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Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > General
As we are moving ahead into the 21st century, our hunger for cost effective and environmentally friendly energy continues to grow. The Energy Information Administration of US has forecasted that only in the first two decades of the 21st century, our energy demand will increase by 60% compared to the levels at the end of the 20th century. Fossil fuels have been traditionally the major primary energy sources worldwide, and their role is expected to continue growing for the forecasted period, due to their inherent cost competitiveness compared to non-fossil fuel energy sources. However, the current fossil energy scenario is undergoing significant transformations, especially to accommodate increasingly stringent environmental challenges of contaminants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides or mercury, while still providing affordable energy. Furthermore, traditional fossil fuel utilization is inherently plagued with greenhouse gas emissions from combustion, especially carbon dioxide from stationary sources as well as from mobile sources. Should worldwide government policies dictate a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, such as proposed by the Kyoto Protocol and the implementation of carbon taxes, fossil fuels would lose their significant competitive appeal in favor of nuclear energy and renewable energy sources. However, the current non-fossil fuel energy share of the worldwide energy market is merely below 15%, and therefore, it is more likely that fossil fuel energy producers would adapt to the new requirements by developing and implementing emission control technologies, and emission trades among other strategies."
This book is an outgrowth of the NSF-CBMS conference Nonlinear Waves GBP3 Weak Turbulence held at Case Western Reserve University in May 1992. The principal speaker at the conference was Professor V. E. Zakharov who delivered a series of ten lectures outlining the historical and ongoing developments in the field. Some twenty other researchers also made presentations and it is their work which makes up the bulk of this text. Professor Zakharov's opening chapter serves as a general introduction to the other papers, which for the most part are concerned with the application of the theory in various fields. While the word "turbulence" is most often associated with f:l. uid dynamics it is in fact a dominant feature of most systems having a large or infinite number of degrees of freedom. For our purposes we might define turbulence as the chaotic behavior of systems having a large number of degrees of freedom and which are far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Work in field can be broadly divided into two areas: * The theory of the transition from smooth laminar motions to the disordered motions characteristic of turbulence. * Statistical studies of fully developed turbulent systems. In hydrodynamics, work on the transition question dates back to the end of the last century with pioneering contributions by Osborne Reynolds and Lord Rayleigh.
In Nordic literature a remarkable discussion of the northern light appears in Kongespeilet (The King's Mirror) a thirteenth-century Norwegian chronicle. It is described in vivid detail as the following translated excerpts demonstrate: These northern lights have this peculiar nature, that the darker the night is, the brighter they seem, and they always appear at night but never by day, most frequently in the densest darkness and rarely by moonlight. In appearance they resemble a vast flame of fire viewed from a great distance. It also looks as if sharp points were shot from this flame up into the sky; these are of uneven height and in constant motion, now one, now another darting highest; and the light appears to blaze like a living flame. Three different theories for the origin of the northern light were suggested in this book. Numerous naturally occurring heavenly phenomena have been observed and enjoyed as long as the Earth has been inhabited, but hardly any of them has stirred man's imagination, curiosity and fear as much as the northern light. The northern light is certainly one of the most spectacular of nature's phenomena.
Planet Earth is part of our Galactic environment, not just the product of it, and it is still today influenced by phenomena related to Galactic forces. Specifically, our planet is affected by its near environment, in particular the small bodies in the Solar System. This book reviews the processes which cause the collisions of these small bodies with the Earth as well as the consequences of such collisions. The various articles take the reader through the Galaxy-Solar System connection to the orbital dynamics of the small bodies and to their number and distribution in near-Earth space. The hazards of the impacts of small bodies on Earth are evaluated, and the geophysical records of such impacts are discussed. The book takes the reader to the forefront of research on both impact cratering and the origin and evolution of small bodies in the Solar System. Thus it brings together two subjects, geophysics and astronomy, which are usually discussed in separate volumes but are closely knit together in this particular area of research.
The environmental field is deep and wide. In the flood of information, how can people understand the underlying causes of what they hear about the environment from newspapers and television? This book was originally published in Japanese, with the aim of providing basic information about the ideas and methods to see and understand the interconnection between nature and human activities from a systematic point of view. The author subsequently prepared an English version of the same material for use as a textbook for the Global Environmental Leaders Program at Nagoya University, where he taught many students from Asia and Europe. The book covers diverse environmental issues such as climatic change, biodiversity preservation, energy conservation, and resource recycling. Readers can learn common methods of analysis and thinking to identify the core essence of economic and ecological interdependence, to look at problems from an overarching perspective, and to consider countermeasures to be taken.
279 4. 2. Basic formulation 280 4. 3. Variations on the theme 285 4. 4. C. S. Parameters 286 5. CONCLUSIONS 289 REFERENCES 290 CHAPTER 12 FINITE ELEMENT METHODS FOR FILLS AND EMBANKMENT DAMS D. J. NAYLOR 1. INTRODUCTION 291 2. NUMBER OF LAYERS - ACTUAL AND ANALYTICAL 292 3. DEFORMATION IN A RISING FILL 292 4. BASIC FINITE ELEMENT PROCEDURE 292 5. INTERPRETATION OF FINITE ELEMENT DIS PLACEMENTS - 1D CASE 294 6. NEW LAYER STIFFNESS REDUCTION 296 7. MODELLING COMPACTION 300 8. FINITE ELEMENT EFFECTIVE STRESS TECHNIQUES 302 8. 1. Undrained effective stress analysis 302 8. 2. Known pore pressure change analysis 305 9. FIRST FILLING AND OPERATION - GENERAL 306 10. LOADING DUE TO IMPOUNDING 308 10. 1. upstream membrane dam 308 10. 2. Internal membrane dam 308 10. 3. Zoned embankment dams 312 11. ANALYSIS OF FIRST FILLING AND OPERATION 312 11. 1. First filling 312 11. 2. Steady seepage condition 314 11. 3. Finite element considerations 314 12. COLLAPSE SETTLEMENT 314 xili 12. 1. Nobari and Duncan's method 317 12. 2. Generalisation of Nobari and Duncan's method 319 12. 3. One-dimensional example 320 323 13. APPLICATIONS 13. 1. carsington dam 323 13. 2. Beliche dam 325 13. 3. Monasavu dam 330 REFERENCES 335 APPENDIX: DERIVATION OF EQUIVALENT LAYER STIFFNESS 332 CHAPTER 13 CONCRETE FACE ROCKFILL DAMS NELSON L. DE S. PINTO 1. INTRODUCTION 341 2. CURRENT DESIGN PRACTICE 343 2. 1. Evolution 343 2. 2. Embankment 344 2. 2. 1."
Since the late 1960s the Indonesian state of East Kalimantan has witnessed a marked increase in the impact of human activities chiefly commercial logging and agricultural exploitation. Located on the island of Borneo, East Kalimantan also was subjected to prolonged droughts and extensive wildfires in 1982-83 and 1997-98 that were linked to the El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. The changes in the rainforest ecosystem in East Kalimantan during this 15-year cycle of severe ENSO events are the subject of this book. With an eye toward development of rehabilitation techniques for sustainable forest management, the authors examine possible interactive effects of drought, fire, and human impacts on the flora and fauna of the area.
Over the last dozen years there has been a great development in the study of matter on the micro-scale by means of the light microscope, which has coincided with the rapid growth of auto mation and the use of computers. The manufacturers have responded to this challenge, and there is now available a large choice of modules for use with the microscope, both on the biological and non-biological side. This book is on microscope photometry. Photometry on the macro-scale can be applied to features of not less than about one millimetre in size. Below this lies the realm of microscope photometry which will be discussed both in theory and in practice. As a general rule no discussion of technical design of equipment is included, as such information is available in the handbooks of the particular manufacturers of equipment. It attempts to cover all the uses of the optical microscope photometer with its auxiliary equipment, and the first chapter describes the topics covered. In using the word' light' we apply its meaning to extend from UV to near IR. No attempt has been made to list all the works consulted. For each subject treated in this book a list is given of books and papers considered to be of key importance; in these will be found more detailed bibliographies."
The reader may be surprised to learn that the word "aeronomy" is not found in many of the standard dictionaries of the English language (for exam ple. Webster's International dictionary). Yet the term would appear to exist, as evidenced by the affiliations of the two authors of this volume (Institut d'Aeronomie, Brussels, Belgium; Aeronomy Laboratory, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Boulder, CO, USA). Perhaps part of this obscu rity arises because aeronomy is a relatively new and evolving field of endeavor, with a history dating back no farther than about 1940. The Chambers dic tionary of science and technology provides the following definition: "aeronomy (Meteor. ). The branch of science dealing with the atmosphere of the Earth and the other planets with reference to their chemical com position, physical properties, relative motion,"
The Monte Carlo method is based on the munerical realization of natural or artificial models of the phenomena under considerations. In contrast to classical computing methods the Monte Carlo efficiency depends weakly on the dimen sion and geometric details of the problem. The method is used for solving complex problems of the radiation transfer theory, turbulent diffusion, chemi cal kinetics, theory of rarefied gases, diffraction of waves on random surfaces, etc. The Monte Carlo method is especially effective when using multi-processor computing systems which allow many independent statistical experiments to be simulated simultaneously. The weighted Monte Carlo estimates are constructed in order to diminish errors and to obtain dependent estimates for the calculated functionals for different values of parameters of the problem, i.e., to improve the functional dependence. In addition, the weighted estimates make it possible to evaluate special functionals, for example, the derivatives with respect to the parameters. There are many works concerned with the development of the weighted estimates. In Chap. 1 we give the necessary information about these works and present a set of illustrations. The rest of the book is devoted to the solution of a series of mathematical problems related to the optimization of the weighted Monte Carlo estimates."
A. AULICIEMS Living organisms respond to atmospheric variability and variation, and over time morphological and process differentiations occur both within individuals and the species, as well as in the environment itself. In systems language, the concern is with the atmospheric process-response system of energy and matter flows within the biosphere. The study of such interactions between living organ isms and the atmospheric environment falls within the field of bioclimatology, alternatively referred to as biometeorology. Amongst the more readily recognizable study areas under the bioclimatolog that investigate the effects of atmospheric variation and ical umbrella are those variability upon 1. Terrestrial and aquatic ecology (zoological, botanical and ethological), natural resource production and management (including silviculture, agri culture, horticulture, and grassland, wetland, and marine systems). 2. Stress, morbidity and mortality in animals and humans (including physiolog ical and psychological adaptations). 3. The built environment (all aspects of planning, urban design, and architec ture). 4. Economic systems and social activities (including organizational, individual, and group behavior and management). In addition, bioclimatology is very much concerned with the feedback loop, that is both 5. The inadvertent modification of the atmosphere by living systems, especially human, i.e., studies of pollution, changes to atmospheric amenity, and the processes of deterioration of landscape (deforestation and desertification), and 6. The advertent modifications of natural energy and matter flows within urban areas and indoor climate constructions."
It has been known for some time that the behavior of the short-term fluctuations of the earth's atmosphere resembles that of a chaotic non-linear dynamical system, and that the day-to-day weather cannot be predicted beyond a few weeks. However, it has also been found that the interactions of the atmosphere with the underlying oceans and the land surfaces can produce fluctuations whose time scales are much longer than the limits of deterministic prediction of weather. It is, therefore, natural to ask whether it is possible that the seasonal and longer time averages of climate fluctuations can be predicted with sufficient skill to be beneficial for social and economic applications, even though the details of the day-to-day weather cannot be predicted beyond a few weeks. The main objective of the workshop was to address this question by assessing the current state of knowledge on predictability of seasonal and interannual climate variability and to investigate various possibilities for its prediction.
Anthropogenic release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has
been recognized as the primary agent in global climate change.
Acidic deposition and its effect on aquatic ecosystems have become major scientific and public policy issues in the United States since the early 1970s, and many diverse studies have been completed. This book is the first comprehensive, integrated synthesis of available information on current and potential effects of acidic precipitation on lakes and streams in geographic regions with a high number of low-alkalinity surface water from the Adirondacks and the Southern Blue Ridge to the Upper Midwest to the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascades. Written by leading authors, the book examines the current status of water chemistry and characterizes the processes controlling water chemistry on a regional basis by using and comparing high-quality data sets. Methods for the assessment of long-term changes in water chemistry and their effects in fish and other biota are also presented. The book amply illustrates the substantial diversity among geographical regions with respect to the nature of surface waters and the complexity of their response to acidic deposition. This volume will be of great interest to researchers in limnology, aquatic ecology, environmental chemistry, hydrology, and atmospheric sciences. It will also serve as an important reference for environmental managers and policy makers.
The extraordinary growth and development of atmospheric sciences during the last dec ades, and the concern for certain applied problems, such as those related to the environ ment, have prompted the introduction of college and university courses in this field. There is consequently a need for good textbooks. A few appropriate books have appeared in the last few years, aimed at a variety of levels and having different orientations. Most of them are of rather limited scope; in par ticular, a number of them are restricted to the field of dynamics and its meteorological applications. There is still a need for an elementary, yet comprehensive, survey of the terrestrial atmosphere. This short volume attempts to fill that need. This book is intended as a textbook that can be used for a university course at a second or third year level. It requires only elementary mathematics and such knowledge of physics as should be acquired in most first-year general physicS courses. It may serve in two ways. A general review of the field is provided for students who work or plan to work in other fields (such as geophysics, geography, environmental sciences, space research), but are interested in acquiring general information; at the same time, it may serve as a general and elementary introduction for students who will later specialize in some area of atmospheric science."
It is now a quarter of a century since Junge and his coworkers recovered the first sample from the sulfate aerosol layer in the stratosphere. Since that time vast strides have been made in determining its physical properties and morphology. These investigations have been performed with instruments on board aircraft and balloon platforms as in the early days, with ground-based lidar (optical radar), and most recently with satellite-borne optical instruments. It will become evident in Chapter 2 that in situ measurements by aircI'aft and, balloon sensors complement rather than duplicate the remote techniques (lidar and satellite). Hence future programs will probably continue to utilize direct as well as indirect experimental techniques. Concurrently, with the observations of the gross properties of the aerosol layer, la oratory and theoretical studies have sought to elucidate the chemical and micro physical processes which influence the formation and growth of the aerosol par ticles. The laboratory investigations have included studies of gas phase chemistry, and particle nucleation and growth mechanisms. Theoretical studies have revolved mainly around a series of models developed by atmospheric scientists. The earliest of these models was constructed by Junge and his colleagues. With the advent of third- and fourth-generation computers, the capacity to solve the quite complex continuity equations whi h govern particle formation, growth, and removal has ad vanced to the point where most of the particle properties can be simulated with reasonable confidence."
This book deals with the problems and methods of paleohydrogeolo gy in relation to ore deposit studies. It presents a description of dif ferent techniques used in the course of structural-paleohydrogeologi cal, paleo hydrogeochemical and paleo hydro geothermal investiga tions. It also provides itlformation on the regular, regional patterns of formation and subsequent distribution of ground water within dif ferent shells of the Earth. The main aspects of metal content of ground water and contemporary processes of ore genesis are discuss ed. Ore deposits are classified according to paleohydrogeological con ditions under which they were formed. The readers are acquainted with paleohydrogeological analysis of these conditions for different types of ore deposits, namely (1) ore deposits formed in artesian basins, in which sedimentary rocks were predominant both at the time of magmatic activity and in the periods free of this activity; (2) ore deposits formed in artesian, ad artesian basins (and admassifs) characterized by extensive development of volcanic rocks and magmatic activity; (3) ore deposits that originated in hydrogeological massifs (and admassifs) in the process of formation of linear weather ing crusts. This book, which should be of great interest to geologists engaged in prospecting for and exploration and study of ore minerals, also in cludes 38 tables, 60 illustrations and a bibliography of 450 titles. EVGENY A. BASKOV Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The Science of Paleohydrogeology and Its Objectives in Ore Deposit Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 2 Principal Distribution Patterns of Contemporary Ground Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 2. 1 Notion of Hydrosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."
This book originally appeared in German in 1974, under the title "Bergschadenkunde" (mining subsidence engineering), and then in Russian in 1978, published by Nedra of Moscow. When the German edition was almost out of print, Springer-Verlag decided to bring out a new edition, this time in English. For this English version the text has been thoroughly revised, enlarged, and sup plemented by over 100 new figures. The book deals with the current state of international knowl edge on strata and ground movement over mine workings, with its damaging effects on mine shafts and the land surface, and with measures for regulating mining damage in law and reducing it in practice. Discussion begins with the mine excavation underground - the cause - and ends with the damage to surface structure- the effect. Methods of roof control, including the subject of rock bursts, are not discussed, since that is a field concerned more with the safety of underground workings than with minimizing damage at the surface. Of the 500 literature references in the German edi tion, only the more important for an international readership have been retained, but no value judgement on the many pUblica tions not mentioned should be read into this. The book is principally intended as a working aid for the mine surveyor, the mining engineer, the architect, and the civil engineer. For the student and the post-graduate researcher, it of fers a summary and guide to this whole field of knowledge."
Scientists concerned with the processes occurring in the stratosphere are becoming more and more aware of the role that the stratosphere may play in the global climate and in global change in general. This book focuses on the basic processes taking place in the stratosphere and on the stratospheric changes which may occur from either natural or anthropogenic forcing. Of major concern here is the consequence of the increasing Antarctic Ozone Hole and the possibility of similar processes occurring at northern latitudes. One of the expected consequences of the change in the stratospheric composition, mainly ozone depletion, is the change in the penetration of UV-B in the troposphere, at the surface, and in the top layers of the ocean. Monitoring and modeling of those changes are still in infancy, even though the implications may be of utmost importance for the entire biosphere. Several aspects of these consequences with regard to aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial vegetation and human health are presented by experts in these fields.
Since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949there has been a rapid advance in climatology in China. The number of climatological stations has increased from less than 100 to more than of Chinese climatologists covers various 2,000, and the research work fields. The climate of China is no longer just a description of the average weather for an area or locality, but covers many fields such as the monsoon climate, the fluctuation of climate, the spatial and temporal variations of the climatic elements and physical and dynam ic climate. Four books on the climate of China, written in Chinese, have been published so far. There is, however, no excellent book written in English on the climate of China, although Volume 8 of the World Survey oj Climatology, dealing with the climates of northern and eastern Asia, edited by H. Arakawa in 1969, contains a chapter on the climate of China and Korea written by LE. M. Watts. The data sources for China are based mainly on observations from 1940-1952 and the climatological charts of China published by the Central Weather Bureau of China in 1953 and 1955. This monograph on The Climate ojChina by Prof. Dr. M. Dom ros and Prof. Peng Gongbing is the first comprehensive and advanced book in English on the climate of China."
Little more than ten years have passed since spaceprobe-borne instruments con clusively demonstrated the existence of the solar wind. These observations con firmed the basic validity of a theoretical model, first proposed by E. N. Parker, predicting a continuous, rapid expansion of the solar corona. The subsequent decade has seen a tremendous growth in both the breadth and sophistication of solar wind observations; the properties of the interplanetary plasma near the orbit of the earth are now known in great detail. The theory of the coronal ex pansion has also been highly refilled both in the sense of including additional physical processes, and of treating more realistic (time-dependent and non spheri cally-symmetric) coronal boundary conditions. The present volume is an attempt to synthesize the solar wind observations and coronal expansion models from this decade of rapid development. The ultimate goal is, of course, the interpretation of observed solar wind phenomena as the effects of basic physical processes occurring in the coronal and interplanetary plasma and as the natural manifestations of solar properties and structures. This approach implies an emphasis upon the "large-scale" features revealed by the observations. It requires extensive use of the concepts and methods of fluid mechanics."
In this volume, we present the lectures given during the 1984 OHOLO Conference, held in Zichron Yaacov, Israel. The Conference was organized by the Israel Institute for Biological Research, Department of Mathematics, which is involved in Environmental Risk Evaluation, and in Projects Estimating the Potential of Wind Energy. The lectures cover a broad spectrum of mathematical models, ranging from those that deal with the solution of atmospheric conservation equations, and to those models that yield empirical estimates based on real time measure ments and thus are unique to the locale where measured. The goal of the Conference was to allow scientists from various countries to meet and discuss topics of mutual interest, including the following: 1. Structure of the boundary layer - primarily models dealing in the understanding of the various processes of atmospheric energy transfer, and their influence on the size and composition of the boundary 1 ayer. 2. Advanced mathematical techniques for describing flow and diffusion - lectures on approximations and techniques for solving the diffu sion and transport equations. 3. Flow over complex terrain - research into various aspects of the problem - mathematical models, physical models, experimental results. 4. Models of pollution transport and deposition."
This volume is based on a workshop on "Effects of accumulation of air pollutants in forest ecosystems'; held in GOttingen, Federal Republic of Germany, from May 16-18, 1982. This work'shop was initiated and sponsored by the Environmental Agency of the Federal Republic of Germany (project officer: Dr. J. Pankrath) as part of a research contract (project leader: Dr. B. Ulrich). THE PROBLEM SEEN UNDER THE ASPECT OF ADMINISTRATION The problem of forest damage caused by air pollution is not new in Europe. Already in 1983 a comprehensive report from Schroeder and Reuss about vegetation damages by fume in the Harz mountains was published. In 1923, Prof. Dr. Julius Stocklasa of the Bohemian Technical Highschool in Prague was concerned with research of toxical effects of sulphur dioxide in his publication "The damage of vegetation by flue gas and exhalations of facili ties". This comprehensive and instructive work concludes with the sentence: "It is already high time for the governments of all cultural states to take legal, police and private measures in order to prevent damage by flue gases". In the neighbourhood of industries with high gaseous and dust emissions damages have been shown to occur for a long timei these deleterious effects have influenced the growth of trees and in extreme cases have even caused their early death.
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