This innovative book aims to bring the science of safety into a simple and practical approach to investigating workplace incidents. As a basis, it uses the ideas of some of the great safety science thinkers of our time. These include Sidney Dekker, Todd Conklin, Erik Hollnagel, Daniel Kahneman, James Reason and Dylan Evans, alongside others and the author's own extensive industry experience. Simplicity in Safety Investigations: A Practitioner's Guide to Applying Safety Science will better equip readers to deal with incident investigations by helping them understand the science behind investigation techniques, and by exploring coaching and leadership styles that help them ask better questions both before and after workplace incidents. The first two chapters of the book focus on our mindset as we approach and undertake investigations, and the simple things we all must do before an investigation starts. The third chapter is a step-by-step guide on how to undertake both simple and more detailed workplace incident investigations. Chapter 4 is reserved for a more detailed review and set of explanations around the science and thinking behind the method and approach. This book serves as an easy-to-follow, real-world reference for supervisors, managers and safety practitioners across many industries.

This book is the outcome of the global consultation on the development and enforcement of international environmental law, with a special focus on the preservation of biological diversity. More than 250 experts on international environmental law and representatives of the global environmental movement collaborated in the drafting of a list of recommendations and conclusions. This list was then communicated to the delegates at the Third Preparatory Committee meeting for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

This book contributes to the multidisciplinary debate about social-ecological systems (SES) within the perspective of rethinking the nature of interaction between these systems, especially in the Anthropocene Era. Most chapters either deliberate on risk dynamics threatening current SES or stimulate thought processes to manage such risks and related negative implications. After analyzing the main drivers of SES vulnerability, the book highlights the shifts to be made to enhance the sustainability and resilience of these systems, mainly the integration and restructuring of governance frameworks, the reorganization of production and consumption systems far from conventional models based on consumerism, the elaboration of mitigation, adaptation, and SDGs implementation measures from a co-benefit perspective, and the consideration of appropriate approaches and paradigms while elaborating and implementing response mechanisms. This volume is relevant to researchers/experts, students, practitioners, and decision-makers from different scales and spheres.

In consequence of significant social, political, economic, and demographic changes several wildlife species are currently growing in numbers and recolonizing Europe. While this is rightly hailed as a success of the environmental movement, the return of wildlife brings its own issues. As the animals arrive in the places we inhabit, we are learning anew that life with wild nature is not easy, especially when the accumulated cultural knowledge and experience pertaining to such coexistence have been all but lost. This book provides a hermeneutic study of the ways we come to understand the troubling impacts of wildlife by exploring and critically discussing the meanings of 'ecological discomforts'. Thus, it begins the work of rebuilding the culture of coexistence. The cases presented in this book range from crocodile attacks to mice infestations, and their analysis consequently builds up an ethics that sees wildlife as active participants in the shaping of human moral and existential reality. This book is of interest not only to environmental philosophers, who will find here an original contribution to the established ethical discussions, but also to wildlife managers, and even to those members of the public who themselves struggle to make sense of encounters with their new wild neighbors.

This book focuses on Shine, a musical performance about how energy, humanity, and climate are interrelated. Weaving together climate science and artistic expression, it results in a funny and powerful story spanning 300 million years. The first half is professionally scripted, composed, and choreographed to convey how our use of fossil fuels is impacting our climate. The second half - our future story - is authored by local youth to generate solutions for their city's resilience. In rehearsing the musical, participants themselves embody aspects of climate science and human development. Ultimately, it demonstrates that performance can be a dynamic tool for youth to contribute to their community's resilience. Educators can use this book to guide youth in creative expression based on (or inspired by) Shine. Included are the script, links to the music and video of the performance, materials for building curricula, interviews with collaborators, and lessons learned along Shine's year-long international tour.

Written in easy to follow language, the book presents cutting-edge agriculturally relevant plant biotechnologies and applications in a manner that is accessible to all. This book updates and introduces the scope and method of plant biotechnologies and molecular breeding within the context of environmental analysis and assessment, a diminishing supply of productive arable land, scarce water resources and climate change. New plant breeding techniques including CRISPR-cas system are now tools to meet these challenges both in developed countries and in developing countries. Ethical issues, intellectual property rights, regulation policies in various countries related to agricultural biotechnology are examined. The rapid developments in plant biotechnology are explained to a large audience with relevant examples. New varieties of crops can be adapted to new climatic conditions in order to reduce pest-associated losses and the adverse abiotic effects

This book presents a compilation of case studies from different countries on achieving agricultural sustainability. The book stresses that, in order to meet the needs of our rapidly growing population, it is imperative to increase agricultural productivity. If global food production is to keep pace with an increasing population, while formulating new food production strategies for developing countries, the great challenge for modern societies is to boost agricultural productivity. Today, the application of chemicals to enhance plant growth or induced resistance in plants is limited due to the negative effects of chemical treatment and the difficulty of determining the optimal concentrations to benefit the plant. In the search for alternative means to solve these problems, biological applications have been extensively studied. Naturally occurring plant-microbe-environment interactions are utilized in many ways to enhance plant productivity. As such, a greater understanding of how plants and microbes coexist and benefit one another can yield new strategies to improve plant productivity in the most sustainable way. Developing sustainable agricultural practices requires understanding both the basic and applied aspects of agriculturally important microorganisms, with a focus on transforming agricultural systems from being nutrient-deficient to nutrient-rich. This work is divided into two volumes, the aim being to provide a comprehensive description and to highlight a holistic approach, respectively. Taken together, the two volumes address the fundamentals, applications, research trends and new prospects of agricultural sustainability.  Volume one consists of two sections, with the first addressing the role of microbes in sustainability, and the second exploring beneficial soil microbe interaction in several economically important crops. Section I elucidates various mechanisms and beneficial natural processes that enhance soil fertility and create rhizospheric conditions favourable for high fertility and sustainable soil flora. It examines the mechanism of action and importance of rhizobacteria and mycorrhizal associations in soil. In turn, section II presents selected case studies involving economically important crops. This section explains how agriculturally beneficial microbes have been utilized in sustainable cultivation with high productivity. Sustainable food production without degrading the soil and environmental quality is a major priority throughout the world, making this book a timely addition. It offers a comprehensive collection of information that will benefit students and researchers working in the field of rhizospheric mechanisms, agricultural microbiology, biotechnology, agronomy and sustainable agriculture, as well as policymakers in the area of food security and sustainable agriculture.

The "Concise Encyclopedia of Environmental Systems" provides a concise overview of the current state of the art in the study of environmental systems. Contains specially commissioned articles and updated and revised articles from the acclaimed "Systems & Control Encyclopedia." The subjects covered include: agricultural systems; atmospheric processes and air quality; ecosystems; environmental chemistry; geology, soil processes and geophysics; hydrology, fluid dynamics and water quality; marine processes; meteorology; and climatology. In addition, many of the articles cover the methodological procedures used in environmental systems analysis, with contributions on automatic control and management; computers in modelling and management; environmental planning; environmetric methods, including time-series analysis; mathematical modelling, including data-based, physically based and simulation modelling; remote sensing and image processing; uncertainty in environmental systems; and sensitivity analysis. The encyclopedia is extensively cross-referenced on two levels - to articles of direct relevance as well as to other articles which will provide the reader with more general background information.

The spellbinding new book by the prizewinning writer Kapka Kassabova tells the story of her time with the last moving pastoralists in Europe: a gripping portrayal of human-animal interdependence, and a plea for a different way of living.

Living with one of these communities over the course of one summer, Kassabova experiences the intensity, brutality, beauty and isolation of their existence. She witnesses the epic, orchestrated activity of transhumance – the seasonal movement of vast herds of sheep, along with shepherds and dogs. As she becomes attuned to the sacrifices inherent in this work and the rich histories that shaped this Balkan region, Kassabova finds herself drawn deeper into the tangled relationships at the heart of the small community.

Anima is an extraordinary portrayal of pastoral life, where humans and animals exist in profound interdependence. Kassabova conjures the spirit of this remarkable place with intimacy and empathy, and helps us imagine how we might all begin to heal our broken relationship with the natural world.

Computer Simulation of Sedimentary Cover Evolution; S.E. Medvedev. Numerical Simulation of Pore Fluid Movements in the Upper Rotliegend of the North German Depression; J. Springer, G. Schwab. Modeling of Subsidence, Temperature, and Maturity in the North German Basin; A. Berthold, K. Menschner. Differential Compaction and Structural Genesis; H. Dietrich. Dissolution and Cememtation in Basin Simulation; R. Ondrak, U. Bayer. The Use of Fision Track Measurements in Basin Modeling; P.K. Jensen, et al. Mass-Balanced Reconstruction of Paleogeology; W.W. Hay, C.N. Wold. The Simulation of Large-Scale Sedimentary Structures; P.A. Dowd. A Quantitative Basin Analysis System for Petroleum Exploration; S. Cao et al. Well-Log Imaging and its Application to Geologic Interpretation; L. Huang, et al. An Integrated Approach to Basin Analysis and Mineral Exploration; D.F. Merriam, et al. 8 additional articles. Index.

Active researchers in the areas of geography and psychology have contributed to this book. Both fields are capable of increasing our scientific knowledge of how human behavior is interfaced with the molar physical environment. Such knowledge is essential for the solution of many of today's most urgent environmental problems. Failure to constrain use of scarce resources, pollution due to human activities, creation of technological hazards and deteriorating urban quality due to vandalism and crime are all well known examples. The influence of psychology in geographical research has long been appreciated but it is only recently that psychologists have recognized they have something to learn from geography. In identifying the importance of two-way interdisciplinary communication, a psychologist and a geographer have been invited to each write a chapter in this book on a designated topic so that close comparisons can be drawn as to how the two disciplines approach the same difficulties. Since the disciplines are to some extent complementary, it is hoped that this close collaboration will have synergistic effects on the attempts of both to find solutions to environmental problems through an increased understanding of the many behavior-environment interfaces.

Interdisciplinary Teaching about the Earth and Environment for a Sustainable Future presents the outcomes of the InTeGrate project, a community effort funded by the National Science Foundation to improve Earth literacy and build a workforce prepared to tackle environmental and resource issues. The InTeGrate community is built around the shared goal of supporting interdisciplinary learning about Earth across the undergraduate curriculum, focusing on the grand challenges facing society and the important role that the geosciences play in addressing these grand challenges. The chapters in this book explicitly illustrate the intimate relationship between geoscience and sustainability that is often opaque to students. The authors of these chapters are faculty members, administrators, program directors, and researchers from institutions across the country who have collectively envisioned, implemented, and evaluated effective change in their classrooms, programs, institutions, and beyond. This book provides guidance to anyone interested in implementing change-on scales ranging from a single course to an entire program-by infusing sustainability across the curriculum, broadening access to Earth and environmental sciences, and assessing the impacts of those changes.

Prehistoric North Americans lived on, in, and surrounded by nature. As a result, everything they were resulted from this co-existence. From interpersonal relations to supernatural beliefs, from housing size and function to the food they ate and clothing they wore, the life of Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans was intimately intertwined with the environment. What is known about these societies is often sketchy at best, having survived largely through archaeological remains and oral tradition. Scholars have tried to understand Native American history on its own terms, trying to understand who and what they were in reality - a complex, diverse multitude of populations that defined themselves entirely through what they saw, heard, and experienced everyday - their natural environment. Nature and the Environment in Pre-Columbian American Life provides an overview of all aspects of how native peoples interacted with the environment: How did prehistoric North Americans use their knowledge of the environment to hunt and gather for food, or raise crops? What was the interaction between humans and animals? How did Native Americans find entertainment and leisure in their environments? How and where did people live in conjunction with and often in spite of the elements? This accessible resource provides an excellent introduction for those needing a first step to researching the daily lives of Native Americans in the centuries before the arrival of Europeans.

A fascinating handbook providing a rare synthesis of the environmental history of northern Europe from the Paleolithic era to the present day. Of interest to students and academics alike, this book provides a much-needed synthesis of the recent literature on northern Europe's environmental history. Beginning with the Paleolithic period and the recolonization of Europe after the Ice Age, this book maps out the key environmental trends in the history of the region's environment and its interaction with the human population. The book also highlights how dramatic events outside Europe, such as the Tomboro volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, had dramatic consequences for the region's climate. Given the culturally diverse nature of modern Europe, a vital aspect of the book is its identification of the common themes that unite the interaction of the region's nation-states with the natural environment. Part of ABC-CLIO's Nature and Human Societies series, the book enables readers to better grasp the extent of humanity's effect on our world.

Since the appearance of Homo sapiens on the planet hundreds of thousands of years ago, human beings have sought to exploit their environments, extracting as many resources as their technological ingenuity has allowed. As technologies have advanced in recent centuries, that impulse has remained largely unchecked, exponentially accelerating the human impact on the environment. Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist, rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes-epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions-have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them. At the same time, he traces the history of anthropogenic changes in the environment-species extinctions, global warming, deforestation, and resource depletion-back to the age of hunters and gatherers and the first farmers and herders. He shows how human interventions such as irrigation systems, over-fishing, and the Industrial Revolution have in turn harmed the very societies that initiated them. Throughout, Headrick examines how human-driven environmental changes are interwoven with larger global systems, dramatically reshaping the complex relationship between people and the natural world. In doing so, he roots the current environmental crisis in the deep past.

The constant increase in the consumption of mineral resources, as well as the growing awareness of their exploitation, is causing deep concern within the scientific community. This concern is justified by the fact that the energy transition will increase the pressure on these resources, as renewable energies require an increased and more diversified quantity of mineral materials. This book presents an overview of the exploitation of these mineral resources, where the natural, regulatory and environmental constraints interfere with economic, financial and geopolitical interests. By mobilizing the fields of the humanities, geosciences and engineering, it also analyzes the challenges that the energy transition will encounter, challenges related to the contradictory effects that the acceleration of the extraction of these resources will have on their physical availability, the economies that exploit them and the populations that live off of them

Climb a mountain and experience the landscape. Try to grasp its holistic nature. Do not climb alone, but with others and share your experience. Be sure the ways of seeing the landscape will be very different. We experience the landscape with all senses as a complex, dynamic and hierarchically structured whole. The landscape is tangible out there and simultaneously a mental reality. Several perspectives are obvious because of language, culture and background. Many disciplines developed to study the landscape focussing on specific interest groups and applications. Gradually the holistic way of seeing became lost. This book explores the different perspectives on the landscape in relation to its holistic nature. We start from its multiple linguistic meanings and a comprehensive overview of the development of landscape research from its geographical origins to the wide variety of today's specialised disciplines and interest groups. Understanding the different perspectives on the landscapes and bringing them together is essential in transdisciplinary approaches where the landscape is the integrating concept.

Increasingly, the planet is threatened by a wide variety of real and potential complex environmental problems, including the warming of the earth, the loss of biodiversity, waste mismanagement, deforestation, desertification, hazardous waste disposal, acid precipitation, and pollution of many sorts. Although many of these problems are global in scope, they are sometimes best addressed at local levels where the relationships between cause and effect may be best understood. This interdisciplinary volume brings together leading environmentalists and public policy makers in science, law, economics, business, and government who explore the connections among global environmental issues and the local initiatives needed to address those issues.

The volume begins with an overview of fundamental issues, including the problems of economic development and safe-guarding the environment. Air quality issues are examined next, followed by ocean and landbased sources of marine pollution, coastal preservation, water quality, nuclear power, environmental health and information, and a review of social and cultural perspectives. For those beginning their examination of environmental concerns, the volume provides an understandable introduction to the full spectrum of current issues; for the expert, the book offers an accurate view of current thinking on the problems.

Theoretical foundations of atmospheric remote sensing are electromagnetic theory, radiative transfer and inversion theory. This book provides an overview of these topics in a common context, compile the results of recent research, as well as fill the gaps, where needed. The following aspects are covered: principles of remote sensing, the atmospheric physics, foundations of the radiative transfer theory, electromagnetic absorption, scattering and propagation, review of computational techniques in radiative transfer, retrieval techniques as well as regularization principles of inversion theory. As such, the book provides a valuable resource for those who work with remote sensing data and want to get a broad view of theoretical foundations of atmospheric remote sensing. The book will be also useful for students and researchers working in such diverse fields like inverse problems, atmospheric physics, electromagnetic theory, and radiative transfer.

1. Land Resources, Land Use and Projected Land Availability for Alternative Uses in the EC.- 1.1. Introduction.- 1.2. Land Use Structure.- 1.3. Climate and Soils.- 1.4. Slope Characteristics of Land.- 1.5. Assessing Future Land Requirements for Major Uses in the EEC.- 1.6. Projected Land Use Changes.- 1.7. Concluding Remarks.- 2. Trends in the Transformation of European Agriculture.- 2.1. Introduction.- 2.2. Types of Agriculture in Europe.- 2.3. Agricultural Regions in Europe.- 2.4. Conclusions.- 3. Future Land Use Patterns in Europe.- 3.1. Introduction.- 3.2. Land Use Patterns in Europe.- 3.3. New Technologies and Changing Land Use Patterns.- 3.4. Climate Change and Soil Degradation in Relation to Changing Land Use Patterns.- 3.5. Future Land Use Changes in Europe.- 3.6. Concluding Remarks.- 4. The Role and Impact of Biophysical Determinants on Present and Future Land Use Patterns in Europe.- 4.1. Introduction.- 4.2. Major Determinants of Land Use Patterns in Europe.- 4.3. Effect of Biophysical Parameters on Crop Growth.- 4.4. Land Assessment Based on the Physical Potential of the Land.- 4.5. Concluding Remarks.- 5. Atmospheric Methane: Estimates of Its Past. Present and Future and Its Role in Effecting Changes in Atmospheric Chemistry.- 5.1. Introduction.- 5.2. The Greenhouse Effect.- 5.3. Chemical Interferences.- 5.4. Climatic Implications.- 5.5. The Global Methane Budget.- 5.6. Biogenic Sources.- 5.7. Methane of Non-biological Origin.- 5.8. Pre-industrial Methane Emissions.- 5.9. Future Trends.- 5.10. Concluding Remarks.- 6. Perspectives on a Changing Hydroclimate: Land Use Implications.- 6.1. Introduction.- 6.2. The Hydrological Cycle.- 6.3. Interdependency of Catchment Hydrology and Land Use.- 6.4. Environmental Manipulation.- 6.5. Influence of Climatic Change.- 6.6. Sustainable Interaction between Society and the Water Cycle.- 6.7. Matrices to Clarify the Impacts of Changes.- 6.8. Conclusion.- 7. Dynamics in Land Use Patterns: Socio-economic and Environmental Aspects of the Second Agricultural Land Use Revolution.- 7.1. Introduction.- 7.2. Development and Sustainability: A Methodological Framework.- 7.3. Land Use and Economics: An Historical Orientation.- 7.4. Agricultural Land Use and the Environment.- 7.5. Overproduction in the Agricultural Sector: An International Perspective.- 7.6. Strategic and Scientific Options for Co-evolutionary Development.- 8. Climatic Change and Land Use Impact in Europe.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. European Climate-Vegetation-Soil Relationships.- 8.3. Major Future Shifts of Biomes and Land Use.- 8.4. Climate Related Acidification, Eutrophication and Aridification.- 9. Climatic Changes and Land Use Potential in Europe.- 9.1. Introduction.- 9.2. Specific Approaches.- 9.3. A Summary of Possible Effects of Climatic Change on Agricultural Potential in Europe.- 9.4. Potential Technological and Management Responses.- 9.5. Conclusions.- 10. Environmental Constraints on Agricultural Production.- 10.1. Introduction.- 10.2. Materials and Methods Applied.- 10.3. Results of the Experiments.- 10.4. Measures to Prevent Leaching.- 10.5. Conclusion.- 11. Potential Effects of Climate and Land Use Changes on the Water Balance Structure in Poland.- 11.1. Introduction.- 11.2. Methods of Assessing the Heat and Water Balance Structure.- 11.3. Scenarios of Heat and Water Balance Components.- 11.4. Conclusions.- 12. Soil Erosion, Soil Degradation and Climatic Change.- 12.1. Introduction.- 12.2. Soil Erosion in Western Europe.- 12.3. Establishing Information on Erosion and Degradation.- 12.4. Land Degradation: The World Problem.- 12.5. Soil Erosion and Climatic Change.- 13. Salinization Potential of European Soils.- 13.1. Introduction.- 13.2. Salinization of Groundwater and Soils.- 13.3. Major Aspects of Soil Salinity.- 13.4. Future Potential for Salt-affected Soils in Europe.- 13.5. Prevention and Monitoring of Secondary Salinization.- 14. Changes in Rates of Weathering and Erosion Induced by Acid Emissions and Ag...

This book comprises the select proceedings of the International Conference on Recent Advances in Civil Engineering (ICRACE) 2020, held at the Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin, Kerala, India. The book focuses on latest research in different areas of civil engineering and lays special emphasis on sustainable construction practices. It is divided into seven major themes: (i) Modern materials and sustainable construction, (ii) Environmental engineering and management, (iii) Geotechnical engineering, (iv) Health, safety and environment, (v) Irrigation, water resources and management, (vi) Structural Engineering, and (vii) Transportation engineering and traffic planning. Given the range of the topics covered, this book can be useful for students, scholars and professionals interested in the different sub-disciplines of civil engineering.