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Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > The hydrosphere > General
Terrain has a profound effect upon the strategy and tactics of any military engagement and has consequently played an important role in determining history. In addition, the landscapes of battle, and the geology which underlies them, has helped shape the cultural iconography of battle certainly within the 20th century. In the last few years this has become a fertile topic of scientific and historical exploration and has given rise to a number of conferences and books. The current volume stems from the international Terrain in Military History conference held in association with the Imperial War Museum, London and the Royal Engineers Museum, Chatham, at the University of Greenwich in January 2000. This conference brought together historians, geologists, military enthusiasts and terrain analysts from military, academic and amateur backgrounds with the aim of exploring the application of modem tools of landscape visualisation to understanding historical battlefields. This theme was the subject of a Leverhulme Trust grant (F/345/E) awarded to the University of Greenwich and administered by us in 1998, which aimed to use the tools of modem landscape visualisation in understanding the influence of terrain in the First World War. This volume forms part of the output from this grant and is part of our wider exploration of the role of terrain in military history. Many individuals contributed to the organisation of the original conference and to the production of this volume.
During the past decade many countries in the world have experienced droughts, with severe impacts on water urban supply systems. Because droughts are natural phenomena, water utilities must design and implement drought management plans. This topic was selected for the International Course on Drought Management Planning in Water Supply Systems, which took place in Valencia, Spain, on 9-12 December 1997, and was hosted by the Universidad Internacional Men ndez y Pelayo (UIMP). The contributions in this book have been carefully selected and presented in four sections: Introduction Water Supply Systems Modernization Drought Management in an Urban Context Practical Cases (Israel, USA, Italy, Spain) To achieve a well-balanced approach, authors were invited from academia as well as from consultancies and water utilities, and have wide experience in the subject. The book is mainly aimed at water supply engineers, working in utilities and consultancies.
Bangladesh faces many challenges. So long it has been mainly the traditional ones of socio economic development and eradication of poverty. Environment as a major factor in this process has only recently entered the scene. But even before environmental considerations in the development process has become the normal practice, the spectre of climate change has reared its ugly head. While Bangladesh is not unique among developing countries in being at the receiving end regarding the causes and consequences of climate change, both in the literal and allegorical sense of the term, the fact remains that it has made the prospects for sustainable socio-economic development in the country much more complex and formidable than before. Both for her own sake and the sake of the global community at large, therefore, Bangladesh has to initiate actions at various levels to face the challenge from now on. The present study is a part of that process. In 1996, the Governments of USA and Bangladesh together decided to initiate a comprehensive study on climate change in Bangladesh. A unique consortium of public and non-governmental research organisations with support from the relevant administrative arms of the Government carried out the study over 1996 and 1997. The report has been accepted by the Government and several of its recommendations are in the process of implementation. While the direction of climate change is broadly certain, its details leave much scope for speculation and interpretation."
It is an honour and pleasure to write a foreword to this useful and interesting book. Authors are very well known researchers who pioneered percolation modelling of transport in porous media in Russia from the early 80-th till nowadays. The main scope of the work presented in the book was developed when bright papers by A. Aharony, H.T. Davis, F.A.L. Dullien, A.A. Heiba, R.G. Larson, R. Lenormand, M.Sahimi, L.E. Scriven, D. Stauffer, M. Yanuka, Y.C.Yortsos were not available at the "other" side of the Iron Curtain. Nowadays hundreds of works and papers with the "percolation" keywords ap pear in petroleum and related applied research areas. The book will take a re markable place in the "petroleum percolation" bibliography. There are two important features of novelty in the monograph presented. First of all the authors developed a generalization of percolation clusters theory for grids with varying conductivity. Technique of representation of an infinite cluster as an hierarchial set of trees (so called r-chain model) allows to present conductivity of a stochastic grid in a closed form of explicit formulae. This method differs from those known in the West, such as effective media theory, solutions for the Bethe-lattice, etc. It has his own area of successful appli cations."
Since the greenhouse effect emerged as a predictable threat, necessitating the evalu ation of its future impact on the environment in the various parts of the globe, interest in the climate changes during the Holocene has gained momentum. The background can be summarized by the sentence: The past is a key to the future. As a matter of fact, this sentence is in the opposite direction, on the dimension of time, to the principle adopted by the founders of the science of geology. They proposed that geological processes in the present should be used as a key for understanding the past. Another reason for the interest in the history of the climate of the Holocene can be described as the renaissance of a modified deterministic approach to the inter relation between physical and human geography. This relates in the first place to the fact that various investigations, especially as carried out by Hubert Lamb, showed that the sequence of climate changes previously suggested by Blytt and Sernander for Europe and adopted by most Holocene climatologists was far too general, and that there were more climate changes during recent history than previously taken account of. In the second place it was found out that these changes had had an impact on the history of human communities. Thus, one can conclude that once the taboo on geographical determinism (i. e."
Exploring Risk Communication presents a systematic planning approach to risk communication. Risk communication is seen by many as an important tool for managing technological, environmental, and natural risks. The book's goal is to improve risk communication processes in these areas between private and public risk communication sources and the public. The systematic planning approach focuses on research activities which are considered to be diagnostic tools providing insight into the public's reactions to risks and into the public's cognitive abilities to process risk information. These studies give us the necessary ingredients for an adequate risk communication from the audience side of the risk communication process. Evaluation studies are considered necessary to monitor the effectiveness of the communication. Exploring Risk Communication provides a review of current research in risk communication, focusing on perceived trust and credibility of risk communication sources, and arguments in risk messages, risk comparison, and framing of risk. Special attention is paid to the mass media context of risks and its impact on public perception. Finally, the potential of the new interactive media for risk communication is reviewed. The authors have performed several communication studies in the risk area, working from their social psychological background. This results in a monograph interesting to those working on risk communication issues on an academic level, but the systematic planning approach is also a useful frame of reference for risk communication practitioners, or for those who are just interested in the often complex risk communication issues.
The idea for this book was born at the June 1996 meeting of the IDEAL Steering Committee in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. We had just completed a successful and stimulating special symposium during the annual meeting of the American Society for Limnology and Oceanography, and enthusiasm was running high for the production of a volume that could assemble in one place the scientific findings that were starting to emerge from East Africa. IDEAL, an International Decade for the East African Lakes, had ended one round of field investigations, many of which had been centered on Lake Victoria. As the climatologists, geologists, paleolimnologists, and biologists displayed their results and debated interpretations, it appeared that some paradigms were shifting, and that new explanations of climate history and modem processes were taking shape. The Steering Committee endorsed the production of a volume that would draw together the different research results that were emerging and which would be representative of the scope of science issues that exist within IDEAL. This book follows in the spirit of The Limnology, Climatology, and Paleoclimatology of the East African Lakes, published in 1996, but has a somewhat different purpose. The previous publication also included original science results, but it was conceived to review the state of knowledge, identify critical problems, and point to new paths of inquiry. It accompanied the development of our first Science and Implementation Plan for the East African Lakes.
Groundwater is endangered and polluted in several ways. Conservation and better management of this invisible resource should be a key ingredient of sustainable water policies. This is especially true in areas, such as many Mediterranean regions, which are already exposed to scarcity problems and which are likely to experience increasing competition between freshwater uses and users. Agriculture is an important user of groundwater not only in terms of abstractions, but also in terms of generation and release of pollutants. Agricultural policies, traditionally directed towards other objectives, are beginning to pay more attention to environmental considerations. However more effective initiatives are required to reduce the pressure upon groundwater resources and to achieve a better integration between agricultural and environmental policies. This book has been developed from three workshops held as part of the EU Concerted Action SAGA, "Sustainable Agricultural Use of Aquifers in Southern Europe: Integration between Agricultural and Water Management Policies" (FAIR5-CT97-3673). The Concerted Action and the workshops brought together researchers working in different but complementary fields, in order to get a picture of the state-of-the art about interlinkages between agriculture and groundwater, as well a critical review of alternative regulatory approaches and policy instruments aimed at improving groundwater management.
Design of water control structures, reservoir management, economic evaluation of flood protection projects, land use planning and management, flood insurance assessment, and other projects rely on knowledge of magnitude and frequency of floods. Often, estimation of floods is not easy because of lack of flood records at the target sites. Regional flood frequency analysis (RFFA) alleviates this problem by utilizing flood records pooled from other watersheds, which are similar to the watershed of the target site in flood characteristics. Clustering techniques are used to identify group(s) of watersheds which have similar flood characteristics. This book is a comprehensive reference on how to use these techniques for RFFA and is the first of its kind. It provides a detailed account of several recently developed clustering techniques, including those based on fuzzy set theory and artificial neural networks. It also documents research findings on application of clustering techniques to RFFA that remain scattered in various hydrology and water resources journals. The optimal number of groups defined in an area is based on cluster validation measures and L-moment based homogeneity tests. These form the bases to check the regions for homogeneity. The subjectivity involved and the effort needed to identify homogeneous groups of watersheds with conventional approaches are greatly reduced by using efficient clustering techniques discussed in this book. Furthermore, better flood estimates with smaller confidence intervals are obtained by analysis of data from homogeneous watersheds. Consequently, the problem of over- or under-designing by using these flood estimates is reduced. This leads to optimal economic design of structures. The advantages of better regionalization of watersheds and their utility are entering into hydrologic practice. Audience
Wetlands could be described as land and water at Tropical wetlands: one and the same time, and as such are very specific on the brink ecosystems. Their often rich variety of resources makes them highly valuable to the peoples who live With a few exceptions (like the Everglades in the or regularly stay in them. However, access to them United States), the last remaining large wetlands are to be found in developing countries. Perhaps this can is difficult and those unaware of their services be explained by insufficient financial resources, frequently associate wetlands with such nuisances and calamities as mosquitos, disease, floods, impen lower popUlation density or a different concept of etrable wastelands, etc. As a result these areas are development and well-being. Whatever the reasons, often perceived as obstacles to human development many tropical wetlands still exist and support the and well-being. subsistence of many communities. But for how much History reflects these two views. Wetlands may longer? have been the cradle of great civilizations (like the During the last few decades tropical wetlands Maya, Inca, Aztec, Nilotic and Mesopotamian have also been destroyed or considerably altered. Dams and embankments now prevent water from civilizations), but elsewhere their destruction allowed other societies to develop. For example the Nether spreading into the floodplains of several rivers, like lands literally 'emerged from the waters' thanks to the Senegal, Volta and Nile."
The Second International Symposium on the East African Lakes was held from 10-15 January 2000 at Club Makokola on the southern shore of Lake Malawi. The symposium was organized by the International Decade for the East African Lakes (IDEAL), a research consortium of African, European and North American scientists interested in promoting the investigations of African Great Lakes as archives of environmental and climatic dynamics. Over one hundred African, European and North American scientists with special expertise in the tropical lakes participated in the symposium which featured compelling presentations on the limnology, climatology, palaeoclimatology and biodiversity of the East African Lakes. It is their papers that comprise this book. The large lakes of East Africa are important natural resources that are heavily utilized by their bordering countries for transportation, water supply, fisheries, waste disposal, recreation and tourism. The lakes are unique in many ways: they are sensitive to climatic change and their circulation dynamics, water-column chemistry and biological complexity differ significantly from large lakes at higher latitudes; they have long, continuous, high resolution records of past climatic change; and they have rich and diverse populations of endemic organisms. These unique properties and the significance of the palaeolimnological records demand and attract research interest from around the world.
Aragon: Forum for Global Debates on Water Water is such a scarce resource, and of such high value, that it merits profound re?ection on its future management. With this in mind, the idea emerged of org- ising a unique international summit in Aragon - because of the issue involved and because it would be the ?rst to which top-level experts from a variety of sectors and disciplines would be invited to debate the future of water management. Accordingly, in November 2006, the newly established International Centre of Water and the Environment (CIAMA-La Alfranca) of the Government of Aragon brought together leading national and international experts on water issues, as well as on population, development, economics, agriculture, energy, health, and techn- ogy, for a workshop entitled "Water Management Beyond 2020." Various probable scenarios for the management of water in the medium and long term were debated. Those who also took part in organising the event included the Mexico-based Third World Centre for Water Management, headed by its President Prof. Asit K. Biswas, who is also a Senior Advisor to CIAMA, and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation of the United States, with its President Mr. Keiji Iwatake. I wish to thank them, as well as Dr. Cecilia Tortajada, Scienti?c Director of the CIAMA and President of the Int- national Water Resources Association, for their dedication and e?ort in conceiving the event and ensuring its success.
The Issues, Conclusions, and Recommendations of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop - Budapest, Hungary July 27 -31, 1997 TIlOMAS NAFF University of Pennsylvania 847 Williams Hall Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305 USA tna. /J"@sas. upenn. edu 1. The Issues Sharing data and infonnation enables people to think together in solving problems, in building trust essential for cooperative efforts toward sustaining shared vital natural resources, and in avoiding conflict. It is axiomatic that all planning and policy making, not least for environmental and resource sustainability, depend for success on accmate data and infonnation dispensed freely to all who need it, from farmers to heads of state. These maxims are particularly apt when applied to water resources that are international and transboundary. In those circumstances, the need for cooperation and sharing are acute if the water source is to be managed, distributed, and used equitably and efficiently. In many parts of the world, the collection, management, reporting, and quality of water and environmental data are often so poor and incomplete as to render them useless, or they are treated as security issues and are therefore classified. Either way, wherever those conditions exist, essential planning and policy data and information of good quality are relatively hard to come by. The consequences are high, particularly for effective basin-wide river management and resource sustainability.
In a time when an unquestionable link between anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and climatic changes has finally been acknowledged and * widely documented through IPCC reports, the need for precise estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) production rates and emissions from natural as well as managed ecosystems has risen to a critical level. Future agreements between nations concerning the reduction of their GHG emissions will - pend upon precise estimates of the present level of these emissions in both natural and managed terrestrial and aquatic environments. From this viewpoint, the present volume should prove to a benchmark contribution because it provides very carefully assessed values for GHG emissions or exchanges between critical climatic zones in aquatic en- ronments and the atmosphere. It also provides unique information on the biases of different measurement methods that may account for some of the contradictory results that have been published recently in the literature on this subject. Not only has a large array of current measurement methods been tested concurrently here, but a few new approaches have also been developed, notably laser measurements of atmospheric CO concentration 2 gradients. Another highly useful feature of this book is the addition of - nitoring and process studies as well as modeling.
Theory Instrumentation NIR analysis of sediment samples Uses of NIRS in palaeolimnology Future perspectives Summary References Fly-ash particles. Neil Rose 319 12. Introduction A brief history Methods of extraction and enumeration Temporal distribution Spatial distribution Source apportionment The future Summary Acknowledgements References Part III: Stable Isotope Techniques 13. Application of stable isotope techniques to inorganic and biogenic carbonates. Emi Ito 351 Introduction Nomenclature and systematics of lake-water Mg/Ca and Sr/Ca ratios of lake-water of dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) Carbonates in lake-sediments Mollusks Ostracodes Charaphytes Isotope analysis Preparation of carbonate samples for isotope analysis Conclusions Summary Acknowledgments References 14. Carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of lake sediment cellulose: methods and applications. Brent B. Wolfe, Thomas W. D. Edwards, Richard J. Elgood & Kristina R. M. Beuning 373 xi Introduction Stable isotope tracers in lake Historical development Methods Key criteria for paleohydrologic reconstruction Applications Future research directions Summary Acknowledgements References Nitrogen isotopes in palaeolimnology. Michael R. Talbot 15. 401 Introduction Nitrogen in lakes: forms and distribution Nitrogen isotopes Nitrogen isotope studies in palaeolimnology: sampling and measurement Some examples Closing remarks Summary Acknowledgments References Glossary, acronyms and abbreviations 441 Index 493 xiii PREFACE The explosive growth of paleolimnology over the past two decades has provided impetus for the publication of this series of monographs detailing the numerous advances and new techniques being applied to the interpretation of lake histories. This is the second volume in the series and deals mainly with physical and geochemical analytical techniques.
In the continued quest for increased economic benefits from our water resources, numerous structures and operating policies for controlling the river flow have been built and implemented. These structures and associated operating policies can facilitate navigation; they can provide greater quantities of reliable water supplies to meet agricultural, industrial and municipal water demands; they can generate hydroelectric power and energy; and they can provide increased flood protection, recreation, and other benefits. Over the past half-century we have converted many of our rivers into engineered waterways. These straightened, often periodically dredged, engineered rivers are complete with dikes, reservoirs, weirs, and diversion canals. All this engineering has enhanced economic development. However, as rivers and their floodplains become stressed from the excessive use and misuse of their resources, their contribution to economic development can be threatened. Evidence of economic and ecological degradation, especially in relatively large river systems such as the Danube, the Mississippi, the Rhine, and the Volga, has increased our appreciation of beneficial roles natural aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems play in water quantity and quality management. We have recognized the need to pay more attention to letting nature help us regulate water quantity and quality rather than working against nature and its variabilities and uncertainties. Today there are efforts underway in many developed river basins to 'de engineer' or return these straightened and controlled rivers to a more natural state."
Origins of fallout radionuclides Sediment records of fallout radionuclides Simple dating models Vertical mixing Numerical techniques Radiometric techniques Discussion Summary Acknowledgements References 10. chronostratigraphic techniques in paleolimnology. Svante Bjorck & Barbara Wohlfarth 205 Introduction Methods and problems Radiocarbon-dating different fractions of the sediment as a chronostratigraphic tool Dating of long (old) stratigraphies High resolution dating and wiggle matching dating versus absolute dating techniques of lacustrine sediments Concluding remarks Summary Useful www addresses Acknowledgements References 11. Varve chronology techniques. Scott Lamoureux 247 Introduction Methods Summary and future directions Acknowledgements References 12. Luminescence dating. Olav B. Lian & D. J. Huntley 261 Introduction The mechanism responsible for luminescence Dating and estimation of the paleodose Thermoluminescence dating Optical dating Evaluating the environmental dose rate xi Sample collection and preparation What types of depositional environments are suitable for luminescence dating? What can lead to an inaccurate optical age? Summary Acknowledgements References 13. Electron spin resonance (ESR) dating in lacustrine environments. Bonnie A. B. Blackwell 283 Introduction Principles of ESR analysis Sample collection ESR analysis ESR microscopy and other new techniques Applications and datable materials in limnological settings Summary Acknowledgements References 14. Use of paleomagnetism in studies of lake sediments. John King & John Peck 371 Introduction Recording fidelity of geomagnetic behavior by sediments Field and laboratory methods Holocene SV records Magnetostratigraphic studies of Neogene lake sediments Excursions, short events and relative paleointensity Conclusions Summary References 15. Amino acid racemization (AAR) dating and analysis in lacustrine environments."
Multiphase systems dominate nearly every area of science and technology, and the method of volume averaging provides a rigorous foundation for the analysis of these systems. The development is based on classical continuum physics, and it provides both the spatially smoothed equations and a method of predicting the effective transport coefficients that appear in those equations. The text is based on a ten-week graduate course that has been taught for more than 20 years at the University of California at Davis and at other universities around the world. Problems dealing with both the theoretical foundations and the applications are included with each chapter, and detailed solutions for all problems are available from the author. The course has attracted participants from chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, hydrologic science, mathematics, chemistry and physics.
The Hilbert-Huang Transform (HHT) is a recently developed technique used to analyze nonstationary data. This book uses methods based on the Hilbert-Huang Transform to analyze hydrological and environmental time series. These results are compared to the results from the traditional methods such as those based on Fourier transform and other classical statistical tests.
This book addresses the major challenges in assuring globally sustainable water use. It examines critical contemporary and global issues through the lens of global change processes and with a focus on mountain regions. In doing so, it aims to bring state-of-the-art science from numerous disciplines to bear on important environmental and policy questions related to water resources. The volume will be a boon to a range of readers, from environmental scientists to hydrologists.
Eastern and Western, NATO partner and member country specialists discuss recent accomplishments in the sharing of timely, accurate data and information to protect the water resources of the Danube Basin, a strategic region shared by two Western and 11 former Communist countries. An International Commission, continuing the work of an ad hoc environmental management programme, is expected to take over in 1997 and may well adopt the recommendations of this timely workshop. These recommendations include the establishment of a central source of water quality data and information on levels of pollution, government standards and their enforcement, NGO environmental groups, and other programmes and policies. The editor, Dr. Irene Lyons Murphy, received support from the United States Institute of Peace during 1995- a study of the cooperative management of Danube River resources which began with the end of the Cold War. It analyzes the development and ratification of the Danube River Protection Convention and other aspects of joint pro-environment activities from 1991 to 1996. Its title The Danube: A River Basin in Transition is to be published in early 1997. Users, investors in new and/or joint business ventures, national and international governments, research scientists, the media, NGOs and the general public will be served on the Internet and through the distribution of CD-ROM and diskettes.
Frequent drought events, recently occurred in different Mediterranean regions, have highlighted a general inadequacy of the current strategies applied to mitigate negative impacts of such phenomenon on different water sectors. In particular, the lack of timely drought monitoring systems, the difficulty in transferring advanced methodologies for the assessment of drought risk to the institutions responsible for water resources management, as well as the complexity in defining simple and objective criteria to select and implement appropriate mitigation measures, represent the main limits to an efficient drought management policy. These key issues have been tackled by universities and public agencies involved in the EU projects Sedemed and Sedemed II (Programme Interreg IIIB MEDOCC), aimed at the definition of an integrated network for real time monitoring of drought, the development of common methodologies for drought analysis and forecasting, as well as of mitigation strategies for the Mediterranean countries. This book presents the main outcomes of such projects with a specific focus on: drought monitoring and forecasting techniques at different spatial scales (Part I), new agrometeorological indices and remote sensing technique for drought identification (Part II), tools to improve surface water resources management under drought condition (Part III), methods for monitoring and management groundwater (Part IV) and mitigation strategies to prevent or face drought impacts (Part V).
The importance of the political sphere for understanding and solving water sector problems is the basic rationale of this book, which is the outcome of the Fifth Dialogues on Water, organised at the German Development Institute, Bonn. These dialogues, unlike earlier ones, focused on the political processes of policy formulation and the strategic behaviour of the actors involved. Specific attention is devoted to implications for development cooperation.
This book covers the basics of abiotic colloid characterization, of biocolloids and biofilms, the resulting transport phenomena and their engineering aspects. The contributors comprise an international group of leading specialists devoted to colloidal sciences. The contributions include theoretical considerations, results from model experiments, and field studies. The information provided here will benefit students and scientists interested in the analytical, chemical, microbiological, geological and hydrological aspects of material transport in aquatic systems and soils. |
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