Interest in the environment has never been greater and yet most of us have little knowledge of the 4 billion years of history that formed it. This book explains the principles of geology, geography and geomorphology, and shows how a basic understanding of geological timescales, plate tectonics and landforms can help you 'read' the great outdoors. This is a highly illustrated book with a very accessible text that beautifully illuminates the landscape around us.

'A true masterpiece.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'Simply beautiful.' STEPHEN MOSS 'Quietly courageous.' PATRICK BARKHAM 'Lyrical, wholehearted and wise.' LEE SCHOFIELD 'A knockout. I loved it.' MELISSA HARRISON 'Honest, raw and moving.' SOPHIE PAVELLE 'An extraordinary book by an extraordinary author.' CHRIS JONES 'A book of wit, wonder and of wisdom.' NICK ACHESON 'Beautiful.' NICOLA CHESTER - A visit to the rapid where she lost a cherished friend unexpectedly reignites Amy-Jane Beer’s love of rivers setting her on a journey of natural, cultural and emotional discovery. On New Year’s Day 2012, Amy-Jane Beer’s beloved friend Kate set out with a group of others to kayak the River Rawthey in Cumbria. Kate never came home, and her death left her devoted family and friends bereft and unmoored. Returning to visit the Rawthey years later, Amy realises how much she misses the connection to the natural world she always felt when on or close to rivers, and so begins a new phase of exploration. The Flow is a book about water, and, like water, it meanders, cascades and percolates through many lives, landscapes and stories. From West Country torrents to Levels and Fens, rocky Welsh canyons, the salmon highways of Scotland and the chalk rivers of the Yorkshire Wolds, Amy-Jane follows springs, streams and rivers to explore tributary themes of wildness and wonder, loss and healing, mythology and history, cyclicity and transformation. Threading together places and voices from across Britain, The Flow is a profound, immersive exploration of our personal and ecological place in nature.

Dokuchaev carried out most of his research in Ukraine. His student and friend, Volodymyr Vernadsky, went on to create trans-disciplinary environmental sciences and the concept of Earth as a living organism, famously taken up by James Lovelock. That spring of ideas still flows and the researches captured in this volume are relevant to present-day problems, and not only in Ukraine. Soils have always been under stress but, in the Anthropocene, mankind is in the driving seat. As a sequel to Soil Science Working for a Living: Applications of soil science to present-day problems, we consider issues of policy as well as soil genesis, attributes and functions in various environments, natural and man-made. We consider human impacts on the soil cover through its use and misuse, highlight methods of research and assessment of soil quality, and the threats of soil degradation. The distinguished contributors also describe and propose various options for evaluation and remediation of degraded soils, drawing on the latest methods of modelling and cartography as well as long-term field experiments and long experience. The book will be invaluable to researchers and practitioners in soil science including graduate and post-graduate education, academics and professionals.

This book shares graduate student experiences, lessons, and life learnings from research with Inuit communities in the Canadian Arctic. The results of graduate student research are often disseminated in a thesis or dissertation, but their personal experiences building relationships with Inuit, working together to design and conduct research, and how this shaped their research approach and outcomes, are rarely captured. As such, there are limited resources available to new researchers that share information about the practical aspects of community-based research in the Arctic. The book is intended to provide a glimpse into what it is like to do research together with Inuit, and in doing so, contribute to the development of more productive and equitable relationships between Inuit and researchers. The chapters are written as structured narratives in the first-person and include reflections, and lessons learned.

This book investigates water resources management and policy in China over the last two decades with a core focus on the role of water for socioeconomic development and sustainability. Recent policies, such as the Three Red Lines and the Water Ten Plan are evaluated for sustainable water supply, use and quality control. The book appraises solutions through demand management, water rights and pollution trading, virtual water and water footprint. Supply management is discussed taking examples from the Three Gorges Dam and the South North Water Transfer Project. The water market is investigated uncovering the active engagement of the private sector and includes discussions on how transboundary rivers demonstrate China's engagement with its riparian countries for benefit sharing. This book will be an invaluable reference for researchers in the field as well as practitioners and students who have an interest in water and development in China.

This book explores the relationship between rivers and ethics in China, with a particular focus on the health of the Yellow River and China's sustainable development. Though the book falls into the category of East Asian History, it is an interdisciplinary academic work that addresses not only history, but also culture, human geography and physical geography. It traces the changes in the Yellow River over time and examines the origin and developmental course of Chinese civilization, which has always been closely intertwined with the Yellow River. It also draws comparisons between the Yellow River and the Yangtze, Nile, Tigris, Euphrates and Indus rivers to provide insights into how they have contributed to civilizations. At the same time, it discusses the lessons learned from people's taming the Yellow River. Most significantly, the book explores the relationship between humans and the environment from an ethical standpoint, making it an urgent reminder of the crucial role that human activities play in environmental issues concerning the Yellow River so as to achieve a sustainable development for China's "mother river." The intended audience includes academic readers researching East Asian and Chinese history & culture, geography, human geography, historical geography, the environment, river civilizations, etc., as well as history and geography lovers and members of the general public who are interested in the Yellow River and the civilization that has evolved around it.

This open access book examines the role of pilot and demonstration projects as crucial devices for conducting innovation in the context of the energy transition. Bridging literature from sustainability transitions and Science and Technology Studies (STS), it argues that such projects play a crucial role, not only in shaping future energy and mobility systems, but in transforming societies more broadly. Pilot projects constitute socio-technical configurations where imagined future realities are materialized. With this as a backdrop, the book explores pilot projects as political entities, focusing on questions of how they gain their legitimacy, which resources are mobilized in their production, and how they can serve as sites of public participation and the production of energy citizenship. The book argues that such projects too often have a narrow technology focus, and that this is a missed opportunity. The book concludes by critically discussing the potential roles of research and innovation policy in transforming how such projects are configured and conducted.

With the rapid increase of world population, the global water shortage is set to be the major crises of the twenty-first century; that is, population dynamics (growth, age distribution, urbanization and migration) create pressures on freshwater resources due to the increased water demands and pollution. Moreover, water resources management faces a new uncertainty- i.e. the potential for longer-term and more persistent climate change nowadays, which, in coming years, may significantly affect the availability of supply and patterns of water demand. This book mainly focuses on the impact of climate change and human activities on water quality and water resources in Asia Countries. It begins by describing the characteristics of water related disasters in the world. Then, the book analyzes the changes of floods and associated socio-economic damages for whole China over the last century, and assesses water quality and pollution source for the Yangtze River Basin, suggesting water-related disasters would become more intense, longer lasting, and/or more frequent in a future warmer climate. Then, after investigating spatiotemporal trends and causes of water quality and water quality incidents (Chapter 4) and precipitation extreme events (Chapter 5) in Japan, subsequent two chapters mainly evaluate the climate and human impacts on precipitation variations, water quality and water resources in the Hokkaido area. The final chapter comprehensively analyzes climate change impacts on water resources in the Aral Sea Basin, and then estimate the water requirements and water deficits for irrigation, future agricultural yields of seven major crops, and land and water productivity in four provinces of Turkmenistan considering climate change, population growth, and three socio-economic development scenarios. All results obtained from this book may provide a means to reduce water quality incidents and mitigate future negative impacts by adapting water management. Furthermore, the improved methods for water quality modeling in data scarce regions are transferable to other study areas and applicable in future research.

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of some of the most critical issues regarding the EU's Energy Union policy. Applied European energy policies face a number of challenges ranging from the geopolitics of energy and energy regulation, to climate change, advancing renewable and gas technologies, and consumer empowerment structures. This book takes a multi-dimensional look into some of these vital issues regarding the European energy sector with a special focus on the effects the Energy Union policy has in two sensitive regional systems, Southeastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Energy, being by definition a multi-disciplinary field, presents a challenge for readers of any specific disciplinary background that need to grasp an overall understanding of the various aspects of this exciting sector. This book's objective is to offer the opportunity for readers to get a quality, hands-on overview of the Energy Union by the professionals and academics that interact with it on a daily basis.

This book provides a step-by-step methodology and derivation of deep learning algorithms as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN), especially for estimating parameters, with back-propagation as well as examples with real datasets of hydrometeorology (e.g. streamflow and temperature) and environmental science (e.g. water quality). Deep learning is known as part of machine learning methodology based on the artificial neural network. Increasing data availability and computing power enhance applications of deep learning to hydrometeorological and environmental fields. However, books that specifically focus on applications to these fields are limited. Most of deep learning books demonstrate theoretical backgrounds and mathematics. However, examples with real data and step-by-step explanations to understand the algorithms in hydrometeorology and environmental science are very rare. This book focuses on the explanation of deep learning techniques and their applications to hydrometeorological and environmental studies with real hydrological and environmental data. This book covers the major deep learning algorithms as Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN) as well as the conventional artificial neural network model.

Our realisation of how profoundly glaciers and ice sheets respond to climate change and impact sea level and the environment has propelled their study to the forefront of Earth system science. Aspects of this multidisciplinary endeavour now constitute major areas of research. This book is named after the international summer school held annually in the beautiful alpine village of Karthaus, Northern Italy, and consists of twenty chapters based on lectures from the school. They cover theory, methods, and observations, and introduce readers to essential glaciological topics such as ice-flow dynamics, polar meteorology, mass balance, ice-core analysis, paleoclimatology, remote sensing and geophysical methods, glacial isostatic adjustment, modern and past glacial fluctuations, and ice sheet reconstruction. The chapters were written by thirty-four contributing authors who are leading international authorities in their fields. The book can be used as a graduate-level textbook for a university course, and as a valuable reference guide for practising glaciologists and climate scientists.

This open access book crosses disciplinary boundaries to connect theories of environmental justice with Indigenous people's experiences of freshwater management and governance. It traces the history of one freshwater crisis - the degradation of Aotearoa New Zealand's Waipa River- to the settler-colonial acts of ecological dispossession resulting in intergenerational injustices for Indigenous Maori iwi (tribes). The authors draw on a rich empirical base to document the negative consequences of imposing Western knowledge, worldviews, laws, governance and management approaches onto Maori and their ancestral landscapes and waterscapes. Importantly, this book demonstrates how degraded freshwater systems can and are being addressed by Maori seeking to reassert their knowledge, authority, and practices of kaitiakitanga (environmental guardianship). Co-governance and co-management agreements between iwi and the New Zealand Government, over the Waipa River, highlight how Maori are envisioning and enacting more sustainable freshwater management and governance, thus seeking to achieve Indigenous environmental justice (IEJ). The book provides an accessible way for readers coming from a diversity of different backgrounds, be they academics, students, practitioners or decision-makers, to develop an understanding of IEJ and its applicability to freshwater management and governance in the context of changing socio-economic, political, and environmental conditions that characterise the Anthropocene.

This book presents the polycentric and multiscale view of landscape which has been developed in Russia within a framework of physical geography since the early twentieth century. The authors develop the ideas of hierarchical organization of a landscape and strong relationships between abiotic and biotic components with equal attention to both vertical fluxes and lateral transfer. Three-dimensional representation of landscape involves strong emphasis on abiotic drivers of pattern development including relief, geological structures and runoff. The objective of this book is to demonstrate the multiplicity of models and multiscale approach to description and explanation of landscape pattern, functioning, dynamics, and evolution. The contributions deal with various hierarchical levels ranging from within-unit interior variability to between-units interaction at landscape level, as well as regional and supra-regional zonal patterns. Divided into 8 clear parts, the 28 chapters treat spatial pattern in one of the following aspects: indicator of actual matter and energy flows control over actual processes including disturbance expansion as well as determinant of future development indicator of genesis and prerequisite for future trends driver for short-term dynamics of processes response to climatic and anthropogenic influences factor of settlement network and land use adaptation at various historical epochs framework for actual land use spatial arrangement. This contributed volume is written for researchers and students in the field of landscape ecology, physical geography, environmental impact assessment, and ecological planning.

Aimed at those at the forefront of social ecological thinking, this book presents a practice-oriented process to navigate the complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time. The book brings together insights from the social sciences and beyond to introduce readers to 'adaptive doing' - a continuous and iterative process of experiential learning that provides an accessible structure and process for integrating a range of knowledge and practices. As part of the 'adaptive doing' learning cycle, the authors argue for a common platform, symbolically called 'the agora', where multiple ways of understanding can be discussed. In this space, participants can work from practice and narratives, toward meaning, knowledge formation and practice change. The book demonstrates three reframing tools for social ecological practice that provide readers with multiple ways of holistically entering the social ecological domain and expanding their perspectives with a view to changing practice. 'Adaptive doing' is presented as a catalyst for a new generation of social ecological research, in which participants honour their disciplinary foundations while being ready to collaborate within each new system, and each new engagement: being able to act now, for social ecological recognition and change.