Environmental site investigation and characterization is potentially the most important part of an environmental project. Site investigation is so important because nearly all other aspects of the project, from financial decisions to engineering designs and construction tasks, are based on the findings of an initial site investigation. The goal in site investigation is to use a number of methods to understand the conditions present at a site and to choose a clear and detailed method to record and present the findings for later reference. Economic and political factors often play a large role in the depth and accuracy of environmental site investigations. This text takes readers step by step through the site investigation process. The knowledge needed for site investigation is presented on an introductory level so that students and practitioners can see the great importance that site investigation lends to the overall success of a project. Additionally, by gaining a thorough understanding of the current state of technology and methodology used for environmental site investigation, readers will better understand how to make their site investigations more efficient and beneficial to a project.

Geographic Knowledge Engineering: Applications to Territorial Intelligence and Smart Cities studies the specific nature of geographic knowledge and the structure of geographic knowledge bases. Geographic relations, ontologies, gazetteers and rules are detailed as the basic components of such bases, and these rules are defined to develop our understanding of the mechanisms of geographic reasoning. The book examines various problems linked to geovisualization, chorems, visual querying and interoperability to shape knowledge infrastructure for smart governance.

Detecting Ecological Impacts: Concepts and Applications in Coastal Habitats focuses on crucial aspects of detecting local and regional impacts that result from human activities. Detection and characterization of ecological impacts require scientific approaches that can reliably separate the effects of a specific anthropogenic activity from those of other processes. This fundamental goal is both technically and operationally challenging. Detecting Ecological Impacts is devoted to the conceptual and technical underpinnings that allow for reliable estimates of ecological effects caused by human activities. An international team of scientists focuses on the development and application of scientific tools appropriate for estimating the magnitude and spatial extent of ecological impacts. The contributors also evaluate our current ability to forecast impacts. Some of the scientific, legal, and administrative constraints that impede these critical tasks also are highlighted. Coastal marine habitats are emphasized, but the lessons and insights have general application to all ecological systems.

In a world where food security is key and the effects of climate change, labour shortages and rising costs are a daily reality for farmers across the globe, the quest for a satisfactory and viable policy for agriculture has a continuing interest as relevant today as when these 26 books were first published between 1928 and 1994. Trading relations and trade deals in the sphere of agribusiness are also once again under the spotlight following the UK’s departure from Europe. Challenges for the 21st century are balancing the needs of agronomics – the production of food under the most economic, competitive yet sustainable conditions, alongside the effective use of land to satisfy the multiple demands upon it. The volumes in this set address these complex issues from a variety of global viewpoints encompassing economic, political, geographic and environmental perspectives.

Thirty years ago, the UN report Our Common Future placed sustainable development firmly on the international agenda. The Imperatives of Sustainable Development takes the ethical foundations of Our Common Future and builds a model that emphasizes three equally important moral imperatives - satisfying human needs, ensuring social justice, and respecting environmental limits. This model suggests sustainability themes and assigns thresholds to them, thereby defining the space within which sustainable development can be achieved. The authors accept that there is no single pathway to the sustainable development space. Different countries face different challenges and must follow different pathways. This perspective is applied to all countries to determine whether the thresholds of the sustainability themes selected have been met, now and in the past. The authors build on the extensive literature on needs, equity, justice, environmental science, ecology, and economics, and show how the three moral imperatives can guide policymaking. The Imperatives of Sustainable Development synthesizes past reasoning, summarizes the present debate, and provides a clear direction for future thinking. This book will be essential reading for everyone interested in the future of sustainable development and in the complex environmental and social issues involved.

This book focuses on the diversity of yeasts in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, including the association of yeasts with insects, invertebrate and vertebrate animals. It offers an overview of the knowledge accumulated in the course of more than 60 years of research and is closely connected with the volume Yeasts in Natural Ecosystems: Ecology by the same editors. In view of the rapid decline of many natural habitats due to anthropogenic activities and climate change, the need to study biodiversity is pressing. Rising temperatures threaten species inhabiting cold and aquatic environments, and species in terrestrial ecosystems are endangered by habitat fragmentation or loss. Most of our knowledge of intrinsic properties (autoecology) of yeasts reported throughout this book is derived from laboratory experiments with pure cultures. Accordingly, the importance of culture collections for ecological studies is highlighted by presenting an overview of worldwide available yeast strains and their origins. All of the chapters were written by leading international yeast research experts, and will appeal to researchers and advanced students in the field of microbial diversity.

The remediation of environmental pollutants has become a relevant topic within the field of waste management. Advances in biological approaches are a potential tool for contamination and pollution control. Microbial Tools and Techniques for Environmental Waste Management is a critical scholarly resource that explores the advanced biological approaches that are used as remediation for pollution cleanup processes. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as biodegradation, microbial dehalogenation, and pollution controlling treatments, this book is geared towards environmental scientists, biologists, policy makers, graduate students, and scholars seeking current research on environmental engineering and green technologies.

Extraction Methods for Environmental Analysis is the first book to bring together all the extraction techniques used for analysis of liquid and solid environmental samples, including solid phase extraction and micro--extraction, supercritical fluid extraction, microwave--assisted extraction and accelerated solvent extraction. The book is divided into two sections -- solid sample preparation and liquid sample preparation -- to facilitate access, and each section starts with a summary of methods available. The techniques are compared and contrasted by means of 70 bar charts, all in two colours, and 32 tables. Relative merits of the techniques are discussed to enable the user to select the most appropriate technique for their sample and method of analysis. Extraction Methods for Environmental Analysis is essential reading for anyone involved in environmental analysis.

This book highlights the aeolian processes in the desert zone of Kazakhstan and Central Asian Deserts, and analyzes the current status of dust and sand storms in Central Asia and Kazakhstan. It also highlights the analyses, dynamics and long-term observations of storms on the basis of numerous cartographic materials and satellite images. Dust/sand storms are a common and important phenomenon in the arid and semi-arid regions of Kazakhstan and Central Asia as well,especially in its southern parts, where areas are covered by a great variety of deserts and offer a significant source of mineral and salt aerosols. The deserts of Kazakhstan mostly cover lowlands and extend from the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the piedmonts of the Tien-Shan Mountain. In Kazakhstan and Central Asia desertification processes due to wind erosion in the form of dust/sand storms were observed in semi-desert and desert landscapes.

Outdoor air pollution accounts for an estimated 4.2 million deaths worldwide, caused predominantly by exposure to fine aerosols. This report investigates the performance of satellites for predicting outdoor concentrations of PM2.5, the most harmful air pollutant to human health, in low- and middle-income countries.

This book presents the latest findings and ongoing research in connection with green information systems and green information & communication technology (ICT). It provides valuable insights into a broad range of cross-cutting concerns in ICT and the environmental sciences, and showcases how ICT can be used to effectively address environmental and energy efficiency issues. Offering a selection of extended contributions to the 31st International Conference EnviroInfo 2017, it is essential reading for anyone looking to expand their expertise in the area.

From the Foreword: "...the presentation of real-time scheduling is probably the best in terms of clarity I have ever read in the professional literature. Easy to understand, which is important for busy professionals keen to acquire (or refresh) new knowledge without being bogged down in a convoluted narrative and an excessive detail overload. The authors managed to largely avoid theoretical-only presentation of the subject, which frequently affects books on operating systems. ... an indispensable [resource] to gain a thorough understanding of the real-time systems from the operating systems perspective, and to stay up to date with the recent trends and actual developments of the open-source real-time operating systems." -Richard Zurawski, ISA Group, San Francisco, California, USA Real-time embedded systems are integral to the global technological and social space, but references still rarely offer professionals the sufficient mix of theory and practical examples required to meet intensive economic, safety, and other demands on system development. Similarly, instructors have lacked a resource to help students fully understand the field. The information was out there, though often at the abstract level, fragmented and scattered throughout literature from different engineering disciplines and computing sciences. Accounting for readers' varying practical needs and experience levels, Real Time Embedded Systems: Open-Source Operating Systems Perspective offers a holistic overview from the operating-systems perspective. It provides a long-awaited reference on real-time operating systems and their almost boundless application potential in the embedded system domain. Balancing the already abundant coverage of operating systems with the largely ignored real-time aspects, or "physicality," the authors analyze several realistic case studies to introduce vital theoretical material. They also discuss popular open-source operating systems-Linux and FreRTOS, in particular-to help embedded-system designers identify the benefits and weaknesses in deciding whether or not to adopt more traditional, less powerful, techniques for a project.

As the world has entered the era of big data, there is a need to give a semantic perspective to the data to find unseen patterns, derive meaningful information, and make intelligent decisions. This 2-volume handbook set is a unique, comprehensive, and complete presentation of the current progress and future potential explorations in the field of data science and related topics. Handbook of Data Science with Semantic Technologies provides a roadmap for a new trend and future development of data science with semantic technologies. The first volume serves as an important guide towards applications of data science with semantic technologies for the upcoming generation and thus becomes a unique resource for both academic researchers and industry professionals. The second volume provides a roadmap for the deployment of semantic technologies in the field of data science that enables users to create intelligence through these technologies by exploring the opportunities while eradicating the current and future challenges. The set explores the optimal use of these technologies to provide the maximum benefit to the user under one comprehensive source. This set consisting of two separate volumes can be utilized independently or together as an invaluable resource for students, scholars, researchers, professionals, and practitioners in the field.

As landfills are closed and new and stricter legislation enacted, the problems of waste and pollution grow ever larger. Re-engineering production lines to reduce the source of unusable by-products is one answer, and developing new technologies to make use of these materials another. Recycling provides an immediate solution, and it is one that is becoming more and more popular in a variety of industries ranging from styrene to steel to newsprint. Like the other titles in the "Encyclopedia of Environmental Control Technology" series, this volume draws on contributors from around the world who are engaged in finding ways to solve the problems of waste and devising new strategies for recycling.

This new textbook and lab manual on remote sensing and digital image processing of natural resources includes numerous practical, problem-solving exercises, and case studies that use the free and open-source platform R. It explains the basic concepts of remote sensing and its multidisciplinary applications using R language and R packages, and engages students in learning theory through hands-on real-life projects. Features 1. Aims to expand theoretical approaches of remote sensing and digital image processing through multidisciplinary applications using R and R packages. 2. Engages students in learning theory through hands-on real-life projects. 3. All chapters are structured with solved exercises and homework and encourages readers to understand the potential and the limitations of the environments. 4. Covers data analysis in free and open-source (FOSS) R platform, which makes remote sensing accessible to anyone with a computer. 5. Explores current trends and developments in remote sensing in homework assignments with data to further explore the use of free multispectral remote sensing data, including very high spatial resolution information. Students in upper-level undergraduate or graduate programs with Remote Sensing Course and Geoprocessing Course, civil and environmental engineering, geosciences, and environmental sciences, electrical engineering, biology, hydrology, agriculture Engineering. Professionals in different areas who use remote sensing and image processing. Students in upper-level undergraduate or graduate programs taking courses in Remote Sensing and Geoprocessing, civil and environmental engineering, geosciences, and environmental sciences, electrical engineering, biology, hydrology, agricultural engineering, as well as professionals in different areas who use remote sensing and image processing, will gain a deeper understanding and first-hand experience with remote sensing and digital processing, with a learn-by-doing methodology using applicable examples in natural resources. .

The implementation of sustainability initiatives on campuses is an essential component of promoting sustainability in the higher education context. In addition to reflecting an awareness of environmental issues, campus programmes demonstrate how seriously universities take sustainability at the institutional level. There is a lack of truly interdisciplinary publications that comprehensively address the issue of campus greening, and there is an even greater need for publications that do so at a truly international level. This book meets these needs. It is one of the outcomes of the "Second Symposium on Sustainability in University Campuses" (SSUC-2018), which was jointly organised by the University of Florence (Italy), Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), the Research and Transfer Centre "Sustainable Development and Climate Change Management" and the "European School of Sustainability Science and Research" at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), in cooperation with the Inter-University Sustainable Development Research Programme (IUSDRP). The book showcases examples of campus-based research and teaching projects, regenerative campus design, low-carbon and zero-carbon buildings, waste prevention, and resilient transport, among others. Ultimately, it demonstrates the role of campuses as platforms for transformative social learning and research, and explores the means by which university campuses can be made more sustainable. The aims of this publication are as follows: * to provide universities with essential information on campus greening and sustainable campus development initiatives from around the world; * to share ideas and lessons learned in the course of research, teaching and projects on campus greening and design, especially successful initiatives and good practice; and * to introduce methodological approaches and projects intended to integrate the topic of sustainable development in campus design and operations. This book gathers contributions from researchers and practitioners in the field of campus greening and sustainable development in the widest sense, from business and economics, to the arts, administration and the environment, and hailing from Europe, Latin America, North America and Asia.

This book presents new approaches to security risk analysis and scenario building on the basis of water works such as flood barriers and storm surge barriers. Defending flood barriers is not only important because of climate change and rising sea levels, but also due to the vulnerability of fresh water supplies and the increasing number of people living in vulnerable low-lying river and sea deltas.

The Handbook of Irrigation Hydrology and Management examines and analyzes irrigated ecosystems in which water storage, applications, or drainage volumes are artificially controlled in the landscape and the spatial domain of processes varies from micrometers to tens of kilometers, while the temporal domain spans from seconds to centuries. The continuum science of irrigation hydrology includes the surface, subsurface (unsaturated and groundwater systems), atmospheric, and plant subsystems. Further, it presents numerous considerations including the selection of economically viable cropping patterns, land allocation by crop, water resource allocation by crop, irrigation scheduling, deficit management irrigation, optimizing crop yields, and more. Features: Offers water-saving strategies to increase the judicious use of scarce water resources Presents strategies to maximize agricultural yield per unit of water used for different regions Compares irrigation methods to offset changing weather patterns and impacts of climate change

In the past, elderly patients were given artificial airway technologies, such as a tracheostomy tube, to assist with their breathing. However, thanks to the advances in medical technologies, older patients now may receive respiratory care while enjoying the comfort of their own home. Noninvasive Ventilation Technologies and Healthcare for Geriatric Patients is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the models and processes of care for elderly subjects that require noninvasive ventilation as well as the development of technological solutions. While highlighting topics such as elderly care, respiratory failure, and home care, this publication explores healthcare management as well as the methods of professional homecare medical services. This book is ideally designed for physicians, nurses, pharmacists, senior health technicians, hospital administrators, clinical directors, laboratories, medical practitioners, nurses, and medical students.

Planners, architects, and designers can have a great impact on living environments and well-being. Well-being is a natural outcome of natural living, but it is important to realize that a real and comprehensive understanding of well-being can only be achieved through the continuity of the concept to all environmental scales starting from the biosphere and leading towards interiors. Since interior space is one of the most important determinants of our everyday experiences, its role in well-being as a conscious construct needs to be the most important concern of spatial design. Well-Being Design and Frameworks for Interior Space is a pivotal reference source that proposes a framework including different dimensions of well-being and that discusses the importance of each dimension through the examination of past and present living environments in an attempt to figure out the appropriate ways of thinking, living, and building that can lead to healthier environments and happier people. Factors discussed throughout the book include the history of the concept of living well, the evolution of well-being with age, the requirements that affect well-being, the potentials of certain design approaches for well-being, the existing environments (such as vernacular structures, heritage buildings) with specific advantages for well-being, changes in well-being requirements, interior environments with different functions (such as schools and home environments), and the intersections of interior design with other design disciplines. This book is ideally designed for architects, interior designers, planners, engineers, administrators, policymakers, researchers, academicians, and students.