This book provides a timely and insightful analysis of the expansion of biofuels production and use in recent years. Drawing on interviews with key policy insiders, Ackrill and Kay show how biofuels policies have been motivated by concerns over climate change, energy security and rural development.

This book summarizes the current state of knowledge regarding antibiotics and antibiotics resistance genes (ARGs) in the soil environment. It covers a wide range of topics to help readers understand antibiotics and ARGs in soils, the risks they pose for the environment, and options for effective control. In addition, it presents a range of essential tools and methodologies that can be used to address antibiotics and ARGs in a consistent, efficient, and cost-effective manner. Gathering contributions by international experts, the book addresses both theoretical aspects and practical applications.The topics discussed include antibiotics-producing microorganisms; the routes of entry and fate of antibiotics and resistance genes; biomonitoring approaches; dissemination of ARGs in soils; risk assessment; the impact of antibiotics and ARGs on the soil microbial community and other biota; bioremediation and biodegradation approaches; and soil management strategies for antibiotics and ARG-contaminated soils.As such, the book will be of interest to students, researchers and scholars in environmental science and engineering, toxicology, the medical and pharmaceutical sciences, environmental biotechnology, soil sciences, microbial ecology and plant biotechnology. Readers and Journals: 1. This new volume on antibiotics and antibiotics resistance genes (ARGs) in the soil environment will be of interest to students, researchers and scholars in environmental science and engineering, toxicology, the medical and pharmaceutical sciences, environmental biotechnology, soil sciences,microbial ecology and plant biotechnology. 2. The book will provide government authorities all over the world with effective strategies for the management of antibiotics and antibiotics resistance genes (ARG)- contaminated soil. 3. Gathering contributions by international experts,the book addresses both theoretical aspects and practical applications.

This book focuses on an important technology for mineralizing and utilizing CO2 instead of releasing it into the atmosphere. CO2 mineralization and utilization demonstrated in the waste-to-resource supply chain can "reduce carbon dependency, promote resource and energy efficiency, and lessen environmental quality degradation," thereby reducing environmental risks and increasing economic benefits towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In this book, comprehensive information on CO2 mineralization and utilization via accelerated carbonation technology from theoretical and practical considerations was presented in 20 Chapters. It first introduces the concept of the carbon cycle from the thermodynamic point of view and then discusses principles and applications regarding environmental impact assessment of carbon capture, storage and utilization technologies. After that, it describes the theoretical and practical considerations for "Accelerated Carbonation (Mineralization)" including analytical methods, and systematically presents the carbonation mechanism and modeling (process chemistry, reaction kinetics and mass transfer) and system analysis (design and analysis of experiments, life cycle assessment and cost benefit analysis). It then provides physico-chemical properties of different types of feedstock for CO2 mineralization and then explores the valorization of carbonated products as green materials. Lastly, an integral approach for waste treatment and resource recovery is introduced, and the carbonation system is critically assessed and optimized based on engineering, environmental, and economic (3E) analysis. The book is a valuable resource for readers who take scientific and practical interests in the current and future Accelerated Carbonation Technology for CO2 Mineralization and Utilization.

This book provides readers with a broad understanding of the fundamental principles driving atmospheric flow over complex terrain and provides historical context for recent developments and future direction for researchers and forecasters. The topics in this book are expanded from those presented at the Mountain Weather Workshop, which took place in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, August 5-8, 2008. The inspiration for the workshop came from the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Mountain Meteorology Committee and was designed to bridge the gap between the research and forecasting communities by providing a forum for extended discussion and joint education. For academic researchers, this book provides some insight into issues important to the forecasting community. For the forecasting community, this book provides training on fundamentals of atmospheric processes over mountainous regions, which are notoriously difficult to predict. The book also helps to provide a better understanding of current research and forecast challenges, including the latest contributions and advancements to the field.

The book begins with an overview of mountain weather and forecasting chal- lenges specific to complex terrain, followed by chapters that focus on diurnal mountain/valley flows that develop under calm conditions and dynamically-driven winds under strong forcing. The focus then shifts to other phenomena specific to mountain regions: Alpine foehn, boundary layer and air quality issues, orographic precipitation processes, and microphysics parameterizations. Having covered the major physical processes, the book shifts to observation and modelling techniques used in mountain regions, including model configuration and parameterizations such as turbulence, and model applications in operational forecasting. The book concludes with a discussion of the current state of research and forecasting in complex terrain, including a vision of how to bridge the gap in the future.

This volume offers a comprehensive survey and a close analysis of efforts to develop actionable climate information in support of vital decisions for climate adaptation, risk management and policy. Arising from submissions and discussion at the 2011 Open Science Conference (OSC) of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), the book addresses research and intellectual challenges which span the full range of Program activities.

This book is about the varied range of emerging applications using specially trained detection dogs to monitor and protect aquatic ecosystems, animals, plants and related resources. Featuring contributions from those at the forefront of converging disciplines ranging from canine training, ecological and biological monitoring, water resource management, law enforcement, and eco-toxicology, it addresses everyone already immersed in these or related fields, and anyone seeking to gain a broader understanding of them. Chapters cover several common themes including monitoring presence/absence through biological and ecological surveys; maintaining and evaluating water quality; law enforcement and anti-poaching initiatives; public education, awareness and compliance; standards and best practices; optimal uses of dogs in relation to and in conjunction with other available tools and pragmatic considerations for selecting and working with dogs and handlers. The aim of the book is to stimulate new ideas, promote the sharing and dissemination of information and findings - and, ideally, to catalyze new and innovative partnerships, to strengthen the preservation and conservation of our aquatic heritage.

This book presents worked examples of five analytical procedures. These practical examples address traceability, validation and measurement uncertainty aspects in a systematic and consistent way, and cover applications in the analysis of water, food, as well as ores and minerals. This concept is based on the experiences of the TrainMiCc program, in which more than 9000 laboratory professionals all over Europe have participated.

This volume focuses on new trends in monitoring biodiversity in the Asia-Pacific region, one of the most rapidly changing areas in the world. It provides reviews of the challenges in studying the spatial variability of biodiversity across various ecosystems. This book also describes newly developed concepts and methods for biodiversity observation including ubiquitous genotyping, systematic conservation, monitoring of the functions and services of ecosystems and biodiversity informatics. These contributions will lead to establishing integrative observations and assessments of biodiversity, essential for reporting the current status and for the effective conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. This work will interest biodiversity researchers not only in the Asia-Pacific region but also across the entire globe.

This book presents a comprehensive approach to address the need to improve the design of tailings dams, their management and the regulation of tailings management facilities to reduce, and eventually eliminate, the risk of such facilities failing. The scope of the challenge is well documented in the report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and GRID Arendal entitled "Mine Tailings Storage: Safety Is No Accident," which was released in October 2017. The report recommends that "Regulators, industry and communities should adopt a shared, zero-failure objective to tailings storage facilities..." and identifies several areas where further improvements are required. In this context, the application of cutting-edge risk-assessment methodologies and risk-management practices can contribute to a significant reduction and eventual elimination of dam failures through Risk Informed Decision Making. As such, the book focuses on identifying and describing the risk-assessment approaches and risk-management practices that need to be implemented in order to develop a way forward to achieve socially acceptable levels of tailings dam risk.

This book is an overview of current state of the art about monitoring of inundation events through remote sensing. A complete approach to efficient and precise flood monitoring requires multiple fields of expertise, from image processing to hydrologic monitoring. This volume details the latest remote sensing techniques for flood monitoring and mapping, including use of optical data from geostationary sensors and LEO spacecraft, synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data analysis, and data fusion. Detailed case studies from a variety of subject experts illustrate these tools and techniques. Accurate monitoring of flood events is increasingly necessary to gain insight about both causes and remedies. Floods are one of the most destructive hazards to the human populations, they can occur practically everywhere on the Earth surface, and each year cause considerable harm and damage to infrastructures. The recent Flood directive in European Countries is contributing to a more quantitative approach to flood hazard and risk evaluation.

This book is intended to give technological background and practical examples, but also to give general insight into the on-going technology development in the area of biodetection. The content is therefore suitable for an array of stakeholders (decision makers, purchasing officers, etc.) and end-users of biodetection equipment within the areas of health, environment, safety and security, and military preparation. The book is divided into three sections. The first section discusses the fundamental physical and biological properties of bioaerosol's. The second section goes into more detail and discusses in-depth the most commonly used detection principles. The third section of the book is devoted to technologies that have been used in standoff applications. The last section of the book gives an overview of trends in bioaerosol detection. The reader of this book will gain knowledge about the different biodetection technologies and thus better judge their capabilities in relation to desired applications.

Natural resource managers face a complex decision-making environment characterized by the potential occurrence of rapid and abrupt ecological change. These abrupt changes are poorly accommodated by traditional natural resource planning and decision-making processes. As recognition of threshold processes has increased, contemporary models of ecological systems have been modified to better represent a broader range of ecological system dynamics. Key conceptual advances associated with the ideas of non-linear responses, the existence of multiple ecological stable states and critical thresholds are more likely the rule than the exception in ecological systems. Once an ecological threshold is crossed, the ecosystem in question is not likely to return to its previous state. There are many examples and a general consensus that climatic disruptions will drive now stable systems across ecological thresholds. This book provides professional resource managers with a broad general decision framework that illustrates the utility of including ecological threshold concepts in natural resource management. It gives an entry into the literature in this rapidly evolving concept, with descriptions and discussion of the promising statistical approaches for threshold detection and demonstrations of the utility of the threshold framework via a series of case studies.

Ion-selective electrodes (ISEs) have a wide range of applications in clinical, environmental, food and pharmaceutical analysis as well as further uses in chemistry and life sciences. Based on his profound experience as a researcher in ISEs and a course instructor, the author summarizes current knowledge for advanced teaching and training purposes with a particular focus on ionophore-based ISEs. Coverage includes the basics of measuring with ISEs, essential membrane potential theory and a comprehensive overview of the various classes of ion-selective electrodes. The principles of constructing ISEs are outlined, and the transfer of methods into routine analysis is considered. Advanced students, researchers, and practitioners will benefit from this expedient introduction.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Antarctica is poised at the edge of a warmer and busier world. Leading Antarctic researchers examine the needs and challenges of Antarctic environmental management today and tomorrow. Through: (i) investigating the impacts of human activities on specific ecosystems and species, (ii) examining existing environmental management and monitoring practices in place in various regions and (iii) interrogating stakeholders, they address the following questions: What future will Business-As-Usual bring to the Antarctic environment? Will a Business-As-Usual future be compatible with the objectives set out under the Antarctic Treaty, especially its Protocol on Environmental Protection? What actions are necessary to bring about alternative futures for the next 50 years? This volume is an outcome of the International Polar Year (2007-2009) Oslo Science Conference (8-12, June, 2010).

This book presents an exhaustive overview of electrochemical sensors and biosensors for the analysis and monitoring of the most important analytes in the environmental field, in industry, in treatment plants and in environmental research. The chapters give the reader a comprehensive, state-of-the-art picture of the field of electrochemical sensors suitable to environmental analytes, from the theoretical principles of their design to their implementation, realization and application. The first three chapters discuss fundamentals, and the last three chapters cover the main groups of analytes of environmental interest.

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR) together play an important role in the processes involved in environmental informatics due to their pervasive, non-destructive, effective, and efficient natures. As a result, CVPR has made significant contributions to the field of environmental informatics by enabling multi-modal data fusion and feature extraction, supporting fast and reliable object detection and classification, and mining the intrinsic relationship between different aspects of environmental data. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition in Environmental Informatics describes a number of methods and tools for image interpretation and analysis, which enables observation, modelling, and understanding of environmental targets. In addition to case studies on monitoring and modeling plant, soil, insect, and aquatic animals, this publication includes discussions on innovative new ideas related to environmental monitoring, automatic fish segmentation and recognition, real-time motion tracking systems, sparse coding and decision fusion, and cell phone image-based classification and provides useful references for professionals, researchers, engineers, and students with various backgrounds within a multitude of communities.

This book aims, through its chapters, at providing the knowledge to make competent decisions, convince peers or top management to take appropriate action, or beat out the competition for climate adaptation measures including adjustments for design and operations. Topics discussed include business-as-usual vs. divergence; the effects of public pressure on corporate, industrial and government decision making; techniques for gathering the proper information to assess risks and hazards; the importance determining risk tolerance thresholds; the difference between tolerable risks, intolerable ones that benefit from mitigation and those that require strategic shifts; why common practice approaches such as FMEA, and risk matrices are inadequate in today's world and do not help ensure infrastructural and systemic resilience and sustainability. Case histories and three complete case studies that can be adapted to any industry or project walk the reader step by step from client request to recommendations and conditions of validity. The ultimate aim is to understand how to reduce risks to tolerable and societally acceptable levels while simultaneously creating sustainable and ethical systems.

Modern Earth System Monitoring represents a fundamental change in the way scientists study the Earth System. In Oceanography, for the past two centuries, ships have provided the platforms for observing. Expeditions on the continents and Earth's poles are land-based analogues. Fundamental understanding of current systems, climate, natural hazards, and ecosystems has been greatly advanced. While these approaches have been remarkably successful, the need to establish measurements over time can only be made using Earth observations and observatories with exacting standards and continuous data. The 19 peer-reviewed contributions in this volume provide early insights into this emerging view of Earth in both space and time in which change is a critical component of our growing understanding.

This book presents a novel approach to studying the groundwater dynamics of and characterising karst aquifers. The content is based on long-term monitoring of groundwater parameters in the epiphreatic caves of a selected karst aquifer: part of the classical recharge area of Ljubljanica River, Slovenia. The recorded data was analysed on the basis of the recharge to the system, which is controlled by outflow from the Planinsko Polje, and on the basis of the known and inferred geometry of the karst conduit system. The book presents numerically tested conceptual models of the observed conduit system, which offer new insights into its structure and function. In closing, the author stresses the importance of caves as groundwater monitoring sites and provides new tools for interpreting cave water level hydrographs. Although the book focuses on a specific site, the methodology introduced here can be applied to numerous other karst systems, lending it considerable practical relevance.

"New Issues in Polar Tourism" traces and analyzes a decade of growing interest in the polar regions, and the consequent challenges and opportunities of increasing tourist traffic in formerly remote and seldom-visited places. The book arises from the recently-formed International Polar Tourism Research Network(IPTRN), and documents the outcomes of its 2010 conference, held at Sweden s Abisko Scientific Research Station."

This thesis presents an impressive summary of the potential to use passive seismic methods to monitor the sequestration of anthropogenic CO2 in geologic reservoirs. It brings together innovative research in two distinct areas - seismology and geomechanics - and involves both data analysis and numerical modelling. The data come from the Weyburn-Midale project, which is currently the largest Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project in the world. James Verdon's results show how passive seismic monitoring can be used as an early warning system for fault reactivation and top seal failure, which may lead to the escape of CO2 at the surface.

This book presents a survey of modern theoretical techniques in studies of radiative transfer and light scattering phenomena in turbid media. It offers a comprehensive analysis of polarized radiative transfer, and also discusses advances in planetary spectroscopy as far as aerosol layer height determination is of interest. Further, it describes approximate methods of the radiative transfer equation solution for a special case of strongly scattering media. A separate chapter focuses on optical properties of Black Carbon aggregates.

This volume comprises an outstanding variety of chapters on Earth Observation based time series analyses, undertaken to reveal past and current land surface dynamics for large areas. What exactly are time series of Earth Observation data? Which sensors are available to generate real time series? How can they be processed to reveal their valuable hidden information? Which challenges are encountered on the way and which pre-processing is needed? And last but not least: which processes can be observed? How are large regions of our planet changing over time and which dynamics and trends are visible? These and many other questions are answered within this book "Remote Sensing Time Series Analyses - Revealing Land Surface Dynamics". Internationally renowned experts from Europe, the USA and China present their exciting findings based on the exploitation of satellite data archives from well-known sensors such as AVHRR, MODIS, Landsat, ENVISAT, ERS and METOP amongst others. Selected review and methods chapters provide a good overview over time series processing and the recent advances in the optical and radar domain. A fine selection of application chapters addresses multi-class land cover and land use change at national to continental scale, the derivation of patterns of vegetation phenology, biomass assessments, investigations on snow cover duration and recent dynamics, as well as urban sprawl observed over time.

Ecotoxicology Modeling is a comprehensive and well-documented text providing a collection of computational methods to the ecotoxicologists primarily interested in the study of the adverse effects of chemicals, their mechanisms of action and/or their environmental fate and behavior. Avoiding mathematical jargon, the book presents numerous case studies to enable the reader to understand the interest but also the limitations of linear and nonlinear models in ecotoxicology.

Written by an international team of scientists, Ecotoxicology Modeling is of primary interest to those whose research or professional activity is directly concerned with the development and application of models in ecotoxicology. It is also intended to provide the graduate and post-graduate students with a clear and accessible text covering the main types of modeling approaches used in environmental sciences.