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Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > The hydrosphere > General
This volume is a collection of a selected number of articles based on presentations at the 2005 L'Aquila (Italy) Summer School on the topic of "Hydrologic Modeling and Water Cycle: Coupling of the Atmosphere and Hydrological Models". The p- mary focus of this volume is on hydrologic modeling and their data requirements, especially precipitation. As the eld of hydrologic modeling is experiencing rapid development and transition to application of distributed models, many challenges including overcoming the requirements of compatible observations of inputs and outputs must be addressed. A number of papers address the recent advances in the State-of-the-art distributed precipitation estimation from satellites. A number of articles address the issues related to the data merging and use of geo-statistical techniques for addressing data limitations at spatial resolutions to capture the h- erogeneity of physical processes. The participants at the School came from diverse backgrounds and the level of - terest and active involvement in the discussions clearly demonstrated the importance the scienti c community places on challenges related to the coupling of atmospheric and hydrologic models. Along with my colleagues Dr. Erika Coppola and Dr. Kuolin Hsu, co-directors of the School, we greatly appreciate the invited lectures and all the participants. The members of the local organizing committee, Drs Barbara Tomassetti; Marco Verdecchia and Guido Visconti were instrumental in the success of the school and their contributions, both scienti cally and organizationally are much appreciated.
A source of up-to-date information on current water resources, their quality and quantity, in every country in the Balkans. Institutional structures, water management issues and water monitoring problems are analyzed, with special reference to international waters, using characteristic case studies, including the Sava River, Lake Ohrid, The Nestos/Mesta River, the Neretva River estuary, and coastal waters in Turkey. Contributions written by experts from France, the UK and the USA demonstrate state-of-the-art electronic networking and the management of distributed water databases. The protection of water resources in the Balkans has become a high profile issue since the collapse of communism in the area, the break up of former Yugoslavia, and ethnic tensions in Kosovo. Transboundary river pollution and the development of international water basins call demand urgent regional co-operation, which will be facilitated by the International Network of Water-Environment Centres for the Balkans, the initiation of which is described in the final conclusions of the book.
Water circulates continuously and seamlessly on Earth with little regard for the boundaries we draw. There are natural boundaries as between land and ocean and surface and subsurface environments, as well as human or demographic boundaries between nations, cultures, and religions. Although considered necessary by societies, these human-created boundaries disrupt natural water circulation, leading to serious water-related environmental problems. The dilemma of how to manage water beyond our boundaries remains, and nations have different ways and means of controlling each form of water, whether as vapor, surface water, groundwater, or seawater. Recent findings on the interaction of water from land, oceans, and the atmosphere encourage researchers to undertake collaborative work that goes beyond the boundaries of each discipline, be it oceanography, surface and subsurface hydrology, climatology, or glaciology. Drawing on all these fields, the book focuses on two major boundaries: that between surface water and ground water, and that between terrestrial water and ocean water. This comprehensive work is of great value to experts in academia, international organizations, consulting firms, water resources, fisheries, and urban development planning agencies.
Most of the world's freshwater resources in the liquid state (i.e. not in glaciers and polar caps) are underground. As the population grows and demand for water rises, reliance on groundwater increases. In many cases the groundwater underlies boundaries, or is part of a hydraulic system that crosses boundaries. In such cases there is always the danger that the 'prisoner's dilemma' will run its course and all parties will compete over who will pump the most water, ultimately destroying the storage potential to the detriment of future generations of all parties reliant on the groundwater. This book explores the options and means for averting this all too realistic scenario by managing these shared groundwater resources. Nowhere is the likelihood of excessive use of groundwater greater than in the water-scarce Middle East, and especially in the Israeli-Palestinian case. Here both sides are heavily reliant on a shared aquifer, the Mountain aquifer. This book is the outcome of a seven-year effort to find ways to manage the Mountain aquifer, perhaps the most important resource shared by Israelis and Palestinians. As part of this cooperative study, four workshops were held in which a selected number of Palestinian, Israeli, and foreign experts were invited. The chapters in this book were originally presented in one of these workshops. To these papers introductory and concluding chapters were added.
This title, first published in 1987, provides an authoritative account of both the science and the politics of acid rain. Chris Park places the debates surrounding acid rain in context, and examines the full implications of scientific studies and the effects of acid rain on surface waters, soils and buildings. Evidence is drawn from around the world, including an examination of the damage in Scandinavia and Germany and the effects of acid rain in the U.K. and U.S.A. A comprehensive and relevant work, this is an important guide for students of geography, environment and sustainability and energy policy.
Tensions in parts of the Danube River Basin, the former Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and elsewhere demonstrate the need for international agreements which will help stabilize and improve economies, governments, and environmental management within the countries in transition and across national borders. An instrument of peace, a Convention which establishes a Commission to oversee natural resource protection among all basin countries, is about to be adopted and implemented. This book covers in detail the readiness of the countries to participate and the programs funded by international agencies, and suggests ways to stimulate the slow and uneven government and investor response to conflicts. It reviews the approach and successes and failures of current programs funded by the European Commission, the Global Environment Facility, and US AID, and suggests ways to improve such assistance for maximum effect within the countries themselves. The book has equal value to two sets of audiences: specialists in many disciplines, scientists and technicians, and their colleagues in public and private sector policy-making who deal full-time with transboundary natural resource problems at a practical level in the Danube region or in regions elsewhere; those concerned about the future economic and political stability of the east European and CIS countries and their ability to meet EU environmental and other criteria, including investors in public and private projects.
This pioneering book addresses the entirety of river flooding issues in the Upper Vistula Basin, where considerable flood generation potential exists. It analyses the factors influencing flood risk, investigates variations in observation records and discusses projections for the future and adaptation to changing risk. It serves the general interest in understanding the floods that cause massive destruction in Europe, with dozens of fatalities and tremendous material damages. This interdisciplinary book, which covers aspects of climatology, geomorphology, hydrology, and water and flood risk management, unveils the complexity of the current situation. Access to reliable and accurate information can help solve important practical problems related to flood risk reduction strategies, and is at the core of the EU Floods Directive. As such, the book offers a valuable resource for scientists, educators and practitioners involved in water management, natural disaster reduction and adaptation to climate change.
This book presents a new suite of benchmarks for and examples of porous media mechanics collected over the last two years. It continues the assembly of benchmarks and examples for porous media mechanics published in 2014. The book covers various applications in the geosciences, geotechnics, geothermal energy, and geological waste deposition. The analysis of thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes is essential to many applications in environmental engineering, such as geological waste deposition, geothermal energy utilisation, carbon capture and storage, water resources management, hydrology, and even climate change. In order to assess the feasibility and safety of geotechnical applications, process-based modelling is the only tool that can effectively quantify future scenarios, a fact which also creates a huge burden of responsibility concerning the reliability of computational tools. The book shows that benchmarking offers a suitable methodology for verifying the quality of modelling tools based on best practices, and together with code comparison fosters community efforts. It also provides a brief introduction to the DECOVALEX, SeSBench and MOMAS initiatives. This benchmark book is part of the OpenGeoSys initiative - an open source project designed to share knowledge and experience in environmental analysis and scientific computation.
In 1997 disastrous flooding running through the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany took the lives of a great number of people and caused economic damage estimated in tens of billions of dollars. Flooding of the Yangtze river in 1998 killed more than 3000 people, dislocated 230 million souls, and caused direct damage of more than $ 45 billion. Both the general public and the experts are asking what we can learn from these recent events to reduce loss of life and flood damage. The 1997 floods were dealt with by experts from the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany, who presented timely reports on combatting floods, both success stories and shortcomings. This experience is further extended by reports from experts drawn from 13 other countries, developing a broad overview of flood risk management, covering the ecosystem approach to flood management, including socioeconomic issues, flood impacts on water quality, human health, and natural ecosystems.
Over the last decade and particularly in recent years, the macroscopic porous media theory has made decisive progress concerning the fundamentals of the theory and the development of mathematical models in various fields of engineering and biomechanics. This progress has attracted some attention, and therefore conferences devoted almost exclusively to the macrosopic porous media theory have been organized in order to collect all findings, to present new results, and to discuss new trends. Many important contributions have also been published in national and international journals, which have brought the porous media theory, in some parts, to a close. Therefore, the time seems to be ripe to review the state of the art and to show new trends in the continuum mechanical treatment of saturated and unsaturated capillary and non-capillary porous solids. This book addresses postgraduate students and scientists working in engineering, physics, and mathematics. It provides an outline of modern theory of porous media and shows some trends in theory and in applications.
Flood risk management policy across the European Union is changing, partly in response to the EU Floods Directive and partly because of new scientific approaches and research findings. It involves a move towards comprehensive flood risk management, which requires bringing the following fields/domains closer together: the natural sciences, social sciences and arts; science, policy and practice; and engineering, spatial planning and governance. Naturally, this involves preventive fl ood risk management and flood event management, as well as learning from the past and considering future global change. Comprehensive Flood Risk Management includes about 200 contributions drawn from the 2nd European Conference on Flood Risk Management FLOODrisk2012 (Rotterdam, the Netherlands, 19-23 November 2012). This conference provided a forum for scientists, policy makers, researchers, and practitioners to discuss the practical implications of the latest research findings and to inventory which questions the research community still needs to answer. FLOODrisk2012, the successor of the 2008 conference held in Oxford, UK, was the initiative of Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands. Comprehensive Flood Risk Management includes the latest results of numerous projects issuing from the European Commission's Sixth and Seventh Framework Programmes, as well as results of many other national and international research projects from Europe and elsewhere in the world. The book features contributions from natural and social sciences, engineering and spatial planning, as well as practical experiences of policy makers and designers, and covers all aspects of fl ood risk assessment and management: hydraulic loads, reliability of defences and their monitoring, flood hazard analysis, inundation modelling, hazard and risk mapping, estimating economic damage and loss-of-life and integrated flood risk analysis, as well as flood protection, damage and exposure reduction, reducing social vulnerability, policy instruments (zoning, regulations), integrated flood risk management planning and long-term planning for global change, flood prediction and early warning, evacuation and rescue and other aspects of flood event management. Finally, the book discusses risk communication, participatory planning, governance issues, and experiences with the EU Floods Directive. Comprehensive Flood Risk Management will be of interest to a readership ranging from scientists to practitioners involved in fl ood risk management, and consisting of researchers, consultants, engineers, spatial planners, postgraduate lecturers, students, civil servants, and policy makers.
This book offers a meaningful and practicable guide to better management of arsenic problems in the groundwater of the Gangetic Plain. It gathers contributions from distinguished researchers who have been actively working in the area for over a decade. The arsenic contamination of groundwater is a growing concern in the central Gangetic Plain, where the local population's main sources of fresh water are surface water, groundwater and rain water; of these sources, only the last two generally meet the most important criteria for drinking water in their natural state. Natural geological changes are presumed to be the primary reason for arsenic contamination in this region. Further, most of the people living in this area have developed the habit of drinking water (groundwater) from the arsenic-contaminated tubewells in many parts of the region. As a result, many are suffering from arsenicosis and many more are at risk. Since the cause of arsenic contamination in groundwater still remains unclear, this book seeks to address the arsenic issue in this region by pursuing a holistic and systematic scientific approach. Accordingly, it delineates various sources, processes, hypotheses and remedial approaches that are needed to manage the arsenic contamination in the Central Gangetic Plain.
The global attention in recent years has focused primarily on water quantity and allocation issues. Water quality has received significantly less attention than water quantity. Commendable progress has been made by the developed world to control point sources of pollution, but commensurate progress in reducing non-point sources has not been made. In the third world countries both point and non-point sources of pollution are becoming increasingly a serious concern. Already, nearly all water bodies in such countries near and around urban centres have been severely polluted, with very high health and environmental costs. The book assesses the current status of water quality management in both developed and developing worlds, as well as analysing the effectiveness of economic instruments and legal and institutional frameworks to control water contamination. It outlines the importance of building up social and political awareness to reverse the trend of continuing water quality deterioration, which is likely to be a most challenging task in the coming years. This book was published as a special issue of International Journal of Water Resources Development.
The Ebro is a typical Mediterranean river characterized by seasonal low flows and extreme flush effects, with important agricultural and industrial activity that has caused heavy contamination problems. This volume deals with soil-sediment-groundwater related issues in the Ebro river basin and summarizes the results generated within the European Union-funded project "AquaTerra." The following topics are highlighted: Hydrology and sediment transport and their alterations due to climate change, aquatic and riparian biodiversity in the Ebro watershed, occurrence and distribution of a wide range of priority and emerging contaminants, effects of chemical pollution on biota and integration of climate change scenarios with several aspects of the Ebro s hydrology and potential impacts of climate change on pollution. The primary objective of the book is to lay the foundation for a better understanding of the behavior of environmental pollutants and their fluxes with respect to climate and land use changes."
Shear waves and closely related interface waves (Rayleigh, Stoneley and Scholte) play an important role in many areas of engineering, geophysics and underwater acoustics. In some cases interest is focused on large-amplitude waves of low frequency such as those associ ated with earthquakes and nuclear explosions; in other cases low amplitude waves, which have often travelled great distances through the sediment, are of interest. Both low and high frequency shear and interface waves are often used for seafloor probing and sediment characterization. As a result of the wide spectrum of different interests, different disciplines have developed lines of research and a literature particularly suited to their own problems. For example water-column acousticians view the seafloor sediment as the lower boundary of their domain and are interested in shear and interface waves in the near bottom sediments mainly from the standpoint of how they influence absorption and reflection at this boundary. On the other hand, geophysicists seeking deep oil deposits are interested in the maximum penetration into the sediments and the tell-tale characteristics of the seismic waves that have encountered potential oil or gas bearing strata. In another area, geotechnical engineers use shear and interface waves to study soil properties necessary for the design and the siting of seafloor structures.
Increasing population and industrialization are the key pollutant contributors in water bodies. The wastes generated by industries are highly hazardous for humans and the ecosystem and require a comprehensive and effective treatment before being discharged into water bodies. Over the years, many up gradations have been introduced in traditional water treatment methods which were expensive and ineffective especially for removal of toxic pollutants. Phycoremediation has been gaining attention due to its mutual benefit in wastewater treatment and for valuable algae biomass production. Wastewater, especially sewage and industrial effluents, is rich in pathogenic organisms, organic and inorganic compounds and heavy metals that adversely affect human and aquatic life. Microalgae use these inorganic compounds and heavy metals for their growth. In addition, they also reduce pathogenic organisms and release oxygen to be used by bacteria for decomposition of organic compounds in a secondary treatment. In this book, the potential of microalgae in wastewater treatment, their benefits, strategies, and challenges are discussed. The increasing need of finding innovative, low-cost, low-energy, sustainable and eco-friendly solutions for wastewater treatment makes the publication of a book on phycoremediation timely and appropriate. Features: (1) Deals with the most emerging aspects of algal research with special reference to phycoremediation. (2) Studies in depth diversity, mutations, genomics and metagenomics study (3) An eco-physiology, culturing, microalgae for food and feed, biofuel production, harvesting of microalgae, separation and purification of biochemicals.
This book is an original and novel contribution to flood hazard
assessment, climate change and land use change and is intended to
serve both as an effective source of information and a valuable
basis for priority setting and further technical, financial and
political decisions regarding flood hazard assessment. The study
area is located on the floodplain of the Ubaye River in the
Barcelonnette area, part of the Alpes de Haute Provence in
southeast France. The book offers a comparative overview of the
major challenges faced when dealing with flood hazards. The
research presented is intended to promote a deeper understanding of
how climate change and land use change processes have evolved from
past to present, and how they affect the flow regime of the Ubaye
River based on sound and reproducible scientific arguments. The
methodology implemented ranges from remote sensing interpretation
to hydrodynamic modeling and includes the application of spatial
and statistical modeling. The results of this research provide
essential information for policymaking, decision-making support and
flood hazard planning in the Barcelonnette area.
This Lab Manual is a companion to the textbook Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing with R. It covers examples of natural resource data analysis applications including numerous practical, problem-solving exercises, and case studies that use the free and open-source platform R. The intuitive, structural workflow helps students better understand a scientific approach to each case study in the book and learn how to replicate, transplant, and expand the workflow for further exploration with new data, models, and areas of interest. 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. Undergraduate and graduate level students will benefit from the exercises in this lab manual, as they are applicable to a variety of subjects including environmental science, agriculture engineering, as well as natural and social sciences. Students 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.
Water scarcity is increasing all over the world because of
growing population and increasing demands. Countries with limited
water resources are urgently in need for a new approach towards
water management by shifting from the "use and dispose" approach to
the "use, treat and reuse" approach. This book proposes a framework
for the sustainable management of scarce water resources. The
approach is based on the application of Cleaner Production thinking
to water management.
Urban population growth dramatically alters material and energy fluxes in the affected areas, with concomitant changes in landscape, altered fluxes of water, sediment, chemicals and pathogens and increased releases of waste heat. These changes then impact on urban ecosystems, including water resources and result in their degradation. Such circumstances make the provision of water services to urban populations even more challenging. Changing weather patterns, rising temperature and large variations in precipitation contr- ute to increased damages, caused by weather related disasters, including floods. Ones of the major contributors to increasing flood peaks are land use changes and particularl- urban development. Consequently, there is a need to look for low environmental impact land development and to manage runoff in urban areas by storm water management. Much progress in the management of urban waters has been achieved in the most - vanced jurisdictions, but much more remains to be done. In this respect the EC Water Framework Directive can provide some guidance. Urban water management issues are particularly important in the countries in transition in Central and Eastern Europe. During the last decade political, economical and social changes in the countries under transition have influenced almost every element of the public sector, including water services. There is an urgent need for exchange of information among various countries on this issue and for identification of best approaches to achieving this transition.
This is a compilation of manuscripts on mineral and thermal waters
of different areas of the world.
Riverbank Filtration (RBF) has gained popularity in the past decade as an excellent source of high quality water for public water supply. This text compliments the existing literature on RBF water quality, and provides much-need guidance in the design and operation of RBF facilities. RBF has proven effective in many hydrogeological settings worldwide, and can be an excellent solution to water supply problems in both developed and developing countries. Topics covered include surface stream hydrology, particle clogging, and biological/geochemical processes. Data and case histories are provided from dozens of installations, providing much-needed practical information regarding RBF design, operation, and performance. This book provides the necessary tools to evaluate potential RBF sites, and is a must-have if you are considering RBF as a source of water supply.
Now and in the future, the ever-growing demand for drinking water will lead many cities to implement indirect water reuse programs, where wastewater effluent becomes part of the drinking water sources. Pollution of those sources with emerging contaminants (micropollutants) such as endocrine disrupting compounds, pharmaceutically active compounds, pesticides and personal care products is a fact known worldwide. In this thesis, nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO) are demonstrated to be appropriate technologies for removing a large number of micropollutants; however, the performance of NF and RO can be questioned because there are limited tools that optimise quantification of the removal of contaminants. Therefore, in this thesis, by means of the use of multivariate data analysis techniques, removal quantification is effectively determined and more understanding of the separation of micropollutants by membranes is achieved.
This study presents an systematic approach to water quality assessment, hybrid modelling and decision support for eutrophication management in deep reservoirs. It is found that during the summer monsoon the catchment runoff into the Yongdam reservoir induces a trandsfer of pollutants from a middle stratified layer to the surface layer. Although the transport mechanism limits nutrient accumulation on the bottom of the reservoir, it also offers an opportunity for on-going algae production in the surface water. Physically based modelling is used to understand the process of micro-scale turbulent mixing and its impact on the nutrient uptake by algae. Further, a data-driven model using clustering and partial least squares regression which uses results from a physically based model of the reservoir successfully predicts Chlorophyll-a concentrations. |
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