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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > General
Environmental policy has been the focus of reform efforts for more than a generation. Now policymakers face a new and challenging set of issues: how to develop strategies for attacking new environmental problems, how to develop better strategies for solving the old ones, and how to do both in ways that are more efficient, less taxing, and engender less political opposition. On one level, environmental performance is the problem. On a broader level, the question is how reshaped intergovernmental partnerships will affect how America is governed. This book charts the politics of the next generation of environmental policy: how citizens will sort competing goals and responsibilities, how conflict and collaboration will shape the policy options, and how the nations political institutions will respond. These issues raise tough political problems that will define which options are viable and how different options will reshape politics. The contributors outline a path to fresh perspectives on the critical problems that must be addressed. Contributors: Christopher H. Foreman Jr. (University of Maryland, Brookings Institution), Donald F. Kettl (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Brookings Institution), Shelley H. Metzenbaum (University of Maryland), Barry G. Rabe (University of Michigan), Graham K. Wilson (University of Wisconsin-Madison) About the Editor Donald F. Kettl is professor of public affairs and political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. His recent books include The Global Public Management Revolution: A Report on the Transformation of Governance (Brookings, 2000) and The Transformation of Governance: Public Administration for the 21st Century.
This survey covers pollution control, in particular measures taken at Community level to deal with water pollution, air pollution, chemicals and waste. It also discusses legislation developed in wider contexts, such as environmental impact assessment, nature conservation, and the integration of environmental policy into other community policies, such as agriculture and development co-operation. The first title in Kluwer Law International's International Environmental Law and Policy series, the book must be viewed as a work of reference, to be used by industries and organizations involved with pollution control, as well as by those interested in environmental policy more generally. This edition of the work, although it includes much that appeared in the first edition, has been totally rewritten, expanded and updated to include the key events and decisions that have intervened since the end of the 1980s, including the adoption of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme in 1993 and the impact of the Maastricht Treaty on the EU's environmental policy. The growing role of the European Community in international affairs is examined: for example, the participation of the Community in the Montreal Convention on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is fully described, as is the Commission Communication to the Council on measures to be taken by the Community to deal with the greenhouse effect and the action taken by the Community both before and after the Rio Earth Summit.
Land use and land cover (LULC) as well as its changes (LUCC) are an interplay between bio-geophysical characteristics of the landscape and climate as well as the complex human interaction including its different patterns of utilization superimposed on the natural vegetation. LULC is a core information layer for a variety of scientific and administrative tasks(e.g. hydrological modelling, climate models, land use planning).In particular in the context of climate change with its impacts on socio-economic, socio-ecologic systems as well as ecosystem services precise information on LULC and LUCC are mandatory baseline datasets required over large areas. Remote sensing can provide such information on different levels of detail and in a homogeneous and reliable way. Hence, LULC mapping can be regarded as a prototype for integrated approaches based on spaceborne and airborne remote sensing techniques combined with field observations. The book provides for the first time a comprehensive view of various LULC activities focusing on European initiatives, such as the LUCAS surveys, the CORINE land covers, the ESA/EU GMES program and its resulting Fast-Track- and Downstream Services, the EU JRC Global Land Cover, the ESA GlobCover project as well as the ESA initiative on Essential Climate Variables. All have and are producing highly appreciated land cover products. The book will cover the operational approaches, but also review current state-of-the-art scientific methodologies and recommendations for this field. It opens the view with best-practice examples that lead to a view that exceeds pure mapping, but to investigate into drivers and causes as well as future projections.
This book was first published in 1943.
Examining the premise that the process of economic liberalization has had a significant impact on the labor markets of many countries, this contributed volume studies that impact in different countries and regions from both theoretical and applied perspectives. While recognizing that liberalization entails many elements, the book focuses on how structural adjustment policies have contributed to the overall development effort. The first four chapters analyze the relationship between economic liberalization and labor markets, and then investigate this relationship within broader regions, such as North-South, transition economies, and Africa. The remaining chapters provide case studies of Greece, Chile, Argentina, Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey. All the country chapters treat political economy issues and related policy conclusions. Stressing the interrelationship between liberalization and labor markets, the chapters discuss the importance of institutional, political, and legal factors in considering the effects of liberalization policies on the structure of labor markets and its participants. The book is an important look at a previously unexplored area of economic analysis.
The complex and multidisciplinary nature of environmental problems
requires that they are dealt with in an integrated manner. Modeling
and software have become key instruments used to promote
sustainability and improve environmental decision processes,
especially through systematic integration of various knowledge and
data and their ability to foster learning and help make
predictions. This book presents the current state-of-the-art in
environmental modeling and software and identifies the future
challenges in the field.
As scientists and policymakers try to come to grips with problems
such as climate change and risks to biodiversity, they turn more
and more frequently to the method of scenario analysis to better
understand the future of these problems. Over the last few years
scenario analysis has become one of the key tools for bridging
environmental science and policy. This is the first book to sum up
the current practice of environmental scenario analysis and to
propose directions for improving its quality and effectiveness.
Chapters are written by an international group of distinguished
scenario experts and provide an excellent starting basis for
first-time scenario practitioners, as well as a collection of new
ideas on improving scenario practice for experienced scenario
analysts.
Through the analysis of surviving archival traces, this book constructs a history of the imagination and memory of the town of Peacehaven. Built as a speculative development atop iconic chalk cliffs on the Sussex Coast and marketed as a garden city by the sea, the estate quickly attracted adverse publicity. Influential voices such as the Bloomsbury group's Virginia and Leonard Woolf, architect and writer Clough Williams-Ellis and the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England soon began to criticise it as a blot on the rolling, pastoral downland. Instead of reading and appraising Peacehaven's story in a polarized way, this book breaks new ground by critically interpreting visual representations and commissioned photographs of the Estate and re-evaluating propositions from its inception, which aspired to secure improved public health and home ownership in direct response to the negative impact of industrialization and WWI. Focusing on the interwar period and tracing mutating agendas, the book investigates contested marketing and construction narratives through Histoire Croisee methodology and its intercrossings with memory and the imagination. By combining visual and creative research methods with oral history, multi-layered narratives of place come into focus. The study tracks the visual programme of the developer's in-house magazine, Peacehaven Post, alongside previously underexplored blueprints, photographs, postcards and promotional guidebooks, and considers the garden city narrative as a form of social Utopia. Garden city ideals are once again evoked in debates as a potential solution to the ongoing national housing shortage, giving this research additional urgency as new large-scale redevelopment erases many of the few and fast disappearing original landmarks.
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.
The phrase "literature and environment" only achieved popularity in recent decades, yet writers dating back to the explorers of the 1500s--and later such 19th-century Romanticists as Thoreau--have long been addressing environmental issues through literary expression. This volume introduces students and educators to the field by tracing the evolution of environmental writing in the United States. Chapters written by distinguished scholars offer new perspectives on important environmental issues, guiding readers through 11 carefully selected literary works. Each chapter provides brief biographical information on the author, discussions of the work's structural, thematic, and stylistic components, and insights into the historical context that relates the work to relevant environmental issues. Each chapter concludes with information on works cited. The analyzed works cover a wide spectrum of literature and span nearly 100 years. Included are early writings, such as Mary Austin's 1903 The Land of Little Rain, and famous groundbreaking works, such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962) and Gary Snyder's Turtle Island (1974). Also included are frequently assigned works of special interest to students, such as The Monkey Wrench Gang (1975), The Earthsea Trilogy (1977), and Ceremony (1977). A list of selected further suggested readings completes the volume. Students of literature, as well as educators looking for new ways to present social issues, will find many ideas and much inspiration in this volume.
Census data, population projections, trip estimates. Planners know numbers. But numbers don't always tell the whole story. Qualitative analysis which yields data in words and images rather than numbers is an important tool in any research project. Planners can use field research, photography, focus groups, and content analysis and meta-analysis to develop compelling data for a variety of uses. This book explains how to use and adapt these techniques and how to integrate these methods with more traditional qualitative research. Chapters offer step-by-step guidance to setting up various kinds of qualitative research projects, collecting data, organizing data, and analyzing data. Case studies show how a mix of qualitative and quantitative research can help planners build consensus and tackle large, complicated projects."
This book is unique in identifying and presenting tools to environmental decision-makers to help them improve the quality and clarity of their work. These tools range from software to policy approaches, and from environmental databases to focus groups. This title is equally of value to environmental managers, and students in environmental risk, policy, economics and law.
"Use of Microbes for the Alleviation of Soil Stresses, Volume 1" describes the most important details and advances related to the alleviation of soil stresses by soil microbes. Comprised of seven chapters, the book reviews the mechanisms by which plant growth promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) alleviate plant growth under stress; the role of mycorrhizal fungi on the alleviation of drought stress in host plants; how PGPR may alleviate salinity stress on the growth of host plants; and the role of PGPR on the growth of the host plant under the stress of sub optimal root zone temperature. Written by experts in their respective fields, "Use of Microbes for the Alleviation of Soil Stresses, Volume 1 "is a comprehensive and valuable resource for researchers and students interested in the field of microbiology and soil stresses.
This urgent and essential text explores what could be classed as one of today's most pressing problems.It is the goal of environmental security to protect people from the short- and long-term ravages of nature, man-made threats and the deterioration of the natural environment.Environmental security includes activities related to pollution prevention, environmental conservation, compliance with regulations and environmental restoration.It is a challenge for transition countries to support all of these activities, due to limited resources, competing priorities and the fact that most environmental regulations, assessment methods and procedures, and restoration techniques were developed in countries where resources were not limited.
This study explores the confluence of economy and ecology in British India, showing that Britain initiated economic development strategies in India in order to efficiently extract resources from it. It looks specifically at how state railway construction and forest conservation efforts took on a cyclical, almost symbiotic relationship.
Modelling environmental dynamics is critical to understanding and predicting the evolution of the environment in response to the large number of influences including urbanisation, climate change and deforestation. Simulation and modelling provide support for decision making in environmental management. The first chapter introduces terminology and provides an overview of methodological modelling approaches which may be applied to environmental and complex dynamics. Based on this introduction this book illustrates various models applied to a large variety of themes: deforestation in tropical regions, fire risk, natural reforestation in European mountains, agriculture, biodiversity, urbanism, climate change and land management for decision support, etc. These case studies, provided by a large international spectrum of researchers and presented in a uniform structure, focus particularly on methods and model validation so that this book is not only aimed at researchers and graduates but also at professionals.
The news media has become a key arena for staging environmental conflicts. Through a range of illuminating examples ranging from climate change to oil spills, Media, Environment and the Network Society provides a timely and far-reaching analysis of the media politics of contemporary environmental debates.
Global society in the 21st century is facing challenges of improving the quality of air, water, soil and the environment and maintaining the ecological balance. Environmental pollution, thus, has become a major global concern. The modern growth of industrialization, urbanization, modern agricultural development and energy generation has resulted in the indiscriminate exploitation of natural resources for fulfilling human desires and needs, which has contributed in disturbing the ecological balance on which the quality of our environment depends. Human beings, in the truest sense, are the product of their environment. The man-environment relationship indicates that pollution and deterioration of the environment have a social origin. The modern technological advancements in chemical processes/operations have generated new products, resulting in new pollutants in such abundant levels that they are above the self-cleaning capacity of the environment. One of the major issues in recent times is the threat tohuman lives due to the progressive deterioration of the environment from various sources. The impact of the pollutants on the environment will be significant when the accumulated pollutants load will exceed the carrying capacity of the receiving environment. Sustainable development envisages the use of natural resources, such as forests, land, water and fisheries, in a sustainable manner without causing changes in our natural world. The Rio de Janeiro-Earth Summit, held in Brazil in 1992, focused on sustainable development to encourage respect and concern for the use of natural resources in a sustainable manner for the protection of the environment. This book will be beneficial as a source of educational material to post-graduate research scholars, teachers and industrial personnel for maintaining the balance in the use of natural sources for sustainable development.
This book focuses on the academic foundations, trends and traditions of environmental education for sustainable development principally in Chinese contexts. It highlights contexts and case studies that illuminate recent Chinese initiatives. It includes case studies of green schools and reports on recent initiatives in school-based ESD curriculum development programmes in China, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan. The book concludes with an overview chapter that points to likely future developments. The assumption underpinning the book is that experiences gained in such a major country as China will be of real interest to geographical and environmental educationists, professional educators and teachers elsewhere. Not only will it generate interest and create greater awareness but also it is hoped that these experiences will provide a platform for scholarly exchange and contribute insights on education policy and curriculum changes across Asian-Pacific communities in an increasingly globalised world.
This volume contributes to the emerging topic of social paleoethnobotany with a series of papers exploring dynamic aspects of past social life, particularly the day-to-day practices and politics of procuring, preparing, and consuming plants. The contributors to this volume illustrate how one can bridge differences between the natural and social sciences through the more socially-focused interpretations of botanical datasets. The chapters in this volume draw on a diversity of plant-derived datasets, macrobotanical, microbotanical, and molecular, which contribute to general paleoethnobotanical practice today. They also carefully consider the contexts in which the plant remains were recovered. These studies illustrate that the richest interpretations come from projects that are able to consider the widest range of data types, particularly as they aim to move beyond simple descriptions of food items and environmental settings. The authors in this volume address several themes including: the collection of wild resources, the domestication of crops and spread of agriculture, the role of plant remains in questions regarding domestic life, ritual, and gender as well as the broader implications of a socially-engaged paleoethnobotany. These studies point a path forward for the constantly evolving field of paleoethnobotany, one that is methodologically rigorous and theoretically engaged. Together, these papers shed light on ways in which the specialized analysis of plant remains can contribute to theory building and advancing archaeological understanding of past lifeways.
This book presents the latest findings and ongoing research in the field of green information systems and green information and communication technology (ICT). It provides insights into a whole range of cross-cutting topics in ICT and environmental sciences as well as showcases how information and communication technologies allow environmental and energy efficiency issues to be handled effectively. The papers presented in this book are a selection of extended and improved contributions to the 28th International Conference on Informatics for Environmental Protection dedicated to ICT for energy efficiency. This book is essential and particularly worth reading for those who already gained basic knowledge and want to deepen and extend their expertise in the subjects mentioned above.
This book explores the practice of transdisciplinary research through the narratives of different individuals taking part in a project investigating local water management. The research project ran for one year and brought seven university scientists together with seven local residents to explore relationships between water quantity, water quality, abstraction of water resources and how to reduce pollution. Landstroem presents three conversations that convey the experience of transdisciplinary practice in natural language in order to offer insights into the workings of a transdisciplinary Environmental Competency Group. The conversations highlight Environmental Competency Groups as tools enabling collaboration between knowledgeable individuals who do not share a common scientific vocabulary. Transdisciplinary Environmental Research will appeal to natural and social scientists interested in working collaboratively with each other and the general public on environmental research projects.
In the 1700s, Jean-Jacques Rousseau celebrated the Alps as the quintessence of the triumph of nature over the horrors of civilization. Now available in English, History of the Alps, 1500-1900: Environment, Development, and Society provides a precise history of one of the greatest mountain range systems in the world. Jon Mathieu's work disproves a number of commonly held notions about the Alps, positioning them as neither an inversion of lowland society nor a world apart with respect to Europe. Mathieu's broad historical portrait addresses both the economic and sociopolitical exploring the relationship between population levels, development, and the Alpine environment, as well as the complex links between agrarian structure, society, and the development of modern civilization. More detailed analysis examines the relationship between various agrarian structures and shifting political configurations, several aspects of family history between the late Middle Ages and the turn of the twentieth century, and exploration of the Savoy, Grisons, and Carinthia regions.
Wenner, who has been an active policy-oriented political scientist in the area of energy/environmental legislation and litigation . . . has created a practitioner's dictionary to the most influential special-interest groups lobbying in the halls of Washington, DC, today. Her introduction offers an excellent summation of how she determined which groups were to be included and describes how she organized the groups. . . . If the purpose of a dictionary is to save time and trouble for researchers, then this is an excellent contribution to the growing literature of environmental and energy policy studies. "Choice" In the latter part of the 1980s, as political action committees proliferated and the number of lobbyists in Washington, D.C. increased, there was a corresponding increase of interest among scholars in examining this phenomenon. This book defines the universe of groups that lobby in the fields of environmental and energy policy regardless of which side of the many controversies in these areas they represent. Included are groups that have gained national recognition as representatives of the environmental movement; other entries are smaller organizations that focus on one special issue. Their impact may be significant on that policy, but they may be less important than some general public interest lobbies that do not specialize in environmental problems but whose influence on the American political scene makes their opinions significant. Another major category is the large trade association with many interests that go beyond the focus of this book. These groups have been in business for many years and would not fade from view if they stopped all lobbying on these issues. Yet they are some of the most important actors in this issue area today, and to ignore them would be to turn a blind eye to the reality of the political process. A third major type of group that lobbies in this area are the professional and research organizations that are formed around their members' careers. They assume a moderate position on most of the main issues and may hold a balance of power in their hands today. Each group included in the volume is profiled according to its history, membership, sources of funding, structure of organization, strategies used to influence policies, and the types of programs about which the organization is most concerned. In addition to the 148 main entries that comprise the bulk of the book, there were groups described in standard reference works that appeared to qualify them for inclusion in this work but for which there was minimal information; these groups are listed in Appendix A. The questionnaire used to query the groups is included in Appendix B. As a reference tool, this volume will be useful for libraries, as well as for organizations interested in the fields of energy and environment. |
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