In the policy arena, as well as in the academic world, a new challenge is having to deal with the global community. We are increasingly aware that the world is linked through economy-energy-environment interactions. We are increasingly aware, at the same time, that the emergence of the global community does not imply an integrated harmonious world; rather, it is a community where co- tries/regions of different interests and values face each other directly. Global governance has to be achieved through actions of national governments under different motives and constraints. We need to have an analytical tool that is capable of producing a global picture, yet with detailed country resolution. If the world is a better place now compared to 100 years ago in terms of p- capita income, this is due to the industrialization that continued throughout the 20th century. We entered the 21st century knowing that the human aspiration that translates into ever-increasing production may not be tenable in the long run. Sustainability of the global community is at stake. In contrast to inc- mental decision making through the market mechanism that should lead to some optimal state under some assumptions such as perfect knowledge, smooth movement of resources, no externalities, and so forth, we need to have an a- lytical tool to provide us with details of the future state of the world.

Disparate perceptions and conceptual frameworks of environment and the relationship between humans and nature often lead to confusion, constraints on co-operation and collaboration and even conflict when society tries to deal with today's urgent and complex environment research and policy challenges. Such disparities in perception and "world view" are driven by many factors. They include differences in culture, religion, ethical frameworks, scientific methodologies and approaches, disciplines, political, social and philosophical traditions, life styles and consumption patterns as well as alternative economic paradigms. Distribution of poverty or wealth between north and south may thus be seen as consequence of the above mentioned disparities, which is a challenge for it's universal reasoned evaluation. This volume discusses a wide range of factors influencing "Environment across Cultures" with a view to identifying ways and means to better understand, reflect and manage such disparities within future global environmental research and policy agendas for bridging the gap between ecology and economy as well as between societies. The book is based upon the results of a scientific symposium on this topic and covers the following sections: Cross Cultural Perception of Environment; Ethics and Nature; Environment, Sustainability and Society. Corresponding contributions were made by well-known scientific authors representing different cultural spheres in accordance with the inter-cultural approach of this effort.

Space weather has an enormous influence on modern telecommunication systems even though we may not always appreciate it. We shall endeavor throughout this monograph to expose the relationships between space weather factors and the performance (or lack thereof) of telecommunication, navigation, and surveillance systems. Space weather is a rather new term, having found an oMicial expression as the result of several government initiatives that use the term in the title of programs. But it is the logical consequence of the realization that space also has weather, just as the lower atmosphere has weather. While the weather in space will influence space systems that operate in that special environment, it is also true that space weather will influence systems that we understand and use here on terra firma. This brings space weather home as it were. It is not some abstract topic of interest to scientists alone; it is a topic of concern to all of us. I hope to make this clear as the book unfolds. Why have I written this book? First of all, I love the topic. While at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), I had the opportunity to do research on many topics including: Thomson scatter radar and satellite beacon studies of the ionosphere, utilization of the NASA Gemini platform for ionospheric investigations, microwave radar propagation studies, I-IF signal intercept and direction-finding experiments, and multi-disciplinary studies of certain physical phenomena relevant to weapon systems development.

Agriculture has experienced a dramatic change during the past decades. The change has been structural and technological. Structural changes can be seen in the size of current farms; not long ago, agricultural production was organized around small farms, whereas nowadays the agricultural landscape is dominated by large farms. Large farms have better means of applying new technologies, and therefore technological advances have been a driving force in changing the farming structure. New technologies continue to emerge, and their mastery and use in requires that farmers gather more information and make more complex technological choices. In particular, the advent of the Internet has opened vast opportunities for communication and business opportunities within the agricultural com- nity. But at the same time, it has created another class of complex issues that need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Farmers and agricultural researchers are faced with an overwhelming amount of information they need to analyze and synthesize to successfully manage all the facets of agricultural production. This daunting challenge requires new and complex approaches to farm management. A new type of agricultural management system requires active cooperation among multidisciplinary and multi-institutional teams and ref- ing of existing and creation of new analytical theories with potential use in agriculture. Therefore, new management agricultural systems must combine the newest achievements in many scientific domains such as agronomy, economics, mathematics, and computer science, to name a few.

Environmental information systems (EIS) are concerned with the management of data about the soil, the water, the air, and the species in the world around us. This first textbook on the topic gives a conceptual framework for EIS by structuring the data flow into 4 phases: data capture, storage, analysis, and metadata management. This flow corresponds to a complex aggregation process gradually transforming the incoming raw data into concise documents suitable for high-level decision support. All relevant concepts are covered, including statistical classification, data fusion, uncertainty management, knowledge based systems, GIS, spatial databases, multidimensional access methods, object-oriented databases, simulation models, and Internet-based information management. Several case studies present EIS in practice.

The topics covered include soil mechanics and porous media, glacier and ice dynamics, climatology and lake physics, climate change as well as numerical algorithms. The book, written by well-known experts, addresses researchers and students interested in physical aspects of our environment.

These Proceedings of the Third International Workshop introduce research results in the areas of information integration, development of GIS and GIS-applications for a wide spectrum of information systems varying considerably in purpose and scale. The new class of GIS - intelligent GIS - is considered, including principles of their building and programming technologies. Special attention is drawn to the development of ontologies and their use in GIS and GIS-applications.

The simulation of technological and environmental flows is very important for many industrial developments. A major challenge related to their modeling is to involve the characteristic turbulence that appears in most of these flows. The traditional way to tackle this question is to use deterministic equations where the effects of turbulence are directly parametrized, i. e. , assumed as functions of the variables considered. However, this approach often becomes problematic, in particular if reacting flows have to be simulated. In many cases, it turns out that appropriate approximations for the closure of deterministic equations are simply unavailable. The alternative to the traditional way of modeling turbulence is to construct stochastic models which explain the random nature of turbulence. The application of such models is very attractive: one can overcome the closure problems that are inherent to deterministic methods on the basis of relatively simple and physically consistent models. Thus, from a general point of view, the use of stochastic methods for turbulence simulations seems to be the optimal way to solve most of the problems related to industrial flow simulations. However, it turns out that this is not as simple as it looks at first glance. The first question concerns the numerical solution of stochastic equations for flows of environmental and technological interest. To calculate industrial flows, 3 one often has to consider a number of grid cells that is of the order of 100 .

Here is the first systematic handbook treatment of quantitative modeling natural resource problems, their allocated efficient use, and societal and economic impact. Andres Weintraub is the very top person in Natural Resource research. He has selected co-editors who are at the top of the sub-fields in natural resources: agriculture, fisheries, forestry, and mining. The book covers these areas with contributions from researchers on, among others, modeling natural research problems, quantifying data, and developing algorithms."

Groundwater constitutes the most important reservoir of available clean water. Due to its overexploitation, some anthropogenic mismanagement on the surface and the overloading of the cleanup potential of subsurface, many of the groundwater systems used for water supply are in jeopardy. The problem is very severe in dry-lands, but also in urban, industrial, agricultural and traffic areas.

This book first addresses the recharge fluxes relating both to the quantity and quality of groundwater. In order to face the threats to the water supply and to be able to maintain a sustainable water management policy, detailed knowledge is needed on the surface-to-subsurface transformation link in the water cycle. Secondly, a comparison of both the traditional and modern approaches to determine groundwater recharge is presented. The traditional approach to determine groundwater recharge is based on water balance estimates and hydraulic considerations, which yield instantaneous values at best but do not integrate the totality of recharge pathways in time and space. In contrast, environmental tracers integrate these factors. Finally, the fate of groundwater recharge in the subsurface by hydraulic and geologic means is explained in detail, in order to stimulate adapted groundwater-management strategies and to better assess consequences of climate changes on groundwater resources as a whole.

More than 30-year operational satellite data have already been used for monitoring land, ocean and atmosphere. These applications have contributed to improve sustainable economy, produce healthy environment and enhance human life. The Advanced Research Workshop sponsored by NATO and organized by the USA's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Ukrainian's Space Agency bring the scientists with the most mature research designed for practical use. The goals were to select those which is used for services today and identify the areas to expand research and services. Scientific and application results of the Workshop presented in this book can be used today in agriculture, forestry, water resources, healthy coastal life and fisheries, climate and land cover change, anthropogenic activities and others. The presented papers provide information on how to use operational satellites and in situ measurements for early detection of large-scale droughts, floods and fires, diagnose crop and pasture annual losses, predict periods with health/unhealthy vegetation based on such climate forcing events as ENSO, monitor air quality and geomagnetic activities, assess land cover trends in responce to global warming etc. The available satellite/ground information and method is currently warn with a lead time sufficient to respond, recover and protect.

Eco-efficiency has long been a concept: the intention of reducing environmental impact while increasing environmental value. Its origins are with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. However, in a globalized world with sustained economic growth environmental degradation is threatening. Macro level requirements on sustainability should be reflected in the eco-efficiency of choices at a micro level, like on technologies, supply chains and product systems. Eco-efficiency analysis has come to fruition as a fully quantified method for analysis, linking to specific domains of economic modelling, specific environmental models, and several methods for integrating these two domains into eco-efficiency scores. This eco-efficiency analysis can guide choices in policy, business, and consumptions activities, all from a single common background.

A central asset of eco-efficiency analysis is that it does not depend on a specific evaluation of environmental impacts against economic effects, avoiding the often disputed results of neo-classical evaluation methods. For integrating the different environmental scores several evaluation methods may be used including those based on willingness-to-pay, panel procedures, and public statements on policy goals. Each may have advantages, but in line with the normative neutrality strived for in eco-efficiency, these preference and value choices may be avoided to some extent. This can be done either by taking a common denominator or by having less demanding objectives, for instance focusing on efficiency of measures only.

A substantial Japanese paper on Maximum Abatement Cost method and a paper on revealed public preferences in The Netherlands comprise the first section on methods. Next, there are four sections on domains of application of eco-efficiency analysis. In the Agriculture section, a case on conservation agriculture in China is worked out, using input-output analysis. In the Industry section, cases range from supply chain management to waste water management and methods to speed up innovation. In the Products & Consumption section, cases refer to overall household performance, specific energy products and methods for upgradeable product design. Finally, in the Recycling section, cases relate to increasing the supply of secondary materials and to increasing secondary materials use.

The papers in this volume integrate results from current research efforts in earthquake engineering with research from the larger risk assessment community. The authors include risk and hazard researchers from the major U.S. hazard and earthquake centers. The volume lays out a road map for future developments in risk modeling and decision support, and positions earthquake engineering research within the family of risk analysis tools and techniques.

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This volume contains 40 selected full-text contributions from the Sixth European Conference on Geostatistics for Environmental Applications, geoENV IV, held in Rhodes, Greece, October 25-26, 2006. The objective of the editors was to compile a set of papers from which the reader could perceive how geostatistics is applied within the environmental sciences. A few selected theoretical contributions are also included.

Large-scale natural catastrophes are environmental phenomena. Numerous studies in recent years have concluded that the frequency of occurrence of such natural disasters have been incereasing. leading to an enhanced risk of very considerable human and economic losses and the widespread destruction and pollution of habitats, settlements and infrastructure. In 2001 over 650 natural disasters happened around the globe with economic losses exceeding $35 billion. 2004 ended with the South East Asian tsunami on 26th December with its huge toll on life and local economics and this demonstrated that the efffects of such disasters are most keenly felt in poorer or developing regions.

The problem of natural disaster prediction and the implementation of environmental monitoring systems to receive, store and process the information necessary for solutions of specific problems in this area, have been analysed by the three authors of this book, all of whom are internationally respected experts in this field.

This is an introductory textbook on global spectral modeling designed for senior-level undergraduates and possibly for first-year graduate students. This text starts with an introduction to elementary finite-difference methods and moves on towards the gradual description of sophisticated dynamical and physical models in spherical coordinates. Computational aspects of the spectral transform method, the planetary boundary layer physics, the physics of precipitation processes in large-scale models, the radiative transfer including effects of diagnostic clouds and diurnal cycle, the surface energy balance over land and ocean, and the treatment of mountains are some issues that are addressed. The topic of model initialization includes the treatment of normal modes and physical processes. A concluding chapter covers the spectral energetics as a diagnostic tool for model evaluation. This revised second edition of the text also includes three additional chapters. Chapter 11 deals with the formulation of a regional spectral model for mesoscale modeling which uses a double Fourier expansion of data and model equations for its transform. Chapter 12 deals with ensemble modeling. This is a new and important area for numerical weather and climate prediction. Finally, yet another new area that has to do with adaptive observational strategies is included as Chapter 13. It foretells where data deficiencies may reside in model from an exploratory ensemble run of experiments and the spread of such forecasts.

Fuzzy logic enables people preparing environmental impact statements to quantify complex environmental, economic and social conditions. This reduces the time and cost of assessments, while producing justifiable results.

This book is about the legal, economical, and practical assessment and management of risky activities arising from routine, catastrophic environmental and occupational exposures to hazardous agents. It includes a discussion of aspects of US and European Union law concerning risky activities, and then develops the economic analyses that are relevant to implementing choices within a supply and demand framework. The book also discusses exposure-response and time-series models used in assessing air and water pollution, as well as probabilistic cancer models, including toxicological compartmental, pharmaco-kinetic models and epidemiological relative risks and odds ratios-based models. Statistical methods to measure agreement, correlation and discordance are also developed. The methods and criteria of decision-analysis, including several measures of value of information (VOI) conclude the expositions. This book is an excellent text for students studying risk assessment and management.

This exceptional work provides readers with an introduction to the state-of-the-art research on data warehouse design, with many references to more detailed sources. It offers a clear and a concise presentation of the major concepts and results in the subject area. Malinowski and Zim nyi explain conventional data warehouse design in detail, and additionally address two innovative domains recently introduced to extend the capabilities of data warehouse systems: namely, the management of spatial and temporal information.

The threat of biological and chemical terrorism has driven the demand for timely techniques that can quickly detect the agent or agents used in an attack. The detection and/or prevention of these potential security threats provide significant scientific and technical challenges due to the combination of possible agents and modes of delivery available. This book will present a thorough look at the importance and technological challenges of mass spectrometry (MS) for the detection & identification of biological and chemical threats. This new contribution's general aims are to draw the attention of recognized practitioners, experts and graduate students trying to grasp the latest MS developments in the cutting-edge fields of MS-biodefense technologies for the rapid/early/specific sensitive threat detection of pathogens, viruses, explosives, mycotoxins, chemical agents, and biological markers of xenobiotic chemicals.

The soil water retention curve, the saturated hydraulic conductivity and the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity function are basic soil hydraulic functions and parameters. Ample apprehension of the soil hydraulic functions and parameters is required for a successful formulation of the principles leading to sustainable soil management, agricultural production and environmental protection. From these, all the other parameters, required in the solution of the practical tasks, are derived. The basic soil hydraulic functions are strongly dependent upon the soil porous system. The development of models is characteristic by the gradual transition from the simplest concepts up to the sophisticated approaches, which should correspond to the visual reality studied by soil micromorphology. 2 Soil Porous System and Soil Micromorphometry 2.1 An Overview on the Quantification of the Soil Porous System Quanti? cation of the soil porous system consists of classi? cation of soil pores, ch- acterization of the soil pores shapes and the estimation of the pore size distribution function. When the hydraulic functions of the soil pores are considered, the following laws of hydrostatics and hydrodynamics are applied as best ? tting to the classi? cation criteria of the size of the pores (Kutilek and Nielsen 1994, p. 20, Kutilek 2004): A. Submicroscopic pores that are so small that they preclude clusters of water molecules from forming ? uid particles or continuous water ? ow paths.

This new work on energy and environmental modeling describes a broad variety of modeling methodologies, embodied in models of varying scopes and philosophies. Examples range from top-down integrated assessment models to bottom-up partial equilibrium models, to hybrid models.

Thoroughly updated with material related to the GRASS6, the third edition includes new sections on attribute database management and SQL support, vector networks analysis, lidar data processing and new graphical user interfaces. All chapters were updated with numerous practical examples using the first release of a comprehensive, state-of-the-art geospatial data set.

Scientific visualization may be defined as the transformation of numerical scientific data into informative graphical displays. The text introduces a nonverbal model to subdisciplines that until now has mostly employed mathematical or verbal-conceptual models. The focus is on how scientific visualization can help revolutionize the manner in which the tendencies for (dis)similar numerical values to cluster together in location on a map are explored and analyzed. In doing so, the concept known as spatial autocorrelation - which characterizes these tendencies - is further demystified.