late Cretaceous at the time of the extrusion of the Deccan traps, which may have been partly responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. The need to follow a parataxonomic classification for Indian dinosaur eggs and eggshell types is very apparent, and this book addresses this aspect in some detail. The emphasis on the application of parataxonomic schemes is based on the description of new oospecies and their comparison with previously known forms. The present work has led to the recovery of numerous nests, many collapsed eggs and hundreds of dinosaur eggshell fragments from the localities situated near the east, west and central Narbada River regions. It will be of interest to academics and professional palaeontologists, and all students of dinosaurs.

Interdisciplinary Teaching about the Earth and Environment for a Sustainable Future presents the outcomes of the InTeGrate project, a community effort funded by the National Science Foundation to improve Earth literacy and build a workforce prepared to tackle environmental and resource issues. The InTeGrate community is built around the shared goal of supporting interdisciplinary learning about Earth across the undergraduate curriculum, focusing on the grand challenges facing society and the important role that the geosciences play in addressing these grand challenges. The chapters in this book explicitly illustrate the intimate relationship between geoscience and sustainability that is often opaque to students. The authors of these chapters are faculty members, administrators, program directors, and researchers from institutions across the country who have collectively envisioned, implemented, and evaluated effective change in their classrooms, programs, institutions, and beyond. This book provides guidance to anyone interested in implementing change-on scales ranging from a single course to an entire program-by infusing sustainability across the curriculum, broadening access to Earth and environmental sciences, and assessing the impacts of those changes.

Plants require essential nutrients (macronutrients and micronutrients) for normal functioning. Sufficiency range is the levels of nutrients necessary to meet the plant's needs for optimal growth. This range depends on individual plant species and the particular nutrient. Nutrient levels outside of a plant's sufficiency range cause overall crop growth and health to decline, due either to deficiency or toxicity from over-accumulation. Apart from micronutrients (B, Cl, Mn, Fe, Zn, Cu and Mo), Aluminum (Al), cerium (Ce), cobalt (Co), iodine (I), lanthanum (La), sodium (Na), selenium (Se), silicon (Si), titanium (Ti), and vanadium (V) are emerging as novel biostimulants that may enhance crop productivity and nutritional quality. These beneficial elements are not "essential" but when supplied at low dosages, they augment plant growth, development, and yield by stimulating specific molecular, biochemical, and physiological pathways in responses to challenging environments. The book is the first reference volume that approaches plant micronutrient management with the latest biotechnological and omics tools. Expertly curated chapters highlight working solutions as well as open problems and future challenges in plant micronutrient deficiency or toxicity. We believe this book will introduce readers to state-of-the-art developments and research trends in this field.

Modern life is increasingly relying on digital technology, which in turn runs on mathematics. However, this underlying math is hidden from us. That is mostly a good thing since we do not want to be solving equations and calculating fractions just to get things done in our everyday business. But the mathematical details do matter for anyone who wants to understand how stuff works, or wishes to create something new in the jungle of apps and algorithms. This book takes a look at the mathematical models behind weather forecasting, climate change prediction, artificial intelligence, medical imaging and computer graphics. The reader is expected to have only a curious mind; technical math skills are not needed for enjoying this text.

In their rapid colonization of soil exposed by fires, floods, and grazing animals, weeds resemble the human specialists we label Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs). Weeds are the first responders when disasters occur in nature. They occupy bare soil and prevent erosion by wind and water. In extreme cases such as a landslide, weeds are essential to the healing processes that replace the lost soil. Like a Band-Aid on a skinned knee, weeds protect the land while it recovers. Besides protecting the soil after disaster, weeds provide food for wildlife, and some of them provide food and medicine for people. Able to withstand harsh conditions, weeds will proliferate as global warming and other human impacts intensify. Thus, nature's EMTs will increase while all other plants decline. The book provides a succinct definition of weeds according to their form and function in ecosystem processes. The narrative uses a representative set of weed species from a desert location to illustrate the full range of weed characteristics.

This book presents current applications of remote sensing techniques for clouds and precipitation for the benefit of students, educators, and scientists. It covers ground-based systems such as weather radars and spaceborne instruments on satellites. Measurements and modeling of precipitation are at the core of weather forecasting, and long-term observations of the cloud system are vital to improving atmospheric models and climate projections. The first section of the book focuses on the use of ground-based weather radars to observe and measure precipitation and to detect and forecast storms, thunderstorms, and tornadoes. It also discusses the observation of clouds using ground-based millimeter radar. The second part of the book concentrates on spaceborne remote sensing of clouds and precipitation. It includes cases from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission, using satellite radars to observe precipitation systems. Then, the focus is on global cloud observations from the ClaudSat, Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO), including a perspective on the Earth Clouds, Aerosols, and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite. It also addresses global atmospheric water vapor profiling for clear and cloudy conditions using microwave observations. The final part of this volume provides a perspective into advances in cloud modeling using remote sensing observations.

This book examines two mid-nineteenth century thinkers - the Austrian writer Adalbert Stifter and the French architect Eugene E. Viollet-le-Duc - who imagined cultural history on the model of earth history: as a history of objects to be restored and worlds to be reconstructed. The nascent field of geology shaped cultural thought; their conservationism, informed by erosion, envisions a future of restorative renewal.

This book presents landslide studies using the geographic information system (GIS), which includes not only the science of GIS and remote sensing, but also technical innovations, such as detailed light detection and ranging profiles, among others. To date most of the research on landslides has been found in journals on topography, geology, geo-technology, landslides, and GIS, and is limited to specific scientific aspects. Although journal articles on GIS using landslide studies are abundant, there are very few books on this topic. This book is designed to fill that gap and show how the latest GIS technology can contribute in terms of landslide studies. In a related development, the GIS Landslide Workshop was established in Japan 7 years ago in order to communicate and solve the scientific as well as technical problems of GIS analyses, such as how to use GIS software and its functions. The workshop has significantly contributed to progress in the field. Included among the chapters of this book are GIS using susceptibility mapping, analyses of deep-seated and shallow landslides, measuring and visualization of landslide distribution in relation to topography, geological facies and structures, rivers, land use, and infrastructures such as roads and streets. Filled with photographs, figures, and tables, this book is of great value to researchers in the fields of geography, geology, seismology, environment, remote sensing, and atmospheric research, as well as to students in these fields.

The complexity of 21st century lifestyle makes collaborative research and learning essential for all of the population, both in well-resourced and socio-economically challenged regions. The Handbook of Research on Cross-Disciplinary Approaches to Action Research and Action Learning is an advanced reference source including the latest scholarly research on the examination of the development of a community practice of research in order to improve problem solving in various fields. Featuring extensive coverage on a broad range of topics such as social justice, organizational development, and global economy, this publication is ideally designed for academics, researchers, scholars, and managers seeking current research on the promotion of collaborative research and learning.