In the face of increasingly serious resource and environmental challenges, the world has already accepted low-carbon development as the main way forward for future city construction. Chinese cities have encountered many problems during their development, including land constraints, energy shortages, traffic congestion and air pollution. For this reason, the national meeting of the Central Work Conference on Urbanization made the strategic decision to take a new approach to urbanization and indicated that in future the key features of urbanization in China will be low-carbon development and harmony between the environment and resources. This book discusses the "low-carbon city" as the new pattern of Chinese urbanization. This represents a major change and takes "intensive land use," "intelligent," "green" and "low carbon" as its key words. Low carbon will become an important future development direction for Chinese urbanization development. In the twenty-first Century in response to the global climate change, countries have started a wave of low-carbon city construction. But in China, there are still many disputes and misunderstandings surrounding the issue. Due to a lack of research, low-carbon city construction in China is still in the early stages, and while there have been successes, there have also been failures. There are complex and diverse challenges in applying low-carbon development methods in the context of today's Chinese cities. The construction of low-carbon cities requires efficient government, the technological innovation of enterprises, and professional scholars, but also efforts on the part of the public to change their daily activities. Based on the above considerations, the collection brings together experts from urban planning and design, clean-energy systems, low-carbon transportation, new types of city infrastructure and smart cities etc., in the hope of forming some solutions for Chinese low-carbon city development.

The polar regions are the 'canary in the coal mine' of climate change: they are likely to be hit the hardest and fastest. This comprehensive textbook provides an accessible introduction to the scientific study of polar environments against a backdrop of climate change and the wider global environment. The book assembles diverse information on polar environmental characteristics in terrestrial and oceanic domains, and describes the ongoing changes in climate, the oceans, and components of the cryosphere. Recent significant changes in the polar region caused by global warming are explored: shrinking Arctic sea ice, thawing permafrost, accelerating loss of mass from glaciers and ice sheets, and rising ocean temperatures. These rapidly changing conditions are discussed in the context of the paleoclimatic history of the polar regions from the Eocene to the Anthropocene. Future projections for these regions during the twenty-first century are discussed. The text is illustrated with many color figures and tables, and includes further reading lists, review questions for each chapter, and a glossary.

Over half of the global population now lives in cities. This ongoing urbanisation is making it increasingly important to adequately manage urban systems and preserve urban environments. This book is the outcome of the 11th Urban Environment Symposium (UES) held on 16-19 September 2012 in Karlsruhe, Germany. The UES aims at providing a forum on the sciences and practices needed to promote a sustainable future in urban environments. Papers by leading experts are presented in sections on Urban Management and Spatial Planning, Green Cities and Urban Ecosystems, Urban Planning and Development, Air Quality and Noise, Urban Climate Change and Adaptation, and Contamination of Urban Waters and its Effects.

This book synthesizes knowledge from several fields that are crucial to sustainable rural development: the physical environment, biological and agricultural production, rural sociology and economics. It takes a systems perspective incorporating systems analysis, landscape analysis and soil, water, and land planning. Directed toward graduate students and professionals, it provides a source of information and concepts for those concerned with land and water policies and practice. It presents an integrated approach using practical and applicable models and methods and takes a middle position between an elementary conceptual approach to land and water management and a highly mathematically advanced treatise based exclusively on system modeling. The book is based on almost twenty years of experience in teaching a course on rural planning and the environment, the authors being specialists from universities, research institutions and companies in Europe and North America.

This book is written for ecologists interested in capturing their understandings of how natural systems work in software - to help inform their work and communicate the consequences of proposed management plans. Historically, ecologists had to rely on the skills of trained computer programmers to modeling natural systems, but now a new generation of software is allowing ecologists to directly capture their understandings of systems in software. This book is a compilation of spatially explicit simulation models developed by ecologists and planners without any formal computer programming skills. Readers will be inspired to believe that they too can create similar models of the systems with which they are familiar."

This book aims to clarify the priorities of the Sendai Framework for the DRR 2015 - 2030, through gathering recent contributions addressing the different ways researchers define, measure, reduce, and manage risk in the challenge of the DRR. Beyond a discussion of the different definitions of disaster risk; this book provides contributions focused on optimization approaches that support the decision-making process in the challenge of managing DRR problems considering emerging disaster risks in the medium and long term, as well as national and local applications. Some of the topics covered include network flow problems, stochastic optimization, discrete optimization, multi-objective programming, approximation techniques, and heuristic approaches. The target audience of the book includes professionals who work in Linear Programming, Logistics, Optimization (Mathematical, Robust, Stochastic), Management Science, Mathematical Programming, Networks, Scheduling, Simulation, Supply Chain Management, Sustainability, and similar areas. It can be useful for researchers, academics, graduate students, and anyone else doing research in the field

As the need for accurate and non-invasive optical characterization and diagnostic techniques is rapidly increasing, it is imperative to find improved ways of extracting the additional information contained within the measured parameters of the scattered light. This is the first specialized monograph on photopolarimetry, a rapidly developing, multidisciplinary topic with numerous military, ecological remote-sensing, astrophysical, biomedical, and technological applications. The main objective is to describe and discuss techniques developed in various disciplines to acquire useful information from the polarization signal of scattered electromagnetic waves. It focuses on the state-of-the-art in polarimetric detection, characterization, and remote sensing, including military and environmental monitoring as well as terrestrial, atmospheric, and biomedical characterization. The book identifies polarimetric techniques that have been especially successful for various applications as well as the future needs of the various research communities. The monograph is intended to facilitate cross-pollination of ideas and thereby improve research efficiency and help advance the field of polarimetry into the future. The book is thoroughly interdisciplinary and contains only invited review chapters written by leading experts in the respective fields. It will be useful to science professionals, engineers, and graduate students working in a broad range of disciplines: optics, electromagnetics, atmospheric radiation and remote sensing, radar meteorology, oceanography, climate research, astrophysics, optical engineering and technology, particle characterization, and biomedical optics.

Today more than 5 million chemicals are known and roughly 100,000 of them are frequently used, with both numbers rising. Many of these chemicals are ultimately released into the environment and may cause adverse effects to ecosystems and human health. Effect-directed analysis (EDA) is a promising tool for identifying predominant toxicants in complex, mostly environmental mixtures combining effect testing, fractionation and chemical analysis. In the present book leading experts in the field provide an overview of relevant approaches and tools used in EDA. This includes diagnostic biological tools, separation techniques and advanced analytical and computer tools for toxicant identification and structure elucidation. Examples of the successful application of EDA are discussed such as the identification of mutagens in airborne particles and sediments, of endocrine disruptors in aquatic ecosystems and of major toxicants in pulp and paper mill effluents. This book is a valuable, comprehensive and interdisciplinary source of information for environmental scientists and environmental agencies dealing with the analysis, monitoring and assessment of environmental contamination.

This book addresses questions of relevance to governments and industry in many countries around the world, in particular concerning the link between contaminated-land-management programs and the protection of drinking water resources and the potential effects of climate changes on the availability of these same resources. On the "problem" side, it reports and analyzes methodologies and experiences in monitoring and characterization of drinking water resources (at basin, country and continental scales), pollution prevention, assessment of background quality and of impacts on safety and public health from land and water contamination and impacts of climate change. On the "solution" side, the book presents results from national cleanup programs, recent advances in research into groundwater and soil remediation techniques, treatment technologies, research needs and information sources, land and wastewater management approaches aimed at the protection of drinking water.

Recent developments in air pollution modelling are explored as a series of contributions from researchers at the forefront of their field. This book on air pollution modelling and its application is focused on local, urban, regional and intercontinental modelling; data assimilation and air quality forecasting; model assessment and evaluation; aerosol transformation; the relationship between air quality and human health and the effects of climate change on air quality. It consists of a series of papers that were presented at the 30th NATO/SPS International Technical Meeting on Air Pollution Modelling and its Application held in San Francisco, U.S.A., May 18-22, 2009. It is intended as reference material for students and professors interested in air pollution modelling at the graduate level as well as researchers and professionals involved in developing and utilizing air pollution models.

The 21st century promises to be an era dominated by international response to c- tain global environmental challenges such as climate change, depleting biodiversity and biocapacity as well as general atmospheric, water and soil pollution problems. Consequently, Environmental decision making (EDM) is a socially important ?eld of development for Operations Research and Management Science (OR/MS). - certainty is an important feature of these decision problems and it intervenes at very different time and space scales. The Handbook on "Uncertainty and Environmental Decision Making" provides a guided tour of selected methods and tools that OR/MS offer to deal with these issues. Below, we brie?y introduce, peer reviewed, chapters of this handbook and the topics that are treated by the invited authors. The ?rst chapter is a general introduction to the challenges of environmental decision making, the use of OR/MS techniques and a range of tools that are used to deal with uncertainty in this domain.

One of the most controversial issues of the water sector in recent years has been the impacts of large dams. Proponents have claimed that such structures are essential to meet the increasing water demands of the world and that their overall societal benefits far outweight the costs. In contrast, the opponents claim that social and environmental costs of large dams far exceed their benefits, and that the era of construction of large dams is over. A major reason as to why there is no consensus on the overall benefits of large dams is because objective, authoritative and comprehensive evaluations of their impacts, especially ten or more years after their construction, are conspicuous by their absence. This book debates impartially, comprehensively and objectively, the positive and negative impacts of large dams based on facts, figures and authoritative analyses. These in-depth case studies are expected to promote a healthy and balanced debate on the needs, impacts and relevance of large dams, with case studies from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America.

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Access, distribution and processing of Geographic Information (GI) are basic preconditions to support strategic environmental decision-making. The heterogeneity of information on the environment today available is driving a wide number of initiatives, on both sides of the Atlantic, all advocating both the strategic role of proper management and processing of environme- related data as well as the importance of harmonized IT infrastructures designed to better monitor and manage the environment. The extremely wide range of often multidimensional environmental information made available at the global scale poses a great challenge to technologists and scientists to find extremely sophisticated yet effective ways to provide access to relevant data patterns within such a vast and highly dynamic information flow. In the past years the domain of 3D scientific visualization has developed several solutions designed for operators requiring to access results of a simulation through the use of 3D visualization that could support the understanding of an evolving phenomenon. However 3D data visualization alone does not provide model and hypothesis-making neither it provide tools to validate results. In order overcome this shortcoming, in recent years scientists have developed a discipline that combines the benefits of data mining and information visualization, which is often referred to as Visual Analytics (VA).

This authoritative volume reviews the environmental chemistry and toxicological effects of a marine pollutant of exceptional potency, tributyltin (TBT), and outlines the international response to control TBT. TBT compounds have been widely utilized in marine anti-fouling paint formulations to obtain increased fuel efficiencies and long lifetimes for maritime vessels and structures. However, its extreme toxicity has resulted in numerous adverse biological effects, and its persistence ensures that such problems are likely to continue. A wide variety of disciplines are brought together to illustrate the general principles, pathways and problems involved in identifying and quantifying an environmental toxin, elucidating deleterious biological consequences, and the legal framework that can invoke mitigation via regulation. This text not only has wide appeal for undergraduate courses in environmental science, chemistry and marine ecology, but also forms a valuable sourcebook for environmental planners and serves as a 'successful' case study for undergraduate courses in environmental law, planning and science.

This book provides readers with the latest developments in environmental research. Chapter One presents the strongest wind erosions of the Sinjsko polje, a karst field situated in the Dalmatia, Croatian south region. Chapter Two provides an analysis for sediment formation by model experiments in karstic depressions. Chapter Three presents the effects of different water pollutants on different assays, biomonitors and biomarkers to evaluate the aquatic environment, as well as justify the importance of inclusion of mutagenicity and genotoxicity tests in water monitoring programs. Chapter Four focuses upon the role of spatial analysis in informing water management into the future and reviews the spatial analysis literature in water resources management/economics from a global and local scale. Chapter Five discusses the impact of climatic variation on reference crop evapotranspiration in the North-East hydrological region of Bangladesh. Chapter Six reviews the causes and impacts of land degradation in Pakistan and devises some improvement measures. Chapter Seven evaluates the impact of partially harvesting the lavender biomass. Chapter Eight introduces benefits and cost of green roof installation, and also gives a new insight into the cost-related issues of green roof installation from owners developers and governments perspectives. Chapter Nine examines the potential environmental risk of food waste management. Chapter Ten discusses the ecophysiology of entomopathogenic fungi used against insect pests of storage maize.

Remote sensing has witnessed a renaissance as new sensor systems, data collection capabilities and image processing methodologies have expanded the technological capabilities of this science into new and important applications areas. Perhaps nowhere has this trend been more evident than in the study of earth environments. Within this broad application area remote sensing has proven to be an invaluable asset supporting timely data gathering at a range of synoptic scales, facilitating the mapping of complex landscapes and promoting the analysis of environmental process. Yet remote sensing s contribution to the study of human/environmental interaction is scattered throughout a rich and diverse literature spanning the social and physical sciences, which frustrates access to, and the sharing of the knowledge gained through, these recent advances, and inhibits the operational use of these methods and techniques in day to day environmental practice, a recognized gap that reduces the effectiveness of environmental management programs. The objective of this book is to address this gap and provide the synthesis of method and application that is currently missing in the environmental science, re-introducing remote sensing as an important decision-support technology.

As hyperspectral sensors, soft image classification strategies, nano- satellites, sensor webs and a myriad of other exciting technologies emerge from the research laboratories, a need exists to assemble the relevant principles, methods and proven applications into a focused discussion centered on environmental problem solving. In many ways, placing remote sensing more clearly into a problem-specific context moves us beyond the traditions commonly found in introductory textbooks and demonstrates the benefits that can be derived from this dynamic information technology.

This book expands on the material that would be the subject matter common to an introductory textbook in remote sensing by offering a more directed focus complemented by the theory and methods germane to the analysis and assessment of environment qualities and process.

This textbook covers the entire spectrum of topics required to completely understand air pollution. It emphasizes the atmospheric processes governing air pollution (emissions, atmospheric dispersion, chemical transformations, deposition on surfaces and ecosystems). Other areas of focus include air pollutant emission control technologies, health and environmental impacts, regulations and public policies, and interactions between climate change and air pollution. Topics are first presented conceptually, and then in terms of their fundamental aspects. Actual case studies are incorporated throughout to illustrate major air pollution phenomena, such as the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere, and the development of strategies to reduce urban air pollution, mitigate acid rain, and improve atmospheric visibility. Graduate students, researchers, and air quality professionals will find the full coverage of these important matters to be well suited to their needs.

Ecologists and economists both use models to help develop strategies for biodiversity management. The practical use of disciplinary models, however, can be limited because ecological models tend not to address the socioeconomic dimension of biodiversity management, whereas economic models tend to neglect the ecological dimension. Given these shortcomings of disciplinary models, there is a necessity to combine ecological and economic knowledge into ecological-economic models. Gradually guiding the reader into the field of ecological-economic modelling by introducing mathematical models and their role in general, this book provides an overview on ecological and economic modelling approaches relevant for research in the field of biodiversity conservation. It discusses the advantages of and challenges associated with ecological-economic modelling, together with an overview of useful ways of integration. Although being a book about mathematical modelling, ecological and economic concepts play an equally important role, making it accessible for readers from very different disciplinary backgrounds.

The aim of this book is to assist environmental authorities and technicians in the design of effective environmental monitoring programs. Consensus exists that any good management program must be able to distinguish between natural variability and changes induced by anthropogenic activities. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to implement continuous monitoring programs. Sampling design is critical for the success of these programs due to the high spatio-temporal variability of coastal ecosystems. No potential sources of pollution should be neglected in sampling design, such as submarine groundwater discharge (SGD), which has been recognised as an important link between the continent and the ocean. Additionally, sampling design should avoid Type II decision errors (false negatives), which means a problem is not found when in fact it does exist. Being able to detect undesired effects is indispensable to adopt preventive and corrective measures. It is essential that these programs change their primarily anthropocentric focus to an ecocentric focus. The need to cover large spatial regions periodically makes necessary the development and application of new technologies such as remote sensing data into monitoring programs. The development of environmental "diagnostic" tools to allow early warning detection of pollution exposure, such as biomarker measurements in bioindicator organisms, are also valuable tools for environmental monitoring, which are examined in this book.

Information technologies have evolved to an enabling science for natural resource management and conservation, environmental engineering, scientific simulation and integrated assessment studies. Computing plays a significant role in every day practices of environmental engineers, natural scientists, economists, and social scientists. The complexity of natural phenomena requires interdisciplinary approaches, where computing science offers the infrastructure for environmental data collection and management, scientific simulations, decision support documentation and reporting.

Ecology, environmental engineering and natural resource management comprise an excellent real-world testbed for IT system demonstration, while raising new challenges for computer science. Complexity, uncertainty and scaling issues of natural systems form a demanding application domain for sensor networks and earth observation systems; modelling, simulation and scientific workflows, data management and reporting, decision support and intelligent systems, distributed computing environments, geographical information systems, heterogeneous systems integration, software engineering, accounting systems and control systems.

This books offers a collection of papers presented at the 4th International Symposium on Environmental Engineering, held in May 2009, in Thessaloniki, Greece. Recent success stories in ecoinformatics, promising ideas and new challenges are discussed among computer scientists, environmental engineers, economists and social scientists, demonstrating new paradigms for problem solving and decision making.

MARTENS Bob and BROWN Andre Co-conference Chairs, CAAD Futures 2005 Computer Aided Architectural Design is a particularly dynamic field that is developing through the actions of architects, software developers, researchers, technologists, users, and society alike. CAAD tools in the architectural office are no longer prominent outsiders, but have become ubiquitous tools for all professionals in the design disciplines. At the same time, techniques and tools from other fields and uses, are entering the field of architectural design. This is exemplified by the tendency to speak of Information and Communication Technology as a field in which CAAD is embedded. Exciting new combinations are possible for those, who are firmly grounded in an understanding of architectural design and who have a clear vision of the potential use of ICT. CAAD Futures 2005 called for innovative and original papers in the field of Computer Aided Architectural Design, that present rigorous, high-quality research and development work. Papers should point towards the future, but be based on a thorough understanding of the past and present.

This book explores climate services, including projections, descriptive information, analyses, assessments, and an overview of current trends. Due to the pressures now being put on the world's climate, it is vital to gather and share reliable climate observation and projection data, which may be tailored for use by different groups. In other words, it is essential to offer climate services. But despite the growth in the use of these services, there are very few specialist publications on this topic. This book addresses that need. Apart from presenting studies and the results of research projects, the book also offers an overview of the wide range of means available for providing and using climate services. In addition, it features case studies that provide illustrative and inspiring examples of how climate services can be optimally deployed.

As urban areas keep growing, water infrastructure ages, and the requirements on environmental protection become more rigorous, there is a continual need for upgrading water pollution control facilities and restoring degraded urban waters. Such issues are addressed in this book by focusing on five major topics: (a) Upgrading stormwater management facilities, (b) Retrofitting / upgrading combined sewer overflow (CSO) facilities, (c) Optimising/upgrading sewage treatment plant performance, (d) Urban stream restoration, and (e) Challenges in restoring urban environment. Each chapter contains some overview papers followed by research or case study papers. Besides presentations of new approaches and accomplishments in the field of upgrading and restoration, several papers provide analysis of vast needs in this field in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which either recently joined the European Union (EU) or are preparing for accession, and need to comply with the existing EU directives dealing with environmental protection. As such, this book will be of primary interest to researchers and university lecturers dealing with environmental upgrading and restoration, environmental planners from all levels of government, municipal engineers and politicians, and finally the private industry representatives (consultants, private utilities and environmental technology suppliers) searching for new business opportunities among the new or aspiring members of EU.

Makers around the globe are building low-cost devices to monitor the environment, and with this hands-on guide, so can you. Through succinct tutorials, illustrations, and clear step-by-step instructions, you'll learn how to create gadgets for examining the quality of our atmosphere, using Arduino and several inexpensive sensors.

Detect harmful gases, dust particles such as smoke and smog, and upper atmospheric haze--substances and conditions that are often invisible to your senses. You'll also discover how to use the scientific method to help you learn even more from your atmospheric tests.Get up to speed on Arduino with a quick electronics primerBuild a tropospheric gas sensor to detect carbon monoxide, LPG, butane, methane, benzene, and many other gasesCreate an LED Photometer to measure how much of the sun's blue, green, and red light waves are penetrating the atmosphereBuild an LED sensitivity detector--and discover which light wavelengths each LED in your Photometer is receptive toLearn how measuring light wavelengths lets you determine the amount of water vapor, ozone, and other substances in the atmosphereUpload your data to Cosm and share it with others via the Internet

"The future will rely on citizen scientists collecting and analyzing their own data. The easy and fun gadgets in this book show everyone from Arduino beginners to experienced Makers how best to do that."--Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of "Wired" magazine, author of Makers: The New Industrial Revolution (Crown Business)

In this wholly revised second edition, Michael Edelstein draws or iis thiffy years as a community activist tc provide a much-expanded theoretical foundation for understanding the psychosocial impacts of toxic contaminagtion. Informed by social psychological theory and an extensive survey of documented cases of toxic exposure, and enlivened by excerpts drawn from more than one thousand Interviews with victims, Contaminated Communities, Second Edition, presents, a candid portrayal of the toxic victim's experience and the key stages in the course of toxic disaster. The second edition introduces dozens of new cases and provvides expanded considerations of environmental justice, environmental racism, environmental turbulence, and environmental stigma, as well as a fully articulated theory of "lifescape." The new edition moves past the well-charted role of reactive environmentalism to explore issues for a proactivist approach that employs a "third path" of social learning, sustainable innovation, consensus building, and community empowerment.