This second volume of the Handbook presents professional surveys of all the important topics in urban economics. The first section contains 6 surveys on locational analysis, the second, 5 surveys of specific urban markets, and the third part presents 5 surveys of government policy issues. The book brings together exhaustive research by distinguished scholars from many countries. It is the only complete survey volume of urban economics and should serve as a reference volume to scholars and graduate students for many years. For more information on the Handbooks in Economics series, please see our home page on http: //www.elsevier.nl/locate/hes

This important text develops an institutional response to the core issues raised in public policy making and develops a distinct understanding of the role of institutions, not least in the study of environmental problems. It questions: how are conflicting interests shaped and taken into account in policy making? How should they be accounted for? What motivates the behaviour of firms and individuals, and how is it possible to change these motivations to produce the favoured common outcomes? The author addresses these questions by integrating elements from classical institutional economics, neoclassical economics, sociology and ecological economics. He argues that public policy in general, and environmental policy in particular, are best examined from an institutional perspective. In this way the author presents a distinct and consistent alternative to standard neoclassical economics for students and scholars who are interested in an institutional understanding of environmental policy making. The book is written in a clear and accessible style with boxes and figures to help explain the issues and, as such, would be an ideal alternative or supplement to the standard environmental economics texts.

Modern industrial sectors are often at the root of global environmental problems such as global warming and ozone layer depletion. Are they also the main source of inertia and obstruction that often hold back international efforts to save the environment? Does the limited success of the Kyoto Protocol process suggest that the fossil fuel industry and others can prevent effective climate action? This book puts forward a distinctive theoretical approach and analytical framework for studying business as an international actor in the environmental field, and provides detailed case studies of the most important environmental challenges in recent years.

The Asia–Pacific Integrated Model (AIM) brings together more than 20 computer simulation models for development and analysis of policy in such diverse fields as climate change mitigation, air pollution abatement, and ecosystem preservation. This first book in a series on the development of AIM focuses on climate change issues and the evaluation of policy options to stabilize the global climate. It presents an overview of the models developed to date, their structure, and the results and analyses presented to policymakers and researchers at the levels of individual Asian countries, the Asia–Pacific region, and the world at large. The contents vary in scope from local to global issues, with discussions of the effects of climate policies, cost analyses of climate policies with their effects on trade, and global scenario analyses. Also included are impact analyses and the effects of promoting environmental technologies.  

A radical retelling of human history through collapse – from the dawn of our species to the urgent existential threats of the twentieth-first century and beyond – based on the latest research and a database of more than 440 societal lifespans over the last 5,000 years.

Why do civilisations collapse?

For the first 200,000 years of human history, hunter-gathering Homo sapiens lived in fluid, egalitarian civilizations that thwarted any individual or group from ruling permanently. Then, around 12,000 years ago, that began to change.

Slowly, reluctantly we congregated in the first farms and cities, and people began to rely on lootable resources like grain and fish for their daily sustenance. When more powerful weapons became available, small groups began to seize control of these valuable commodities. This inequality in resources soon tipped over into inequality in power, and we started to adopt more primal, hierarchical forms of organisation. Power was concentrated in masters, kings, pharaohs and emperors (and ideologies were born to justify their rule). Goliath-like states and empires – with vast bureaucracies and militaries – carved up and dominated the globe.

What brought them down? From Rome and the Aztec empire and the early cities of Cahokia and Teotihuacan, it was increasing inequality and concentrations of power which hollowed these Goliaths out before an external shock brought them crashing down. These collapses were written up as apocalyptic, but in truth they were usually a blessing for most of the population.

Now we live in a single global Goliath. Growth-obsessed, extractive institutions like the fossil fuel industry, big tech, and military-industrial complexes rule our world and produce new ways of annihilating our species, from climate change to nuclear war. Our systems are now so fast, complex and interconnected that a future collapse will likely be global, swift and irreversible. All of us now faces a choice: we must learn to democratically control Goliath, or the next collapse may be our last.

This first volume of the Handbook serves as a definitive reference source and teaching supplement for the field of regional economics, and for related fields such as geography, transportation economics, regional science and physical planning. It provides an advanced state-of-the-art survey for professional teachers, researchers and advanced (post-) graduate students in these disciplines. In addition to a representative survey of past developments, it also points to new directions and trends within the field. For more information on the Handbooks in Economics series, please see our home page on http: //www.elsevier.nl/locate/hes

Productivity of inputs is an important determinant of the competitiveness of firms in national and international markets. Productivity growth arises from deliberate decisions to innovate but the technological opportunities could be such that different inputs would have different rates of growth. Previous literature has mostly concentrated on labor productivity but empirical studies indicate that productivity of capital is also increasing. One of the objectives of this book is to examine the difference or bias in the productivity growth of the two inputs.

In this book, application of this general approach to study of biased technical change is developed and new empirical results presented for both macroeconomies and microeconomic firms.

Pesticides have contributed impressively to our present-day agricultural productivity, but at the same time they are at the center of serious concerns about safety, health, and the environment. Increasingly, the public wonders whether the benefits of pesticides - the perfect red apple' - outweigh the costs of environmental pollution, human illness, and the destruction of animals and our habitat. Scientists and government officials are suspected of promoting commercial interests rather than protecting human welfare.

The Environment in WORLD POLITICS explores the interaction of humanity with the physical environment from a systems perspective.The whole is taken to be made up of five sub-systems. The first two are international supply of and demand for goods and services with flows governed by market principles. Classically such a two-component self-stable system could be considered closed, in that two-way interaction with what lay outside was almost zero. However, the effects of economic activity on the physical environment can no longer be ignored and a third sub-system setting norms for acceptable discharges into the environment is plainly necessary. At the same time, the significance of economic activity representing exploitation of commons resources (and hence not obviously governable by market principles) has itself continued to increase. Commons sources are the fourth sub-system and the arrangements for monitoring resource-flows from such sources the fifth sub-system. The focus of the book is on sustainable development. This is taken to mean a stable relationship between the sub-systems, with the norms governing the flows between the sub-systems set and maintained at a desirable level. This approach is found naturally to accommodate the exploration of practical concerns including global warming, protection of the ozone layer, and the exploitation of nuclear power. It also provides a stimulating setting for the examination of INTER ALIA, the precautionary principle, the contentious role of science in the setting of environmental norms, and the population question. This book will be essential reading for social science undergraduates and postgraduate students of international relations, politics and international environmental politics.

Environmental voluntary agreements (VAs) between regulators and polluters are becoming an increasingly relevant environmental policy instrument, thanks to their flexibility and consensual character. These agreements can assume a wide variety of forms and aims. Efficiency conditions and effectiveness in their use depend on their design, rules of implementation and framework conditions.

The book provides a comprehensive economic theory and analysis of environmental voluntary agreements, which takes into account the variety of forms and application situations characterizing this environmental policy instrument. Common methodologies, implementation rules and evaluation criteria for researchers, policy makers and business operators in the use of environmental voluntary agreements are discussed.

Case analysis complements the theoretical analysis. A European and an American approach to VAs are distinguished, and cases in China and Australia are also included. National and sector experiences are investigated in order to consider the full range of applications which the flexibility of VAs allows. Opportunities and risks in the use of VAs are examined. Their evaluation, also in comparison and in conjunction with other policy tools, is performed. VAs are still an instrument in evolution, so the trends in their design and enforcement rules are considered.

The authors are mainly economists and law scholars from Universities, research centers, environmental agencies and international institutions. The book is destined to researchers, scholars and graduate and post-graduate students. Most contributions can be of great interest also for environmental officers in various PublicAdministration administrative and technical bodies and for environmental managers and consultants.

Many European Union Directives seek to minimize the potential for harm to humans and the environment arising from the use of chemicals. This book takes an interdisciplinary, selective look at the effector mechanisms employed in such directives. It covers the pre-marketing use of toxicology to identify the hazardous properties of chemicals, acknowledging its shortcomings, while contrasting the scientific method with the precautionary principle in developing risk-management practices. The book then goes on to describe the use of bio-indicators, chemical analyses and mathematical modelling for prediction, or to determine the adequacy of chemical safety legislation. The environmental risk assessment of priority chemicals is described and the impact of pesticides on sustainability in agriculture is discussed from the differing standpoints of agronomy and economics. Audience: All professionals concerned with the safe management of chemicals and their use, including teachers, practitioners, policy makers or legislators.

..". in this] well written book Knudsen delivers an intriguing study about the meaning of the fish, the fishing activity as a way of life, and the culture of the fishermen. His ability to explain the culture and the life and hard work of Turkish fishers is outstanding." . Environmental History

Through the ethnography and history of fish production, seafood consumption, state modernizing policies and marine science, this book analyzes the role of local knowledge in the management of marine resources on the Eastern Black Sea coast of Turkey. Fishing, science and other ways of knowing and relating to fish and the sea are analyzed as particular ways of life conditioned by history, ideology and daily practice. The approach adopted here allows for a broader analysis of the role knowledge plays in the management of common pool resources (CPR) than is provided in much of the contemporary CPR debate that tends to have a somewhat narrow focus on institutions and rules. By contrast, the author argues that also local knowledge and the larger historical and ideological context of production, as manifest in state modernization policies and consumption patterns, should be taken into account when trying to explain the current management regime in Turkish Black Sea fisheries.

Stale Knudsen is Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen. He has spent extended periods doing fieldwork among Turkish Black Sea fishers. He is currently leading a working group on the Black Sea as part of an EU-funded project entitled "Knowledge-based Sustainable Management for Europe's Seas.""

Achieving Sustainable Urban Form represents a major advance in the sustainable development debate. It presents research which defines elements of sustainable urban form - density, size, configuration, detailed design and quality - from macro to micro scale. Case studies from Europe, the USA and Australia are used to illustrate good practice within the fields of planning, urban design and architecture.

Benjamin Kidd (1858-1916), well-known for his ground-breaking application of social Darwinism in his premier work Social Evolution (1894), was a sociologist and a keen observer of nature. First published posthumously in 1921, A Philosopher with Nature is a collection of Kidd's most profound writings concerning natural habitats. Although the book is not to be considered scientific, Kidd's method of uniting biology and sociology sheds remarkable insights into the animal kingdom. This title is suitable for both students of Anthropology and Sociology.

This book comprises of the edited proceedings of a seminar on environmental modelling. It provides a comprehensive overview of current environmental problems and the progress achieved in their numerical simulation.

This book complements the growing body of literature exploring the relationships between arts and cartography . It is distinct from the previous ones by its main focus: The multiple ways of representing a database. In the context of the exponential increase of the volume of geospatial data available, addressing this issue becomes critical and has not yet received much attention. Furthermore, the content of the database - environmental issues in the city - gives a strong social and political texture to the project. The expected audience for this book are academic as well as students interested in the relationships between art and cartography, place and technology, power and representations. This book could serve as an inspiration for local groups and communities dealing with environmental injustice all over the world. Finally, at a local scale, this book could become a major reference for individuals, communities and institutions interested in environmental issues in the city of Montreal.

Major international, interdisciplinary research programmes are now underway to increase our understanding of how the Earth System operates and how it is changing through the effects of human activities. Although understanding and predictive capacity are still limited, scientists already agree that significant global changes must be expected in the next 50 years that will affect the capacity of the Earth to sustain life. Governments, business and industry have, therefore, come to recognize that scientific knowledge about the changing global environment - as yet incomplete but rapidly evolving - is becoming indispensable for wise long-term policy making, the goal being to design preventive, adaptive and remedial measures. Thus global change science and policy making are engaged in a process of forming a new partnership that is taking shape as further insights evolve. Effective continuous interactions between the partners requires mutual understanding: decision-makers need to understand the unique potential but also the limitations of the results of scientific research in progress while scientists must take into account the priorities and constraints of policy-makers in designing and implementing policies that will promote long-term sustainability of life on this planet. This book contributes in a unique manner to this mutual understanding: It gives an overview of the ongoing relevant research focusing on the two major international programmes, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the World Climate Research Programme. These are described in terms understandable to the interested lay reader. The results of the latest review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are included. This is followed by an analysis of the response process that is in progress with respect to governments - singly and multilaterally - by business and industry and by public interest groups. This process is leading to interactive structures, assessment procedures and legislation, nationally and internationally. Business and industry are changing from mere watchfulness to recognition of new opportunities for products and processes. Six interviews with prominent figures from business and government circles in the Netherlands provide a vivid illustration of the questions at issue. The appendices provide overviews of methods for incorporating the results of global change science into policy-making and development of long lasting projects. Adaptation to climate change serves as an example. Thus, for the first time, one book describes both ongoing research work in global change and the response processes that the research results are evoking. It is of interest to all stake-holders in the scientific community as well as to decision-makers in industry, business and government.

Urbanization is a global phenomenon that is increasingly challenging human society. It is therefore crucially important to ensure that the relentless expansion of cities and towns proceeds sustainably. Urban ecology, the interdisciplinary study of ecological patterns and processes in towns and cities, is a rapidly developing field that can provide a scientific basis for the informed decision-making and planning needed to create both viable and sustainable cities.
Urban Ecology brings together an international team of leading scientists to discuss our current understanding of all aspects of urban environments, from the biology of the organisms that inhabit them to the diversity of ecosystem services and human social issues encountered within urban landscapes. The book is divided into five sections with the first describing the physical urban environment. Subsequent sections examine ecological patterns and processes within the urban setting, followed by the integration of ecology with social issues. The book concludes with a discussion of the applications of urban ecology to land-use planning. The emphasis throughout is on what we actually know (as well as what we should know) about the complexities of social-ecological systems in urban areas, in order to develop urban ecology as a rigorous scientific discipline.

Experiential Landscape offers new ways of looking at the relationship between people and the outdoor open spaces they use in their everyday lives. The book takes a holistic view of the relationship between humans and their environment, integrating experiential and spatial dimensions of the outdoors, and exploring the theory and application of environmental design disciplines, most notably landscape architecture and urban design. The book explores specific settings in which an experiential approach has been applied, setting out a vocabulary and methods of application, and offers new readings of experiential characteristics in site analysis and design. Offering readers a range of accessible mapping tools and details of what participative approaches mean in practice, this is a new, innovative and practical methodology. The book provides an invaluable resource for students, academics and practitioners and anyone seeking reflective but practical guidance on how to approach outdoor place-making or the analysis and design of everyday outdoor places.

This book is a collection of the articles presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW 979859) held in St. Petersburg, from the 15-18 November 2003 in the Hermitage Museum. The title of the workshop was "The impact of the environment on Human Migration in Eurasia." More than 40 scientists from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania and Latvia took part. The themes of the workshop focused on the origin, development, interactions, and migrations of prehistoric and ancient populations, specifically the Scythians, in Eurasia and their relationships with the environment of the time. The discussion of these questions necessitated the participation of specialists from a wide range of academic fields. Beyond any doubt, the environment played an important role in the life of ancient nomadic populations, forming the basis of their economies and influencing various aspects of their mode of life. In this respect, the collaboration of specialists in the Humanities and Science is essential for the solution of scientific questions concerning these peoples. Over the past few years, a large amount of new proxy data related to environmental changes during the Pleistocene and the Holocene and their impact on human life has become available. Our discussion was predominantly limited to environmental changes related to the Holocene. In st this period of about 10000 years, the main focus was on the 1 millennium BC.

Irrigated agriculture produces about 40% of all food and fibre on about 16% of all cropped land. As such, irrigated agriculture is a productive user of resources; both in terms of yield per cropped area and in yield per volume of water consumed. Many irrigation projects, however, use (divert or withdraw) much more water than consumed by the crop. The non-consumed fraction of the water may cause a variety of undesirable effects ranging from water-logging and salinity within the irrigated area to downstram water pollution.

This book discusses all components of the water balance of an irrigated area; evapotranspiration (Ch.2), effective precipitation (Ch.3) and capillary rise from the groundwater table (Ch.4). Chapter 5 then combines all components into a water management strategy that balances actual evapotranspiration (and thus crop yield) with the groundwater balance of the irrigated area (for a substainable environment). Chapter 6 presents CRIWAR 3.0, a simulation program that combines all water balance components into a single simulation procedure. The chapter describes the use of the CRIWAR software for developing water requirement tables and other useful information based on the selected water management strategy. This version greatly expands upon the capabilities of previously published programs.

The impact of environmental variability on ecological systems is an issue that has been at the forefront of ecological research for many years. Research is taking place on many fronts, including theoretical mathematical based analyses, natural ecosystem observation and experimentation.This book brings together contributions from these three fronts to provide readers with a comprehensive look at the challenges for ecological systems and ecological research alike.

This book is a collection of the articles presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW 979859) held in St. Petersburg, from the 15-18 November 2003 in the Hermitage Museum. The title of the workshop was "The impact of the environment on Human Migration in Eurasia." More than 40 scientists from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Belgium, Finland, Lithuania and Latvia took part. The themes of the workshop focused on the origin, development, interactions, and migrations of prehistoric and ancient populations, specifically the Scythians, in Eurasia and their relationships with the environment of the time. The discussion of these questions necessitated the participation of specialists from a wide range of academic fields. Beyond any doubt, the environment played an important role in the life of ancient nomadic populations, forming the basis of their economies and influencing various aspects of their mode of life. In this respect, the collaboration of specialists in the Humanities and Science is essential for the solution of scientific questions concerning these peoples. Over the past few years, a large amount of new proxy data related to environmental changes during the Pleistocene and the Holocene and their impact on human life has become available. Our discussion was predominantly limited to environmental changes related to the Holocene. In st this period of about 10000 years, the main focus was on the 1 millennium BC.

This book is a collection of papers presented at the 9th International Conference of Military Geoscience that was held in 2011. The conference included discussion on a diverse range of geosciences, including military history, military geology, teaching geology from a military prospective, geological influence on the battlefield, and environmental and cultural issues related to management of military lands. Geology and geography have played a significant role in military history, from providing the stone for primitive tools and weapons, to the utilization of terrain in offensive and defensive strategies. Specific to this volume, deserts comprise nearly a third of the Earth's surface and have been the site of numerous battles where the dust, heat, and a lack of food and water have provided challenges to military leaders and warriors. This book examines the role of deserts in past and modern warfare, the problems and challenges in managing military lands in desert regions, and how desert environmental conditions can impact military equipment and personnel. This proceedings volume should be of interest to scholars, professionals, and those interested in military history, warfare, geology, geography, cultural resources, general science, and military operations.