Satellite Soil Moisture Retrieval: Techniques and Applications offers readers a better understanding of the scientific underpinnings, development, and application of soil moisture retrieval techniques and their applications for environmental modeling and management, bringing together a collection of recent developments and rigorous applications of soil moisture retrieval techniques from optical and infrared datasets, such as the universal triangle method, vegetation indices based approaches, empirical models, and microwave techniques, particularly by utilizing earth observation datasets such as IRS III, MODIS, Landsat7, Landsat8, SMOS, AMSR-e, AMSR2 and the upcoming SMAP. Through its coverage of a wide variety of soil moisture retrieval applications, including drought, flood, irrigation scheduling, weather forecasting, climate change, precipitation forecasting, and several others, this is the first book to promote synergistic and multidisciplinary activities among scientists and users working in the hydrometeorological sciences.

Nanosized Tubular Clay Minerals provides the latest coverage from leading scientists on a wide field of expertise regarding the current state of knowledge about nanosized tubular clay minerals. All chapters have been carefully edited and coordinated, and readers will find a resource that provides a clear view of the fundamental properties of clay materials and how their properties vary in chemical composition, structure, and the ways in which their modes of occurrence affect their engineering applications. Besides being a great reference, the book provides research scientists, university teachers, industrial chemists, physicists, graduate students, and environmental engineers and technologists with the ability to analyze and characterize clays and clay minerals to improve selectivity, along with techniques on how they can apply clays in ceramics in all aspects of industrial, geotechnical, agricultural, and environmental use.

Understanding earth systems and its dynamic behavior requires objective insights into the complex observational data sets and their interrelationships. Drawing meaningful inferences from such data is not always an easy task as the deterministic relationships between various geological variables often remain obscured. These interrelationships need to be determined empirically through the analysis of a large set of data and validated through numerical simulations. The ever widening horizon of techniques of numerical analysis and simulation now provides a good number of tools to aid the interpretation. However, due to the inherent complexity of earth science data, expert supervision is required at all stages of analysis from collection to dissemination. This ensures that the most appropriate methodology is adopted and the results remain consistent with the geological principles. Discussions on these practical issues often lie beyond the scope of textbooks and this is precisely where this book is placed. In this book eminent geoscientists present their experiences in analyzing and managing earth science data as well as in designing numerical models to simulate earth processes. Apart from giving a discourse of their own approach towards a particular research problem they also discuss at length the relative merits of alternative methodologies. These seven authoritative articles, richly illustrated, will be a valuable resource for research students and professionals interested in research and teaching in various branches of earth science like, tectonics, GPS geodesy, sedimentology, geographical information science, and evolutionary biology.

Integrated Management of Salt Affected Soils in Agriculture is a concise guide to evaluating and addressing soil issues related to saline content. Methods focused, the book combines agricultural and soil-based insights to efficiently remediate salt-affected soil. Environmental stress conditions such as salinity have a devastating impact on plant growth and yield, causing considerable loss to agricultural production worldwide. Soil salinity control prevents soil degradation by salinization and reclaim already saline soils. This book will help develop the proper management procedures, to solve problems of crop production on salt-affected soils.

The second edition of The Chemistry of Soils, published in 2008, has been used as a main text in soil-science courses across the world, and the book is widely cited as a reference for researchers in geoscience, agriculture, and ecology. The book introduces soil into its context within geoscience and chemistry, addresses the effects of global climate change on soil, and provides insight into the chemical behavior of pollutants in soils. Since 2008, the field of soil science has developed in three key ways that Sposito addresses in this third edition. For one, research related to the Critical Zone (the material extending downward from vegetation canopy to groundwater) has undergone widespread reorganization as it becomes better understood as a key resource to human life. Secondly, scientists have greatly increased their understanding of how organic matter in soil functions in chemical reactions. Finally, the study of microorganisms as they relate to soil science has significantly expanded. The new edition is still be comprised of twelve chapters, introducing students to the principal components of soil, discussing a wide range of chemical reactions, and surveying important human applications. The chapters also contain completely revised annotated reading lists and problem sets.

Fluvial-Tidal Sedimentology provides information on the 'Tidal-Fluvial Transition', the transition zone between river and tidal environments, and includes contributions that address some of the most fundamental research questions, including how the morphology of the tidal-fluvial transition zone evolves over short (days) and long (decadal) time periods and for different tidal and fluvial regimes, the structure of the river flow as it varies in its magnitude over tidal currents and how this changes at the mixing interface between fresh and saline water and at the turbidity maximum, the role of suspended sediment in controlling bathymetric change and bar growth and the role of fine-grained sediment (muds and flocs), whether it is possible to differentiate between 'fluvial' and 'tidally' influenced bedforms as preserved in bars and within the adjacent floodplain and what are the diagnostic sedimentary facies of tidal-fluvial deposits and how are these different from 'pure' fluvial and tidal deposits, amongst other topics. The book presents the latest research on the processes and deposits of the tidal-fluvial transition, documenting recent major field programs that have quantified the flow, sediment transport, and bed morphology in tidal-fluvial zones. It uses description of contemporary environments and ancient outcrop analogues to characterize the facies change through the tidal-fluvial transition.

Opportunities Beyond Carbon presents climate change as potentially the 'best crisis we ever had'. It maps the many opportunities for communities large and small, local and international, making the transition to a low carbon economy. John O'Brien has compiled essays by key politicians, investors, business people, activists and academics on how to make the most of the current predicament. This fresh, lucid and practical optimism for the future offers a foundation for an entirely new and proactive attitude to climate change.