Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring The Arctic is demanding global attention. It is warming, melting, and thawing in a manner that threatens fundamental state-change. For communities that call the Arctic 'home' this is unwelcome. A warming Arctic brings with it the spectre of costly disruption and interference in indigenous lives and communal welfare. For others, the disappearance of sea ice makes the Arctic appear more accessible and less remote. This also brings with it dangers such as the prospect of a new era of great power rivalries involving China, Russia, and the United States. Submarine and long-range bomber patrolling are now commonplace. New terms such as 'global Arctic' are being used to capture the dynamic of change while others muse about the 'return of a Cold War'. The reality is inevitably more complex. The physical geography of the Arctic is highly varied and variable. Environmental change brings opportunities for indigenous and non-indigenous life-forms to survive and even thrive. The Arctic's four million people are not helpless pawns in a game of global geopolitics. The Arctic is not only a resource hotspot but also a place where sustainable energy systems are being introduced. A warming Arctic with less ice and permafrost is not unique in the longer history of the Earth either. The Arctic is a complex space. In this Very Short Introduction, Klaus Dodds and Jamie Woodward consider the major dimensions of the region and the linkages beyond - from the geopolitical to the environmental. They examine the causes, drivers, and effects of cultural, physical, political, and economic change, and ponder the future of the Arctic. As they show, it is a future which will affect us all. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This encyclopaedia contains 350 entries arranged alphabetically. The topics include biospeleology (by organism and by habitat); cave and karst geoscience; cave archaeology and human use of caves; art in caves; cave and karst history; hydrology and groundwater; conservation and management; and exploration, equipment and rescue. The largest number of entries are on cave and karst sites across the world from individual caves such as Mammoth Cave (the world's longest cave) and Krubera (the deepest in the world) through key regions such as the Dinaric karst and the Gunung Mulu World Heritage Site, to coverage of individual countries such as Iran and New Zealand or larger areas (Asia, Central; Asia, South-east, etc.). The essays in this volume, written by an international team of specialists, progress from general concepts to deeper understanding with jargon explained for the non-specialist. Each essay is fully referenced, with suggestions for further reading and cross-references to related encyclopaedia articles.

With an account of over 6.000 recent and 15.000 fossil species, phylum Bryozoa represents a quite large and important phylum of colonial filter feeders. This volume of the series Handbook of Zoology contains new findings on phylogeny, morphology and evolution that have significantly improved our knowledge and understanding of this phylum. It is a comprehensive book that will be a standard for many specialists but also newcomers to the field of bryozoology.

This book argues that legal geography provides new insights into contemporary conservation challenges. Despite unprecedented efforts, we are facing an extinction crisis, and in situ protected area programs are falling short. This book discusses the protected area phenomenon and calls for changes to current approaches, informed by legal geography -an inter-disciplinary area focused on the intertwined people-place-law dynamics that enable, or disable, effective management practices. The book examines two protected area types: World Heritage Sites, where places of 'outstanding universal value' are protected for all humanity, and Ramsar protected wetland sites, one of the first global environmental protection initiatives. Using case studies from the Australasian region (Australia, the Pacific and Southeast Asia), it reveals how current approaches can be improved by taking into account the people-place-law nexus embedded in legal geography research.

Despite our growing awareness of the vital role they play in the global environment, wetlands remain among the most endangered ecosystems on Earth and are still being destroyed and degraded at an alarming rate. This much-needed publication, which includes contributions from leading researchers and practitioners, presents a holistic perspective on the restoration of wetland ecosystems such as shallow lakes, streams, floodplains and bogs. Through the use of carefully chosen case studies, the authors examine European wetland restoration projects from Scandinavia to Bulgaria and from Ireland to Belarus, focusing on the lessons they can teach to a new generation of conservationists. As well as reviewing the sum of current knowledge on the subject, the text is a store of practical know-how, covering a wide range of conservation approaches and techniques. It analyzes the major problems in the field and identifies key principles for achieving sustainability in wetland restoration. The topics covered include: * the role of wetlands in landscape functioning * human interference with natural processes such as water and matter cycles and energy dissipation * the impact of land use on global problems such as climate change, floods and droughts * the role played by diversity in wetland functioning The work shows that without sustainable land use over the totality of their catchment areas, and without cohesive inter-agency cooperation, individual restoration projects will have a short life span. The balance between scientific background and practical restoration makes this book a valuable resource for scientists as well as wetland managers, decision makers and land use planners, as well as students of ecology, nature conservation and environmental protection.

Geography into the Twenty-first Century brings together teachers from higher and school education to debate the challenges confronting the teaching of geography at the beginning of the new millennium. It presents a collection of edited essays looking at the main developments in the areas of human, physical and environmental geography and the impact of the recent changes in the way that geography is taught in schools, colleges and universities. A particular objective of the book is to examine common issues and objectives which cross the school to higher education divide. Some of the world s leading geographers, including Peter Haggett, Ron Johnston and Tim O Riordan have contributed broad-ranging assessment of how the new research directions and agendas which are revitalising academic geography can be communicated in an exciting and meaningful way to students of all ages. The book also shows how the exacting needs and aspirations of modern geography students and their teachers can revitalise and inspire research endeavours. The fundamental purpose of this timely book is to show how dialogue in geographical education at all levels is essential to the future of a rapidly changing discipline. Rich in ideas, broad in examples and inspiring in its commitment to the improvement of the content and method of geographical education, Geography into the Twenty-first Century is a landmark volume that will be a constant source of reference, guidance and issues for debate for everyone professionally concerned with the teaching of geography. It also provides a unique portrait of a lively discipline at a particularly significant point in its evolution.

This book explores China's eco-development strategies and practices from a multi-scalar perspective, discussing the importance of interplay between multi spatial levels of the built environment, as well as the stakeholders who are key players for China's eco-development. Based on a selection of eco-development Chinese case studies - eco-city, eco-community and eco-building - it highlights how specific eco initiatives and green features are applied and practiced, offering a guide to China's strategy directions and design and planning trends. The book identifies gaps and strategies and solutions for future eco-development expected to take place in China in the coming decades, as well as useful references for eco-development in other countries, and provides a useful resource for studies in the fields of urbanism, sustainable development and eco-design.

This book presents extensive and new information on the geomorphology of cratonic areas of southern South America. It includes valuable data relating to recurrent controversies in general geomorphology beyond the boundaries of South America and reveals the great need to integrate many different aspects of geomorphology in regional studies. With the focus on ancient landscapes and especially on planation surfaces it addresses the question of what processes could form such huge features, and how they can be preserved for so long. Many of the papers include maps of planation surfaces or other geomorphic units. The volume brings together an up-to-date, state-of-the-art collection of information on South American geomorphology, and shows beyond doubt that geomorphology is on the same time scale as global tectonics, biological evolution and major climate change. Some of the papers describe ancient geomorphological features of areas that have never been studied or published before, while others describe regions which are totally unknown to the public. The scope of the book extends from tropical latitudes north of the Tropic of Capricorn, south to freezing Patagonia in the "roaring fifties", more than 3,500 km from north to south. Including over one thousand citations from geological and geomorphological literature, this volume will serve as a starting point for a whole new phase of studies of the fascinating landscape history of southern South America.

@lt;P@gt;Now in its second edition. This text has been extensively revised and rewritten to reflect the growth in environmental research during the last decade. Human-induced environmental change is occurring at such a rapid rate that, inevitably, the fundamental processes involved in biogeochemical cycling are being altered. @lt;BR@gt;@lt;I@gt;Global Environmental Change@lt;/I@gt; considers alterations to the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and other elements as a result of industrial/technological development and agriculture, which have significantly altered the natural environment. The book adopts a temporal and spatial approach to environmental change, beginning with the natural environmental change of the Quaternery period and continuing with the culturally-induced change since the inception of agriculture 10,000 years ago.@lt;/P@gt;

-Written by the authors of key spatial R packages -Makes spatial data analysis more robust -Integrates with the tidyverse and comparable approaches -Includes many easily reproducible examples

This book brings together original and novel perspectives on major developments in human rights law and the environment in Africa. Focusing on African Union law, the book explores the core concepts and principles, theory and practice, accountability mechanisms and key issues challenging human rights law in the era of global environmental change. It, thus, extend the frontier of understanding in this fundamental area by building on existing scholarship on African human rights law and the protection of the environment, divulging concerns on redressing environmental and human rights protection issues in the context of economic growth and sustainable development. It further offers unique insight into the development, domestication and implementation challenges relating to human rights law and environmental governance in Africa. This long overdue interdisciplinary exploration of human rights law and the environment from an African perspective will be an indispensable reference point for academics, policymakers, practitioners and advocates of international human rights and environmental law in particular and international law, environmental politics and philosophy, and African studies in general. It is clear that there is much to do, study and share on this timely subject in the African context.

Steepland geomorphology concerns high gradient landscapes which are either tectonically active or influenced by volcanism and where there is a perceived close relationship between soils, incomplete vegetation cover, recent geomorphic processes and associated landforms. Such areas are difficult to manage because of their high variability in terms of natural stability and because of inadequate theory and models. This book, through thirteen independent steepland field investigations, illustrates the differing conceptual frameworks that are used at four different temporal scales of investigation. The first four investigations, from Southern Africa, the Yukon Territory, the German Alps and Colombia, define relevant temporal scales. The other investigations concern the sediment production problem in Spitzbergen and northern Norway, sediment storage phenomena in Iceland, Bolivia, the Himalayas and the Apennines, and methods of interpreting environmental change from Japan, the Canadian Rockies, Ecuador and Bolivia.

Airplane Performance on Grass Airfields presents an experiment-based approach to analysis and flight testing of airfield performance on grass runways. It discusses improvements for operations efficiency and safety of these airfields. The book analyzes the interaction between the landing gear wheels and the surface of a grass runways during both takeoff and landing. Considering the ground performance of an aircraft on a grass runway, the book covers test methods and devices for measuring performance and introduces an information system for the surface condition of grass airfields: GARFIELD. The system is based on a tire-grass interaction model and uses digital soil maps, as well as current meteorological data obtained from a weather server. The book is intended for researchers and practicing engineers in the fields of aviation and aircraft safety and performance.

The study of ice composition represents an effective tool in our understanding of the dynamics of glaciers, ice sheets and ice shelves. The authors of this work relate the distribution of isotopes and impurities in ice masses to ice flow, to the key zone close to the ice-substratum interface and to the mechanisms effective in the contact zone between glacier and ocean. Other material in this book is concerned with how global changes may be induced by a climatic warming due to anthropogenic activities. This monograph on glaciology, geophysics and geomorphology is intended for researchers, graduate students and teachers.

An ethnographic tapestry of personal and institutional narratives about Jerusalem's social history. Overlooking the Border: Narratives of a Divided Jerusalem by Dana Hercbergs continues the dialogue surrounding the social history of Jerusalem. The book's starting point is the border that separated the city between Jordan and Israel in 1948-1967, a lesser-known but significant period for cultural representations of Jerusalem. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the book juxtaposes Israeli and Palestinian personal narratives about the past with contemporary museum exhibits, street plaques, tourism, and real estate projects that are reshaping the city since the decline of the peace process and the second intifada. What emerges is a portrayal of Jerusalem both as a local place with unique rhythms and topography and as a setting for national imaginaries and agendas with their attendant political and social tensions. As sites of memory, Jerusalem's homes, streets, and natural areas form the setting for emotionally charged narratives about belonging and rights to place. Recollections of local customs and lifeways in the mid-twentieth century coalesce around residents' desire for stability amid periods of war, dispossession, and relocation?? intertwining the mythical with the mundane. Hercbergs begins by taking the reader to the historically Arab neighborhoods of West Jerusalem, whose streets are a battleground for competing historical narratives about the Israeli-Arab War of 1948. She goes on to explore the connections and tensions between Mizrahi Jews and Palestinians living across the border from one another in Musrara, a neighborhood straddling West and East Jerusalem. The author rounds out the monograph with a semiotic analysis of contemporary tourism and architectural ventures that are entrenching ethno-national separation in the post-Oslo period. These rhetorical expressions illuminate what it means to be a ??erusalemite in the context of the city's fraught history. Overlooking the Border examines the social and geographic significance of borders for residents' sense of self, place, and community, and for representations of the city both locally and abroad. It is certain to be of value to scholars and advanced undergraduate and graduate students of Middle Eastern studies, history, urban ethnography, and Israeli and Jewish studies.

“Unlike the standard nature guides that explain how to recognize common animals, Nature stresses the web of interrelationships that link the regional flora and fauna. This affectionate examination of some of North America’s most spectacular surviving old-growth forests will delight backpackers and armchair naturalists.� —Los Angeles Times Book Review Everything you ever wanted to know about the flora and fauna of Southeast Alaska is contained in the third edition of this lively field guide to the natural world, from bears to banana slugs, mountains to murrelets. The authors, who are both Alaskan residents and biologists, combine scientific research with personal experiences to make a definitive field guide for residents of or visitors to Southeast Alaska. The unique features of the book include: In-depth information about how wildlife coexists with the environment Detailed discussions of mammals, birds, fish, invertebrates, fungi, and plants Detailed map of wilderness areas in Southeast Alaska More than 200 black-and-white illustrations A bibliography, list of common and scientific names, and an index New to this edition: More than 100 new illustrations, many never before published, as well as new maps and photos Major expansion of sections on geology, old-growth forests, marine mammals, and amphibians Fifty-two new sidebars—written in the first person to give the text a more personal touch­—that describe recent findings or experiences. Sweeping updates and elaborations to chapter narratives—often thanks to technology unknown in 1992. In-depth guide to Southeast Alaska’s flora and fauna; more than an identification manual, Nature explores how the species and habitats encountered in the woods and waters of Southeast Alaska fit into the bigger picture.

This open access book is the first comprehensive overview of maritime or marine spatial planning. Countries across the globe are beginning to implement maritime spatial plans; however the authors of this collection have identified several key questions that are emerging from this growing body of MSP experience. How can maritime spatial planning deal with a complex and dynamic environment such as the sea? How can MSP be embedded in multiple levels of governance across regional and national borders - and how far does the environment benefit from this new approach? This book actively engages with the problems encapsulated in these questions, and explores possible solutions. Situated at the intersection between theory and practice, the volume draws together several strands of interdisciplinary research, reflecting on the history of MSP as well as examining current practice and looking towards the future. The authors and contributors examine MSP from disciplines as diverse as geography, urban planning, political science, natural science, sociology and education; reflecting the growing critical engagement with MSP in many academic fields. This innovative and pioneering volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of maritime spatial planning, as well as planners and practitioners.

In The End of the Anthropocene, Michael J. Gormley examines literary imaginations of the anthropocene's end and the future of the astropocene. Gormley analyzes literary images of human tracks on Earth, the Moon, and Mars to characterize the late-stage anthropocene and to explore humanity's role in the universal ecosystem. The End of the Anthropocene uses a predictive and paradigmatic model of ecocriticism, examining science fiction works as interplanetary nature narratives.

"Lakes is my favorite kind of natural history: meticulously researched, timely, comprehensive, and written with imagination and verve."--Jerry Dennis, author of The Living Great Lakes Lakes might be the most misunderstood bodies of water on earth. And while they may seem commonplace, without lakes our world would never be the same. In this revealing look at these lifegiving treasures, John Richard Saylor shows us just how deep our connection to still waters run. Lakes is an illuminating tour through the most fascinating lakes around the world. Whether it's Lake Vostok, located more than two miles beneath the surface of Antarctica, whose water was last exposed to the atmosphere perhaps a million years ago; Lake Baikal in southern Siberia, the world's deepest and oldest lake formed by a rift in the earth's crust; or Lake Nyos, the so-called Killer Lake that exploded in 1986, resulting in hundreds of deaths, Saylor reveals to us the wonder that exists in lakes found throughout the world. Along the way we learn all the many forms that lakes take--how they come to be and how they feed and support ecosystems--and what happens when lakes vanish.

Laws of the Sea assembles scholars from law, geography, anthropology, and environmental humanities to consider the possibilities of a critical ocean approach in legal studies. Unlike the United Nations' monumental Convention on the Law of the Sea, which imagines one comprehensive constitutional framework for governing the ocean, Laws of the Sea approaches oceanic law in plural and dynamic ways. Critically engaging contemporary concerns about the fate of the ocean, the collection's twelve chapters range from hydrothermal vents through the continental shelf and marine genetic resources to coastal communities in France, Sweden, Florida, and Indonesia. Documenting the longstanding binary of land and sea, the chapters pose a fundamental challenge to European law's "terracentrism" and its pervasive influence on juridical modes of knowing and making the world. Together, the chapters ask: is contemporary Eurocentric law-and international law in particular-capable of moving away from its capitalist and colonial legacies, established through myriad oceanic abstractions and classifications, toward more amphibious legalities? Laws of the Sea will appeal to legal scholars, geographers, anthropologists, cultural and political theorists, as well as scholars in the environmental humanities, political ecology, ocean studies, and animal studies.

Before any other influences began to fashion life and its lavish diversity, geological events created the initial environments--both physical and chemical--for the evolutionary drama that followed. Drawing on case histories from around the world, Arthur Kruckeberg demonstrates the role of landforms and rock types in producing the unique geographical distributions of plants and in stimulating evolutionary diversification. His examples range throughout the rich and heterogeneous tapestry of the earth's surface: the dramatic variations of mountainous topography, the undulating ground and crevices of level limestone karst, and the subtle realm of sand dunes. He describes the ongoing evolutionary consequences of the geology-plant interface and the often underestimated role of geology in shaping climate. Kruckeberg explores the fundamental connection between plants and geology, including the historical roots of geobotany, the reciprocal relations between geology and other environmental influences, geomorphology and its connection with plant life, lithology as a potent selective agent for plants, and the physical and biological influences of soils. Special emphasis is given to the responses of plants to exceptional rock types and their soils--serpentines, limestones, and other azonal (exceptional) substrates. Edaphic ecology, especially of serpentines, has been his specialty for years. Kruckeberg's research fills a significant gap in the field of environmental science by connecting the conventionally separated disciplines of the physical and biological sciences. Geology and Plant Life is the result of more than forty years of research into the question of why certain plants grow on certain soils and certain terrain structures, and what happens when this relationship is disrupted by human agents. It will be useful to a wide spectrum of professionals in the natural sciences: plant ecologists, paleobiologists, climatologists, soil scientists, geologists, geographers, and conservation scientists, as well as serious amateurs in natural history.

Edward John Russell (1872 1965) was a British agricultural scientist, and Director of the Rothamsted Experimental Station, Harpenden from 1912 to 1943. First published in 1950, as the second edition of a 1911 original, this book was written by Russell to provide the younger reader with an accessible guide to the properties of soil. Numerous illustrative figures are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in soil and the history of education."

As a continent of extreme, rare and complex environments, Australia has produced a startling group of ecological pioneers. Australian thinkers and innovators have made some truly original contributions to ecological thought. This study traces the emergence of ecological awareness in Australia. By constructing a social history with chapters focusing on different fields in the arts, sciences, politics and public life, Martin Mulligan and Stuart Hill are able to bring to life the work of significant individuals.

Illustrates applications of plastic in protected cultivation, water management, aquiculture and in high-tech horticulture using innovative technologies to enhance water use efficiency and crop productivity Presents precision farming for climate-resilient technologies Includes real-world examples to present practical insights of plastic engineering for climate change mitigation strategies.