In 2017 four rivers in Aotearoa New Zealand, India, and Colombia were given the status of legal persons, and there was a recent attempt to extend these rights to the Colorado River in the USA. Understanding the implications of creating legal rights for rivers is an urgent challenge for both water resource management and environmental law. Giving rivers legal rights means the law can see rivers as legal persons, thus creating new legal rights which can then be enforced. When rivers are legally people, does that encourage collaboration and partnership between humans and rivers, or establish rivers as another competitor for scarce resources? To assess what it means to give rivers legal rights and legal personality, this book examines the form and function of environmental water managers (EWMs). These organisations have legal personality, and have been active in water resource management for over two decades. EWMs operate by acquiring water rights from irrigators in rivers where there is insufficient water to maintain ecological health. EWMs can compete with farmers for access to water, but they can also strengthen collaboration between traditionally divergent users of the aquatic environment, such as environmentalists, recreational fishers, hunters, farmers, and hydropower. This book explores how EWMs use the opportunities created by giving nature legal rights, such as the ability to participate in markets, enter contracts, hold property, and enforce those rights in court. However, examination of the EWMs unearths a crucial and unexpected paradox: giving legal rights to nature may increase its legal power, but in doing so it can weaken community support for protecting the environment in the first place. The book develops a new conceptual framework to identify the multiple constructions of the environment in law, and how these constructions can interact to generate these unexpected outcomes. It explores EWMs in the USA and Australia as examples, and assesses the implications of creating legal rights for rivers for water governance. Lessons from the EWMs, as well as early lessons from the new 'river persons,' show how to use the law to improve river protection and how to begin to mitigate the problems of the paradox.

Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is a planned process that aims to regain ecological integrity and enhance human wellbeing in deforested or degraded landscapes. The aim of this book is to explore options to better integrate the diverse dimensions - spatial, disciplinary, sectoral, and scientific - of implementing FLR. It demonstrates the value of an integrated and interdisciplinary approach to help implement FLR focusing specifically on four issues: understanding the drivers of forest loss and degradation in the context of interdisciplinary responses for FLR; learning from related integrated approaches; governance issues related to FLR as an integrated process; and the management, creation and use of different sources of knowledge in FLR implementation. The emphasis is on recognising the need to take human and institutional factors into consideration, as well as the more obvious biophysical factors. A key aim is to advance and accelerate the practice of FLR, given its importance, particularly in a world facing increasing environmental challenges, notably from climate change. The first section of the book presents the issue from an analytical and problem-orientated viewpoint, while later sections focus on solutions. It will interest researchers and professionals in forestry, ecology, geography, environmental governance and landscape studies.

This book provides a critical examination of contemporary approaches to environmental regulation in the UK and the European Union. It also explores how regulation has evolved in response to a number of factors, including industrial development and improved scientific knowledge, while considering the radical next steps that need to be taken in response to existing challenges. Developments in Environmental Regulation draws its focus on the effects of risk-based approaches to the environmental regulation of business and industry, including its impact on sustainable economic growth. The book also considers the challenges and potential opportunities that surround the UK's withdrawl, or 'Brexit', from the European Union. This edited collection has been written by a group of highly experienced regulatory specialists whose insightful perspectives on key areas of environmental regulation are situated at the core of this work. This book will appeal to students and academics, policy-makers and environmental practitioners interested in understanding how environmental policy and regulation is applied and how it can be adapted to its political context.

The Land of Little Rain (1903) is a collection of essays and short stories by Mary Hunter Austin. Originally published with photographs taken by acclaimed American photographer Ansel Adams, The Land of Little Rain is a classic work of nature writing. Austin is now recognized as an early feminist and conservationist who understood the intricacy and fragility of ecosystems as well as the extent to which human civilization threatens their continued existence. In a series of stories and essays on the animals, landscapes, and peoples that make up the American Southwest, Mary Hunter Austin proves that the foremost responsibility of a writer is to look. With an attentive and deeply respectful eye, Austin describes the heat and violence of desert weather, the tracks made by disparate animal species as they travel in search of water, and the scavengers that depend on death for life. Within this collection are brief stories about the people and communities scattered throughout the harsh Mojave desert: a miner who longs for wealth and civilization but returns to the wild and unpredictable life of speculation; a Shoshone medicine man captured by the Paiute tribe who misses his people and home; a town where people live simply, depending on nothing but the land and its bounty for their daily existence and abundant happiness. The Land of Little Rain is both informative and moving, an intricate tapestry that celebrates the diversity of life while making an incontrovertible case for its continued preservation. Mary Hunter Austin was a gifted writer and an environmentalist ahead of her time. In a world faced with the catastrophic effects of a global climate crisis, we need writers such as Austin for not only the wisdom and knowledge they offer, but the monumental change their words can inspire. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Mary Hunter Austin's The Land of Little Rain is a classic of American literature and nature writing reimagined for modern readers.

This book investigates the multifaceted nature of change in today's Nordic Arctic and the necessary research and policy development required to address the challenges and opportunities currently faced by this region. It focuses its attention on the recent efforts of the Nordic community to create specialized Centers of Excellence in Arctic Research in order to facilitate this process of scientific inquiry and policy articulation. The volume seeks to describe both the steps that lead to this decision and the manner in which this undertaking as evolved. The work highlights the research efforts of the four Centers and their investigations of a variety of issues including those related to ecosystem and wildlife management, the revitalization resource dependent communities, the emergence of new climate-born diseases and the development of adequate modeling techniques to assist northern communities in their efforts at adaptation and resilience building. Major discoveries and insights arising from these and other efforts are detailed and possible policy implications considered. The book also focuses attention on the challenges of creating and supporting multidisciplinary teams of researchers to investigate such concerns and the methods and means for facilitating their collaboration and the integration of their findings to form new and useful perspectives on the nature of change in the contemporary Arctic. It also provides helpful consideration and examples of how local and indigenous communities can be engaged in the co-production of knowledge regarding the region. The volume discusses how such research findings can be best communicated and shared between scientists, policymakers and northern residents. It considers the challenges of building common concern not just among different research disciplines but also between bureaucracies and the public. Only when this bridge-building effort is undertaken can true pathways to action be established.

This book focuses on a representative example and one of the world's largest steppe conversions, and provides a detailed overview of the results of the BMBF-funded research project KULUNDA. As part of the Siberian virgin land policy, the Kulunda steppe was transformed into agricultural land from 1954 to 1965. In the course of the project, a multidisciplinary research team conducted a natural, social-economic and agro-scientific cause-and-effect analysis of (agro-)ecosystem destabilisation, as well as various field trials covering tillage and crop rotation options in their socio-economic context. The ecologically and economically sound findings offer strategies for combining climate smart land utilization, ecosystem restoration and sustainable regional development, and can readily be applied to other virgin land conversion efforts. In addition, the findings on the Eurasian steppes will expand the current conversion literature, which mainly consists of the 'Dust Bowl' literature of the North American plains. Given its scope, the book will appeal to scientists, professionals, and students in the environmental, geo- and climate sciences.

Written by a career geologist with decades of experience in the field, North America's Natural Wonders guides readers through the most iconic, geologically significant scenery in North America, points out features of interest, explains what they are seeing, and describes how these features came to be. Presented as classic excursions to some of the best-known natural wonders on the continent, Volume II focuses primarily on Central and Eastern North America, including the Appalachians, the Colorado Rockies, Austin-Big Bend Country, and the Sierra Madre. The trips detailed in this volume include stops at quintessential features, such as the Shenandoah Valley, Carlsbad Caverns, Big Bend National Park, and La Popa Basin of Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, Mexico, as well as many others. It also features discussions of lesser-known but equally interesting geologic formations and important information on accessing these sites. Features Clearly explains the geology of these regions with an emphasis on landscape formation Addresses issues of interest, such as fossils, earthquakes, mineral sites, mining, and oil fields Lavishly illustrated with numerous colorful maps and breathtaking geological landscapes and their various features These six self-guided tours explain to the curious layman, student, and geologist what they are seeing when they look at a roadcut or a quarry and enhances the experience far beyond simple sightseeing.

Bringing together the analysis of a diverse team of social scientists, this book proposes a new approach to environmental problems. Cutting through the fragmented perspectives on water crises, it seeks to shift the analytic perspectives on water policy by looking at the social logics behind environmental issues. Most importantly, it analyzes the dynamic influences on water management, as well as the social and institutional forces that orient water and conservation policies. The first work of its kind, The Field of Water Policy: Power and Scarcity in the American Southwest brings the tools of Pierre Bourdieu's field sociology to bear on a moment of environmental crisis, with a study of the logics of water policy in the American Southwest, a region that allows us to see the contest over the management of scarce resources in a context of lasting drought. As such, it will appeal to scholars in the social and political sciences with interests in the environment and the management of natural resources.

Qanat is a gently sloping subterranean canal, which taps a water-bearing zone at a higher elevation than cultivated lands. A qanat consist of a series of vertical shafts in sloping ground, interconnected at the bottom by a tunnel with a gradient flatter than that of the ground. From the air, this system looks like a line of anthills leading from the foothills across the desert to the greenery of an irrigated settlement. Qanat engages a variety of knowledge and its studying entails an interdisciplinary approach. In a traditional realm, qanats are embraced by a socio-economic system which guarantees their sustainability. The facets of this socio-economic system operate closely together and make it possible for the qanats to remain into future. Veins of the Desert shows that digging a qanat requires a variety of sciences and technologies, though at a glance qanat is just a horizontal tunnel which drains out groundwater. Qanat is a feat of technology left from our ancestors; hidden underground, but its technical importance is apparent, not less valuable than such surface structures as bridges, castles, towers, etc. Qanat enjoys extended structures and sometimes its length reaches tens of kilometers. It passes through geological formations and faces different conditions and obstacles, so the qanat masters' efforts to solve these problems led to the accumulation of knowledge in terms of qanat construction over time, which has been handed down from generation to generation. Qanat is one of the most complicated traditional technologies, which require knowledge on nature ranging from groundwater to management. This indigenous technology used to bring water efficiently from tens of kilometers away to the thirsty lands. This book also gives insight into cultural and social heritages, which have crystalized around this technique. This cultural heritage still influences social life of the people living in such regions as central plateau of Iran where qanat has been the only means of supplying water. This technology is the focal point of the genesis of a particular civilization in the arid and semi-arid regions of Iran. The harsh environment drove those people to invent the technology of qanat and the know-how revolving around it. Qanat carries a tradition of science and technology which used to be practiced in order to overcome the technical obstacles in qanat construction. Thus, qanat is not only an irrigational means, but it should be seen as a technical and cultural legacy which deserves more attention. This book is a small encyclopedia on qanat system, providing the readers with easy answers to their questions about different aspects of this ancient technology.

Originally published in 1975, this extensive bibliography has been drawn from archaeological, botanical, geological, meteorological and zoological sources. It covers those studies which deal with periods of time for which modern observational data are not available. Included sources range from those which make minor contributions to our understanding of North American paleoclimates to those whose impacts upon this understanding have been considerable.

Creating Freshwater Wetlands, Second Edition clearly demonstrates the step-by-step processes required to restore or create freshwater wetlands. It presents practical advice on choosing sites, getting help, attracting and stocking wildlife, selecting plants, and wetland operation and maintenance. This is an excellent book on one of the most fascinating ecosystems on the planet.

Geomorphology and Groundwater is an up--to--the--minute collection dealing with the overlap between geomorphology and hydrogeology. These two disciplines have much to offer each other in several fields such as river groundwater interactions, the location and evolution of aquifers, karst and landform evolution. There is increasing realisation that groundwater plays an important role in many geomorphological processes and of the utility of geomorphological techniques and ideas in the analysis of groundwater systems. The authors contributing to this volume are drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds and include research geomorphologists, engineers and consulting hydrogeologists. Much of the work reported here applies to or has immediate applications to such environmental problems as arid--zone water supply, groundwater pollution, wetland conservation, fisheries management and landscape protection. As such this book will be of value not only to researchers in the respective fields, but to all those interested in groundwater--related environmental issues.

Originally published in 1984, Themes in Biogeography presents a broad examination of biogeographical themes, extending across the field of plant and animal ecology and geography. The book provides a detailed and unique investigation into life and its environment and delves into not just geography, and ecology, but provides an interdisciplinary look at these areas across both biological and environmental sciences. The book examines biogeographical themes applying them to areas of research in soils and climate change, as well as in depth studies of plant communities and their animal associates. The book also discusses plants and animals through their taxonomic distribution, and deals with factors of plant geography, using both global and regional examples. This book will be of interest to biologists, ecologists and geographers alike.

Originally published in 1981 Historical Plant Geography is an introductory treatment of historical plant geography and stresses the basic theoretical frame of the subject. The book is about neither the study of vegetation nor the concept of the ecosystem, instead focusing on the much older tradition concerned with analysing the geographical distribution of individual species and natural plant groups. Important areas are discussed, such as global plate tectonics and sea-floor spreading, plant maps are introduced and there is a basic treatment of recent advances in plant taxonomy. The book will appeal to students and academics of geography, botany, ecology and environmental sciences.

This book discusses ways to deepen the debate on the linkages between global risks and human and environmental security. The approach put forward in this book is one of questioning the ability of existing concepts, regulatory frameworks, technologies and decision-making mechanisms to accurately deal with emerging risks to human and environmental security, and to act in the direction of effectively managing their impacts and fostering the resilience of concerned systems and resources. Empirical research findings from Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands are provided. During the last decades the links between emerging risks and the security of humans and nature have been the object of considerable research and deliberations. However, it is only recently becoming an important focus of policy making and advocacy. In this contributed volume, it is presumed that the ability - or lack thereof - to make innovative conceptual frameworks, institutional and policy arrangements, and technological advances for managing the current emerging risks, will foster or undermine the environmental security, and consequently determine the future human security. Moreover, taking into account the links between environmental/climate security, human security and sustainability will help frame a new research agenda and potentially develop a broad range of responses to many delicate questions.

This highly practical handbook is an exhaustive treatment of eddy covariance measurement that will be of keen interest to scientists who are not necessarily specialists in micrometeorology. The chapters cover measuring fluxes using eddy covariance technique, from the tower installation and system dimensioning to data collection, correction and analysis.
With a state-of-the-art perspective, the authorsexamine the latest techniques and address the most up-to-date methods for data processing and quality control. The chapters provide answers to data treatment problems including data filtering, footprint analysis, data gap filling, uncertainty evaluation, and flux separation, among others.The authors cover the application of measurement techniques in different ecosystems such as forest, crops, grassland, wetland, lakes and rivers, and urban areas, highlighting peculiarities, specific practices and methods to be considered. The book also covers what to do when you have all your data, summarizing the objectives of a database as well as using case studies of the CarboEurope and FLUXNET databases to demonstrate the way they should be maintained and managed. Policies for data use, exchange and publication are also discussed and proposed.
This one compendiumisa valuable source of information on eddy covariance measurement that allows readers to make rational and relevant choices in positioning, dimensioning, installing and maintaining an eddy covariance site; collecting, treating, correcting and analyzing eddy covariance data; and scaling up eddy flux measurements to annual scale and evaluating their uncertainty.
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This highly topical book provides an in-depth account of the South Asian experience with the deadly disease that has held this region hostage for millennia. The book touches specifically on the resurgence of malaria experienced in the second half of the twentieth century, which occurred just a few years after malaria was thought to have been virtually eradicated from the region. The progress of this reappearance across space and time, as well as its causes and consequences, are discussed. The book also covers past, present and future ways to curb, control and ultimately, conquer malaria. As malaria continues to ravage the developing world, even in today s age of science, this is a particularly relevant book, especially as most studies analyze the problem in Africa, the continent that bears the brunt of this disease. Here, the authors call attention to challenges in South Asia, home to an immense at-risk population. The chapters in this book use a range of conceptual frameworks, quantitative analyses and descriptive aapproaches, finding that malaria is not just a complex disease driven by highly adaptive agents and vectors thriving in particular ecologies, but also a social concern deeply related to the region s cultural traditions, financial and developmental shortfalls, and inexorably related to political will.

The book comprehensively deals with all aspects of the malaria situation in South Asia, and is invaluable to upper level students as well as emerging and established scholars in the fields of medical geography and epidemiology, Asian studies and development studies."

From an historical perspective, this text presents an entirely non- mathematical introduction to astronomy from the first endeavours of the ancients to the current developments in research enabled by cutting edge technological advances. Free of mathematics and complex graphs, the book nevertheless explains deep concepts of space and time, of relativity and quantum mechanics, and of origin and nature of the universe. It conveys not only the intrinsic fascination of the subject, but also the human side and the scientific method as practised by Kepler, defined and elucidated by Galileo, and then demonstrated by Newton.

'The Ganges: Cultural, Economic, and Environmental Importance' is a geographical, cultural, economic, and environmental interpretation of the Ganga River. The Ganga River originates from Gaumukh- situated in the high Himalaya, flows through the world's biggest fertile alluvial plain, and inlets into the Bay of Bengal at Ganga Sagar. It makes a unique natural and cultural landscape and is believed to be the holiest river of India. The Hindus called it 'Mother Ganga' and worship it. The towns/cities, situated on its bank, are world-famous and are known as the highland and valley pilgrimages. The water of the Ganga is pious, and the Hindus use it on different occasions while performing the rituals and customs. This book is unique because no previous study which presents a complete and comprehensive geographical description of the Ganga has been composed. This book presents the historical and cultural significance of the Ganga and its tributaries. Empirical, archival, and observation methods were applied to conduct this study. There are a total of 10 chapters in this book such as 'Introduction', 'the Ganga Basin', 'Geography of the Ganga Basin', 'the Ganges System: Ganga and its Tributaries', 'Ganga between Gaumukh and Uttarkashi', 'the Major Cultural Towns', 'Major Fairs and Festivals', 'Economic Significance of the Ganga', 'Environmental Issues', and 'Conclusions'. The contents of the book are enriched by 89 figures, 15 tables, and substantial citations and references.

This detailed exposition gives background and context to how modern biogeography has got to where it is now. For biogeographers and other researchers interested in biodiversity and the evolution of life on islands, Biogeology: Evolution in a Changing Landscape provides an overview of a large swathe of the globe encompassing Wallacea and the western Pacific. The book contains the full text of the original article explored in each chapter, presented as it appeared on publication. Key features: Holistic treatment, collecting together a series of important biogeographical papers into a single volume Authored by an expert who has spent nearly three decades actively involved in biogeography Describes and interprets a region of exceptional biodiversity and extreme endemism The only book to provide an integrated treatment of Wallacea, Melanesia, New Zealand, the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands and Antarctica Offers a critique of fashionable neo-dispersalist arguments, showing how these still suffer from the same weaknesses of the original Darwinian formulation. The chapters also include analysis of many major theoretical and philosophical issues of modern biogeographic theory, so that those interested in a more philosophical approach will find the book stimulating and thought-provoking.

Climate hazards are the world's most widespread, deadliest and costliest natural disasters. Knowledge of climate hazard dynamics is critical since the impacts of climate change, population growth, development projects and migration affect both the impact and severity of disasters. Current global events highlight how hazards can lead to significant financial losses, increased mortality rates and political instability. This book examines climate hazard crises in contemporary Asia, identifying how hazards from the Middle East through South and Central Asia and China have the power to reshape our globalised world. In an era of changing climates, knowledge of hazard dynamics is essential to mitigating disasters and strengthening livelihoods and societies across Asia. By integrating human exposure to climate factors and disaster episodes, the book explores the environmental forces that drive disasters and their social implications. Focusing on a range of Asian countries, landscapes and themes, the chapters address several scales (province, national, regional), different hazards (drought, flood, temperature, storms, dust), environments (desert, temperate, mountain, coastal) and issues (vulnerability, development, management, politics) to present a diverse, comprehensive evaluation of climate hazards in Asia. This book offers an understanding of the challenges climate hazards present, their critical nature and the effort needed to mitigate climate hazards in 21st-century Asia. Climate Hazard Crises in Asian Societies and Environments is vital reading for those interested and engaged in Asia's development and well-being today and will be of interest to those working in Geography, Development Studies, Environmental Sciences, Sociology and Political Science.

This volume presents an in-depth analysis of climate change problems and discusses the proliferation of renewable energy worldwide-in conjunction with such important questions as social justice and economic growth, providing an interdisciplinary approach to sustainable development. Exploring various responses to human-induced climate change, the book offers a critical reflection on climate change and clean energy and highlights the fundamental problems of international energy justice and human rights. Examining these and other climate-related issues from legal, business, political, and scientific perspectives, the volume also analyzes the impact of economic factors and policies on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

To this day, there is a great amount of controversy about where, when and how the so-called supercontinents--Pangea, Godwana, Rodinia, and Columbia--were made and broken. Continents and Supercontinents frames that controversy by giving all the necessary background on how continental crust is formed, modified, and destroyed, and what forces move plates. It also discusses how these processes affect the composition of seawater, climate, and the evolution of life.
Rogers and Santosh begin with a survey of plate tectonics, and go on to describe the composition, production, and destruction of continental and oceanic crust, and show that cratons or assemblies of cratons became the first true continents, approximately one billion years after the earliest continental crust evolved. The middle part of the book concentrates on supercontinents, beginning with a discussion of types of orogenic belts, distinguishing those that formed by closure of an ocean basin within the belt and those that formed by intracontinental deformation caused by stresses generated elsewhere. This information permits discrimination between models of supercontinent formation by accretion of numerous small terranes and by reorganization of large old continental blocks.
This background leads to a description of the assembly and fragmentation of supercontinents throughout earth history. The record is most difficult to interpret for the oldest supercontinent, Columbia, and also controversial for Rodinia, the next youngest supercontinent. The configurations and pattern of breakup of Gondwana and Pangea are well known, but some aspects of their assembly are unclear. The book also briefly describes the histories ofcontinents after the breakup of Pangea, and discusses how changes in the composition of seawater, climate, and life may have been affected by the sizes and locations of continents and supercontinents.

Originally published in 1973. This collection of essays looks at the 'quantitative revolution' and the 'new geography' by some of the geographers who had a significant part in those innovations and looks ahead to further developments. The views in the chapters are diverse and offer a fascinating glimpse of the discipline of geography as the subject was undergoing such change and becoming more socially committed. They cover theory, spatial-systems theory, forecasting, human ecology and climatology alongside the teaching of the subject. The concerns of the contemporary geographer come across and are of interest today as these areas have developed still more.

This volume consists of twenty chapters addressing different aspects of the theme of fluvial processes and environmental change. The overall coverage is broad; scientifically, (from modelling to alluvial dating), geographically (from arid zone flash-flooding to glacial meltwaters) and in time (from contemporary process studies to the Quaternary). The introductory chapter sets the context, which is an attempt to show how studies of fluvial processes can help us in understanding and therefore predicting the impact of environmental change on our rivers, riverine resources and landscapes. Environmental change includes both climatic factors, however caused, and human impacts on river basins. The differentiation of these two factors is discussed in several chapters whilst others take a more holistic approach. Both climatic and human factors have, and will remain, to act together and so their interactions need to be understood. Fluvial Processes and Environmental Change is divided into five sections, commencing with the slope-catchment scale and proceeding to studies of channel response, then floodplain processes and floodplain response and finally two studies from glacierised basins. The volume originated as a two-day session of the British Geomorphological Research Group and contributors from Europe, the USA and Australia were included in order to provide a wide perspective on the topic. This book will be a valuable reference for postgraduates and researchers in fluvial geomorphology, hydrology, Quaternary science, geology and environmental science.