Nitrous oxide gas is a long-lived relatively active greenhouse gas (GHG) with an atmospheric lifetime of approximately 120 years, and heat trapping effects about 310 times more powerful than carbon dioxide per molecule basis. It contributes about 6% of observed global warming. Nitrous oxide is not only a potent GHG, but it also plays a significant role in the depletion of stratospheric ozone. This book describes the anthropogenic sources of N2O with major emphasis on agricultural activities. It summarizes an overview of global cycling of N and the role of nitrous oxide on global warming and ozone depletion, and then focus on major source, soil borne nitrous oxide emissions. The spatial-temporal variation of soil nitrous oxide fluxes and underlying biogeochemical processes are described, as well as approaches to quantify fluxes of N2O from soils. Mitigation strategies to reduce the emissions, especially from agricultural soils, and fertilizer nitrogen sources are described in detail in the latter part of the book.

"Natural resource Engineering" examines the physics and engineering aspects of soil and water-qulaity preservation. Topics include a quantitative overview of the hydrologic cycle, upland erosion and water quality, stream channel design, hydraulics of common management structures, ponds and embankments, drainage and irrigation, and stream and lake quality issues.

This practical text and reference:
Covers a diverse range of topics in the forefront of natural resources engineering
Stresses fundamentals, building on traditional agricultural engineering soil and water teachings
Contains chapter learning goals to help structure student study
Provides useful Internet addresses for current information and practical tips
Helps students and practicing professionals prepare environmentally friendly solutions for clients engaging in agricultural production and related commercial activities

This book describes the vast variety of xenobiotics, such as pesticides, antibiotics, antibiotic resistance genes, agrochemicals and other pollutants, their interactions with the soil environment, and the currently available strategies and techniques for soil decontamination and bioremediation. Topics covered include: transport mechanisms of pollutants along the Himalayas; use of earthworms in biomonitoring; metagenomic strategies for assessing contaminated sites; xenobiotics in the food chain; phyto-chemical remediation; biodegradation by fungi; and the use of enzymes and potential microbes in biotransformation. Accordingly, the book offers a valuable guide for scientists in the fields of environmental ecology, soil and food sciences, agriculture, and applied microbiology.

This study presents for the first time an independent and authoritative analysis of water quality management in North and South America, and discusses the practices and future implications of the impacts of the current practices in the different countries of the hemisphere. Includes in-depth case studies analyzing water quality management practices at country and state levels, especially in terms of their effectiveness and overall impact.

Most of the world s mountains are rich in water and, as such, play a pivotal role in the global water cycle. They provide water for diverse human uses and ecosystems. Growing water demands as well as climate change will lead to ever-increasing pressure on mountain waters. Overcoming water-use conflicts and maintaining the ecological functioning of mountain waters presents a highly challenging task and is indispensable for sustainable development.
This book extensively portrays the highly diverse attributes of mountain waters and demonstrates their paramount importance for ecological and societal development. The extensive summaries on the scientific basics of mountain waters are supplemented with considerations on the diverse water uses, needs for management actions, and challenges regarding sustainable water management. This overview concerns not only the mountain areas themselves but also downriver reaches and their surrounding lowlands, and, therefore, the relationship between mountain and lowland water issues."

This second volume of Frontiers articles contains a broad array of fascinating topics. The first four
papers focus on the Sun, the origin of the solar system and the early history of the Earth. The fifth, on komatiites, is also relevant to the early Earth but also forms a nice transition to three articles that focus on subduction and mantle processes. The final three articles focus on changes in our surface environment including biogeochemical cycles, the evolution of hominids and, finally, the future threat posed by near Earth asteroids.

Throughout the world's arid regions, and particularly in northern and eastern Africa, formerly nomadic pastoralists are undergoing a transition to settled life. Pastoral sedentarization represents a response to multiple factors, including loss of livestock due to drought and famine, increased competition for range land due to growing populations, land privatization or appropriation for commercial farms, ranches, and tourist game parks, and to fear of increasing violence, ethnic conflict, and civil war. Although pastoral settlement is often encouraged by international development agencies and national governments as solutions to food insecurity, poor health care and problems of governance, the social, economic and health concomitants of sedentism are not inevitably beneficial. Biosocial studies presented in this volume, for example, point to greater nutritional and health benefits among nomadic livestock keepers, but increased opportunities in education, employment, and food security in towns.
This book examines from an interdisciplinary perspective pastoral sedentarization in one region of Africa - Marsabit District in northern Kenya - an isolated and arid region bordering Ethiopia and which contains multiple pastoral groups including Rendille, Samburu, Ariaal, Borana and Gabra peoples. Within this locale, we present recent studies conducted by cultural and biological anthropologists, veterinary biologists, economists, geographers and medical and community health personnel, linked by the common goal of delineating the consequences, both positive and negative, of settlement for formerly nomadic pastoral populations. For many of these former pastoralists, settled life does notnecessarily constitute a break with their pastoral kin and neighbors, but represents one more opportunity with which to survive in a difficult physical and social environment.
This edited work is a collection of international contributors from North America, Africa and Europe and focuses on a dilemma that affects many parts of the indigenous world. This book will be essential reading for professionals and students of social change in the developing world particularly in applied anthropology, development economics, rural sociology, environment and ecology, and medicine and public health

Biomonitoring of water quality is very much essential for assessing the overall health of water bodies and safe supply of drinking water. The chemical nature of toxicant is highly dynamic in environment with time and space whereas biological system can integrate all environmental variables over a large period of time in terms of effect that can be easily measured and quantified. In view of the above, there is a pressing need to determine the water quality of natural resources as well as drinking water based on the standard protocols and guidelines from regulatory agencies. It is clear that the synthetic chemicals are essential for our society to maintain the health and well being of the people. However, there has been a range of detrimental effects on human health and natural environment. In general, we need to improve our management of waste chemicals discharged into the air, water and soil environments. New techniques are needed to predict adverse effects before they occur and for the treatment of wastes. In addition, a range of social, political and economic factors will be needed to be taken into account in order to achieve success.

Since the first symposium in 1984 the International Symposia on Spatial Data Handling (SDH) has become a major resource for recent advances in GIS research. The International Symposium on Spatial Data Handling is regarded as a premier international research forum for GIS. All papers are fully reviewed by an international program committee composed of experts in the field.

Bio-Based Materials and Wastes for Energy Generation and Resource Management is the fifth and final volume in the series, Advanced Zero Waste Tools: Present and Emerging Waste Management Practices. It addresses processes and practices for utilizing bio-based materials and wastes to support efforts to promote a more sustainable society and provide readers with a better understanding of the major mechanisms required to achieve zero waste in different fields. This book covers numerous mechanisms supported by scientific evidence and case studies, as well as in-depth flowcharts and process diagrams to allow for readers to adopt these processes. Summarizing present and emerging zero waste tools on the scale of both experimental and theoretical models, Advanced Zero Waste Tools is the first step toward understanding the state-of-the-art practices in making the zero waste goal a reality. In addition to environmental and engineering principles, it also covers economic, toxicologic, and regulatory issues, making it an important resource for researchers, engineers, and policymakers working toward environmental sustainability.

This book focuses on essential theories, methods and techniques in the field of environmental and engineering geophysics that can contribute to resource detection and environmental protection. Geophysics has been playing an important role in exploring the earth, locating vital resources and promoting the development of society. This book covers a range of topics including the exploration of modern resources, such as ore deposits, coal mines, shale gas and geothermal power, and the monitoring of geological disasters, including the rock-soil body, ground deformation, mines, specific rock-soil engineering disasters, desertification of land and environmental abnormalities. This book not only offers a valuable resource for geophysical researchers; it also demonstrates how geophysics theories and methods can be practically implemented to protect our environment and promote the development of human society.

This book presents the proceedings and the outcomes of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) on Integrated Technologies for Environmental Monitoring and Information Production, which was held in Marmaris, Turkey, between September 10- 14, 200 I. With the contribution of 45 experts from 20 different countries, the ARW has provided the opportunity to resolve the basic conflicts that tend to arise between different disciplines associated with environmental data management and to promote understanding between experts on an international and multidisciplinary basis. The prevailing universal problem in environmental data management (EDM) systems is the significant incoherence between data collection procedures and the retrieval of information required by the users. This indicates the presence of problems still encountered in the realization of; (1) delineation of objectives, constraints, institutional aspects of EDM; (2) design of data collection networks; (3) statistical sampling; (4) physical sampling and presentation of data; (5) data processing and environmental databases; (6) reliability of data; (7) data analysis and transfer of data into information; and (8) data accessibility and data exchange at local, regional and global scales. Further problems stem from the lack of coherence between different disciplines involved in EDM, lack of coordination between responsible agencies on a country basis, and lack of coordination on an international level regarding the basic problems and relevant solutions that should be sought.

Constructed wetlands with horizontal sub-surface flow (HF CWs) have been used for wastewater treatment for more than four decades. HF CWs are used around the world for many types of wastewater, including municipal sewage, agricultural and industrial wastewaters, runoff waters, wastewaters containing endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and landfill leachate.

This book fills a gap in the literature by providing an extensive, worldwide overview of this treatment technology. Special attention is paid to assessing the use of this treatment technology in individual countries and treatment performance of various HF CWs with respect to major pollutants in different types of wastewater.

The book provides a broad base of knowledge, including:

• processes occurring in wetland soils and overlying water
• various types of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment
• detailed information about design parameters, functioning, operation and maintenance, and costs of HF CWs
• evaluations of treatment efficiency of HF CWs under diverse conditions
• information on the global use of HF CWs for various types of wastewater

The inclusion of case studies from over 50 countries and more than 250 colour photos that illustrate the science makes this an invaluable text.

This book will be useful not only to wetland scientists, teachers, and engineers, but also to landscape planners, ecologists, wastewater-treatment designers and governmental decision-makers.

Currently, spatial analysis is becoming more important than ever because enormous volumes of spatial data are available from different sources, such as GPS, Remote Sensing, and others.

This book deals with spatial analysis and modelling. It provides a comprehensive discussion of spatial analysis, methods, and approaches related to human settlements and associated environment. Key contributions with empirical case studies from Iran, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Nepal, and Japan that apply spatial analysis including autocorrelation, fuzzy, voronoi, cellular automata, analytic hierarchy process, artificial neural network, spatial metrics, spatial statistics, regression, and remote sensing mapping techniques are compiled comprehensively. The core value of this book is a wide variety of results with state of the art discussion including empirical case studies.

It provides a milestone reference to students, researchers, planners, and other practitioners dealing the spatial problems on urban and regional issues.

We arepleased to announce that this book has been presented with the 2011 publishing award from the GIS Association of Japan.
We would like to congratulate the authors

"

The assessment of greenhouse gases emitted to and removed from the atmosphere is high on the international political and scientific agendas. Growing international concern and cooperation regarding the climate change problem have increased the need for policy-oriented solutions to the issue of uncertainty in, and related to, inventories of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The approaches to addressing uncertainty discussed here reflect attempts to improve national inventories, not only for their own sake but also from a wider, systems analytical perspective - a perspective that seeks to strengthen the usefulness of national inventories under a compliance and/or global monitoring and reporting framework. These approaches demonstrate the benefits of including inventory uncertainty in policy analyses. The authors of the contributed papers show that considering uncertainty helps avoid situations that can, for example, create a false sense of certainty or lead to invalid views of subsystems. This may eventually prevent related errors from showing up in analyses. However, considering uncertainty does not come for free. Proper treatment of uncertainty is costly and demanding because it forces us to make the step from "simple to complex" and only then to discuss potential simplifications. Finally, comprehensive treatment of uncertainty does not offer policymakers quick and easy solutions.

A groundbreaking text and professional resource on natural attenuation technology
Natural attenuation is rapidly becoming a widely used approach to manage groundwater and soil contamination by hazardous substances in petroleum-product releases and leachate from hazardous waste sites and landfills. This book provides, under one cover, the current methodologies needed by groundwater scientists and engineers in their efforts to evaluate subsurface contamination problems, to estimate risk to human health and ecosystems through mathematical models, and to design and formulate appropriate remediation strategies.
Incorporating the authors' extensive backgrounds as educators, researchers, and consultants in environmental biotechnology and hydrogeology, the text emphasizes new concepts and recent advances in the science, including:
* Quantification of the role of microbes in natural attenuation
* Biodegradation and chemical transformation principles
* Immobilization and phase change
* Biotransformation mechanisms
* Groundwater flow and contaminant transport
* Analytical models for contaminant transport and reaction processes
* Numerical modeling of contaminant transport, transformation, and degradation
Detailed descriptions of fundamental processes, characterization approaches, and analytical and numerical methods tied to relevant real-world applications make Bioremediation and Natural Attenuation: Process Fundamentals and Mathematical Models both a timely course text in hydrogeology and environmental engineering and a valuable reference for anyone in the groundwater or risk assessment professions.

For the past 3.8 billion years, the geochemistry of the Earth's surface - its atmosphere, waters and exposed crust - has been determined by the presence of biota. Photosynthetic organisms exposed the Earth's surface to oxygen, denitrifying bacteria have maintained the nitrogen concentration in Earth's atmosphere, and land plants have determined the rate of chemical weathering. Life determines the global biogeochemical cycles of the elements of biochemistry, especially C, N, P and S. Volume 8 traces the origin and impact of life on the geochemistry of the Earth's surface, with special emphasis on the current human impact on global biogeochemical cycles.

Reprinted individual volume from the acclaimed Treatise on Geochemistry, (10 Volume Set, ISBN 0-08-043751-6, published in 2003)
* Comprehensive and authoritative scope and focus
* Reviews from renowned scientists across a range of subjects, providing both overviews and new data, supplemented by extensive bibliographies
* Extensive illustrations and examples from the field

Volume 9 focuses on natural and anthropogenic environmental contaminants and their implications for human health and the environment. Environmental impacts on soils, groundwater, freshwater, the oceans and atmosphere are examined in the context of both inorganic geochemistry (metals, metalloids, radioactive compounds, mineral dusts, dissolved salts, acidification) and organic geochemistry (halogenated and non-halogenated hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, fuel oxygenates, pesticides, nutrients). Issues of risk, toxicity and exposure assessment; contaminant fate and transport; remediation and disposal; and source identification are examined in this context.

Reprinted individual volume from the acclaimed Treatise on Geochemistry, (10 Volume Set, ISBN 0-08-043751-6, published in 2003)
* Comprehensive and authoritative scope and focus
* Reviews from renowned scientists across a range of subjects, providing both overviews and new data, supplemented by extensive bibliographies
* Extensive illustrations and examples from the field

This is the first interdisciplinary book on the mobilization of nutrients and pollutants in the water phase due to hydrodynamic processes. Coverage includes the formation of aggregates in turbulent water; flocks and biofilms from organic reactions; and the formation of new surfaces for re-adsorption of dissolved pollutants. The book gathers papers resulting from an International Symposium on Sediment Dynamics and Pollutant Mobility in River Basins in Hamburg, Germany, March, 2006.

This sixth volume in this established series deals with the biochemical responses of fish to different environmental/ecological factors. Environmental Toxicology captures vital issues affecting the responses of fish to the chemical surroundings of their environment. Chapters included in this volume identify the systems found in fish to deal with xenobiotics, hormonal interactions initiated in the presence of these chemicals, the unique mechanisms used by fish to adjust to the present chemicals, and the new and evolving mixtures of chemicals in their environment. Also included, is a crucial review of the new methods being applied in fish systems to understand the effects of xenobiotics to fish fitness - a key theme in environmental health and critical to the future of fish populations.
* Entirely new topic discussion and most recent volume in the acclaimed series
* Includes chapters detailed on a cellular level
* Introduces discussion of pharmaceutical effects on fish

Integrated Water Resources Management and Security in the Middle East brings together diverse voices relating to the critical issue of water management in one of the world's most politically volatile areas: the Middle East. The book brings together Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian and international expert opinions on creating a holistic and comprehensive view of water management challenges and strategies in an area of conflict and resource scarcity. The book takes security studies to the next level beyond military preparedness to address the security implications of the most fundamental of resources, that of water. Indeed, the book delves deeply into the underlying ideological underpinnings of various water regimes and possible opportunities for new decision-making models and regional cooperation. This book serves an important place in the scholarly literature on this topic for its breadth of participants and perspectives and its concrete steps forward.

This book presents the first comprehensive text on construction biomaterials and bioprocesses. It details aspects of construction biotechnology, a new interdisciplinary area involving applications of environmental and industrial microbiology and biotechnology in geotechnical and civil engineering. It also critically reviews all existing and potential construction biotechnology processes. It discusses a number of topics including the biotechnological production of new construction materials such as self-healing concrete, construction biocomposites, construction bioplastics, and biotechnological admixtures to cement. It also addresses construction-related processes like biocementation, bioclogging, soil surface fixation and biosealing, microbial cements and grouts, the biocoating of construction material surfaces, the microbiology and biosafety of the construction environment, the prevention of biocorrosion as well as biodeterioration and biofouling in civil engineering. Biomediated precipitation of calcium, magnesium, and iron compounds as carbonates, phosphates, sulphides, and silicate minerals in soil for its clogging and strengthening are considered from geotechnical, chemical, and microbiological points of view. It offers an overview of the basic microbiology that will enable civil engineers to perform the construction biogeochemical processes. Design principles and considerations for different field implementations are discussed from a practical point of view. The book can be used as a textbook for graduate and senior undergraduate students in biotechnology, civil engineering and environmental engineering as well as a reference book for researchers and practitioners working in this new interdisciplinary area.

This book focuses on nanotechnology in electrocatalysis for energy applications. In particular the book covers nanostructured electrocatalysts for low temperature fuel cells, low temperature electrolyzers and electrochemical valorization. The function of this book is to provide an introduction to basic principles of electrocatalysis, together with a review of the main classes of materials and electrode architectures. This book will illustrate the basic ideas behind material design and provide an introductory sketch of current research focuses. The easy-to-follow three part book focuses on major formulas, concepts and philosophies. This book is ideal for professionals and researchers interested in the field of electrochemistry, renewable energy and electrocatalysis.

Lightning represents a natural phenomenon of substantial interest. Due to its complex nature, research continues in many countries and reveals amazing results. Lightning is actively observed because of its relevance to Earth climate and air composition in addition to the classical aspects of related human fatalities and damage to forests, buildings, power lines, aircraft, structures and electronic devices. In this volume, the most important contemporary questions on lightning are addressed and analyzed under many experimental and theoretical aspects. Lightning detection techniques using ground-based and space-borne methods are described, along with network engineering and statistical analysis. Contributions detail research on atmospheric electricity, cloud physics, lightning physics, modeling of electrical storms and middle atmospheric events. Special phenomena such as triggered lightning and sprite observations are examined. Lightning-induced nitrogen oxides and their effects on atmospheric chemistry and climate are discussed. Each topic is presented by international experts in the field. Topics include: * air chemistry * convective storms * infrasound from lightning * lightning and climate change * lightning and precipitation * lightning and radiation * lightning and supercells * lightning and thunderstorms * lightning detection * lightning from space * lighting protection * lightning return strokes * observations and interpretations * spatial distribution and frequency * triggered lightning * weather extremes

Environmental Monitoring and Characterization is an integrated, hands-on resource for monitoring all aspects of the environment. Sample collection methods and relevant physical, chemical and biological processes necessary to characterize the environment are brought together in twenty chapters which cover: sample collection methods, monitoring terrestrial, aquatic and air environments, and relevant chemical, physical and biological processes and contaminants.
This book will serve as an authoritative reference for advanced students and environmental professionals.
* Examines the integration of physical, chemical, and biological processes
* Emphasizes field methods and real-time data acquisition, made more accessible with case studies, problems, calculations, and questions
* Includes four color illustrations throughout the text
* Brings together the concepts of environmental monitoring and site characterization