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Books > Earth & environment > Geography > Physical geography > General
This textbook provides an overview of economic perspectives on sustainability. It synthesises economic, ecological and interdisciplinary sustainability research and by applying an integrated social-ecological and economic framework, demonstrates how this research can be improved and implemented in practice. Split into three parts, the book begins by introducing a range of topics forming the basis of knowledge needed to understand the varying sustainability discourses in economics, ecology and interdisciplinary sustainability research. Chapters cover the political context of sustainability; the history of sustainability in European environmental discourses dating back to the seventeenth century; as well as various problems and forms of interdisciplinary knowledge integration and synthesis in the sustainability process. Part II reviews the core economic themes relevant to sustainable development including natural resource management, environmental economics and ecological economics. Also highlighted are often neglected issues such as conflicts, disasters and interrelated crises on the way towards sustainability. The chapters in Part III discuss the future of the sustainability process. They argue for the necessity of overhauling the relationship between science and practice; explore failures and the unforeseen difficulties of sustainability transformation; and discuss how to enable a long term sustainability process that reaches into the distant future. An innovative resource for a broad range of interdisciplinary programmes on sustainability. The book will be an invaluable reference for master and PhD students, instructors, researchers and practitioners in sustainability governance.
This book discusses the conditions that underpin configuration of specific places as resource peripheries and the consequences that such a socio-spatial formation involves for those places. The book thereby provides an interdisciplinary approach underpinned by economic geography, political ecology, resource geography, development studies and political geography. It also discusses the different technological, political and economic changes that make the ongoing production of resource peripheries a distinctive socio-spatial formation under the global economy. Through a global and interdisciplinary perspective that uncovers ongoing political processes, socio-economic changes and socio-ecological dynamics at resource peripheries, this book argues that it is critical to take a more profound appraisal about the socio-spatial processes behind the contemporary way in which capitalism is appropriating and transforming nature.
In this comprehensive Handbook, scholars from across the globe explore the relationships between workers and nature in the context of the environmental crises. They provide an invaluable overview of a fast-growing research field that bridges the social and natural sciences. Chapters provide detailed perspectives of environmental labour studies, environmental struggles of workers, indigenous peoples, farmers and commoners in the Global South and North. The relations within and between organisations that hinder or promote environmental strategies are analysed, including the relations between workers and environmental organisations, NGOs, feminist and community movements.
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 offers readers a thorough introduction to the Dinaric Karst System in Croatia. As the first comprehensive book on the country's caves and karst, it presents a wealth of fascinating photographs from its karst underground. To date, ca. 12,000 caves and pits have been confirmed in Croatia, approximately 35% of which contain constant groundwater. Knowing the amount, direction and quality of groundwater that has been discovered in caves of the Croatian karst allows us to predict with greater certainty the hydrogeological situation of some karst areas where no special drilling or borehole measurements were performed. In the process of building highways in the country's karst regions over the last thirty years, thousands of caverns (speleological features without natural entrances) were discovered and thoroughly explored. All of them were geologically mapped, surveyed, and photographed in detail. Extensive research was systematically carried out in Croatian karst regions on sections of roads, highways, cuttings, slides, tunnels, bridge foundations, viaducts, etc., while creating ca. 800 kilometers of highways (such as the Zagreb-Rijeka highway, Zagreb-Split-Dubrovnik highway, Y-Ipsilon of Istria semi-highway, Rijeka-Rupa highway, Zagreb-Zadar semi-highway, and the Rijeka bypass). Some of these caverns contain major chambers like in the "Sveti Rok" tunnel and in some of them, like in the "Vrata" tunnel, it was even necessary to build a bridge. This bridge is the longest one in the world built in a tunnel over a cavern. The book describes this and many more features of the cave exploration of the Dinaric Karst System of Croatia, making it a valuable resource for researchers, engineers, cavers, and all other readers interested in karst.
'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 book introduces systematically the cryospheric science, covering the formation, development, evolution, and research methods of each component of the cryosphere, the interaction between the cryosphere and the other spheres of the climate system and the anthroposphere, and the hot topics of social and economic sustainable development and geopolitics. The authors are world-renowned experts and scientists working in the related fields. They have a deep understanding and accurate grasp of the basic theory, evolution mechanism, and international frontiers of the cryosphere, as well as rich teaching experience, which makes this book suitable also as textbook for graduate students. It is also the first book that introduces the knowledge of cryospheric science systematically. In addition to theoretical knowledge, the book also introduces field work and experimental analysis. It should be of interests for the scholars and graduate student working in the fields of geography, hydrology, geology, geomorphology, atmosphere, ecology, environment, oceanography, and regional economic and social sustainable development.
This book is a comprehensive resource for climate change impacts and scenarios on cross-cutting issues in Bangladesh and other tropical low-lying countries in Asia. The book promotes mitigation and adaptation strategies for learning and innovation to tackle climate change impacts, reduce inequality, as well as include changes in food, energy, health, education, and social protection policies in Bangladesh and Asian low-lying countries. Through several case studies, this book provides a powerful framework for identifying management tools and their applications in environment and governance including; climate change and natural hazards, climate change and energy framework, gender inequality and capacity building, and community participants and the actions needed to protect them. The aim of this book is to provide information to scientists, practitioners, academics, and government and non-government policy-makers to help them better understand the particularities of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies for cross-cutting issues in Bangladesh.
After the Treaty of Paris ended the Seven Years' War in 1763, British America stretched from Hudson Bay to the Florida Keys, from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River, and across new islands in the West Indies. To better rule these vast dominions, Britain set out to map its new territories with unprecedented rigor and precision. Max Edelson's The New Map of Empire pictures the contested geography of the British Atlantic world and offers new explanations of the causes and consequences of Britain's imperial ambitions in the generation before the American Revolution. Under orders from King George III to reform the colonies, the Board of Trade dispatched surveyors to map far-flung frontiers, chart coastlines in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sound Florida's rivers, parcel tropical islands into plantation tracts, and mark boundaries with indigenous nations across the continental interior. Scaled to military standards of resolution, the maps they produced sought to capture the essential attributes of colonial spaces-their natural capacities for agriculture, navigation, and commerce-and give British officials the knowledge they needed to take command over colonization from across the Atlantic. Britain's vision of imperial control threatened to displace colonists as meaningful agents of empire and diminished what they viewed as their greatest historical accomplishment: settling the New World. As London's mapmakers published these images of order in breathtaking American atlases, Continental and British forces were already engaged in a violent contest over who would control the real spaces they represented. Accompanying Edelson's innovative spatial history of British America are online visualizations of more than 250 original maps, plans, and charts.
This book assesses the construction of security in the context of climate change, with a focus on the Arctic region. It examines and discusses changes in the security premises of the Arctic states, from traditional security to environmental and human security. In particular, the book explores how climate change impacts security discourses and premises as well as theoretically discussing the possibility for another change, from circumpolar stability into peaceful change. Chapters cover topics such as the ethics of climate change in the arctic, China's emerging power and influence on arctic climate security, the discursive transformation of the definition of security and the intersection between urban, climate and Arctic studies. The book concludes with the question of whether a paradigm shift in our understanding of traditional security is possible, and whether it is already occurring in the Arctic.
This book provides a critical approach to research on the social acceptance of renewable energy infrastructures and on energy transitions in general by questioning prevalent principles and proposing specific research pathways and lines of inquiry that look beyond depoliticised, business-as-usual discourses and research agendas on green growth and sustainability. It brings together authors from different socio-geographical and disciplinary backgrounds within the social sciences to reflect upon, discuss and advance what we propose to be five cornerstones of a critical approach: overcoming individualism and socio-cognitivism; repoliticisations - recognising and articulating power relations; for interdisciplinarity; interventions - praxis and political engagement with research; and overcoming localism and spatial determinism: As such, this book offers academics, students and practitioners alike a comprehensive perspective of what it means to be critical when inquiring into the social acceptance of renewable energy and associated infrastructures.
Northern Tanzania is an important and diverse ecological and cultural region with many protected lands. This book, Protected Areas in Northern Tanzania, brings to the forefront research on significant issues and developments in conservation and management in national parks and protected lands in northern Tanzania. The book draws attention to issues at the intersection of conservation, tourism, and community livelihood, and several studies use geospatial technologies-Geographic Information Systems and remote sensing data and techniques-to study land use and land cover conversion. With contributions from professors at the Mweka College of African Wildlife Management located at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro and other Tanzanian researchers, the book provides important perspectives of local experts and practitioners. Protected Areas in Northern Tanzania provides a significant contribution in research and technological advancement in the areas of wildlife conservation and protected land management throughout this critical region.
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 edited book provides a comprehensive overview of the past, present and future climate development in Poland. The book consists of three main parts. The first part presents the results of the study of climate change before instrumental measurements in Poland in the last millennium. The second part analyses the long-term changes and variability of 36 climate characteristics for 14 climate elements, indices, meteorological phenomena and weather types using data from 79 weather stations in the base period 1951-2018 and for long series up to 239 years (1780-2018). The particular attention is paid to climate extremes. The third part of the book deals with projected changes in temperature, precipitation and thermal indices related to the agriculture and energy sectors. Two future time horizons are carried out: 1) near future: 2021-2050 and 2) far future: 2071-2100. The results for Poland are compared to those from Europe and other parts of the world. The book is addressed to scientists (climatologists, geographers, etc.), academic teachers, students, journalists and all those interested in Poland and climate change in Poland.
In this exciting new collection, leading and emerging Lacanian scholars seek to understand what psychoanalysis brings to debates about the environment and the climate crisis. They argue that we cannot understand climate change and all of its multifarious ramifications without first understanding how our terrifying proximity to the real undergirds our relation to the environment, how we mistake lack for loss and mourning for melancholy, and how we seek to destroy the same world we seek to protect. The book traces Lacan's contribution through a consideration of topics including doomsday preppers, forest suicides, Indigenous resistance, post-apocalyptic films, the mathematics of climate science, and the relevance of Kant. They ask: What can you do if your neighbour is a climate change denier? What would Bartleby do? Does the animal desire? Who is cleaning up all the garbage on the internet? Why is the sudden greening of the planet under COVID-19 no help whatsoever? It offers a timely intervention into Lacanian theory, environmental studies, geography, philosophy, and literary studies that illustrates the relevance of psychoanalysis to current social and environmental concerns.
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 describes the importance of water resources for socio-economic and ecological development including geomorphic and ecological environments. Hence, conservation, management and development of water resources have become necessary for the all-around development of global populations and the environment. It is the outcome of valuable contributions made by eminent scientists and research scholars who have developed alternative strategies, solutions and models for sustainable water resources through research, monitoring and experiments varying from regional to global scale. This book is of immense use to the policymakers, environmentalists, ecologists, academician, research scholars and people in general concerned with water resources management.
Meeting the targets of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires contributions by scientists focusing on understanding, monitoring, protecting, managing and restoring the natural environment, including geoscientists. This book presents the first detailed discussion on the role of the geological sciences (geosciences) community in the implementation of the SDGs. Unlike traditional geosciences textbooks, it is structured according to development priorities, framed in the context of the 17 SDGs. Written by international experts from diverse range of geosciences / development disciplines, it explores themes linked to both science and the professional practice of science (e.g., ethics, equity, conduct, and partnerships). The book is intended for graduate and senior undergraduate students in the earth sciences, as well as practicing geologists and experts from other sectors involved in sustainability initiatives.
Education is a critical part of safety - and not getting lost, or knowing how to get found if you do, is one of the most important lessons. Simple techniques to navigate out of dangerous situations are the focus of this handy waterproof reference guide, along with basic compass use and travelling by simple bearings. Contents also cover navigation skills around obstacles, pacing beads, aiming off, and dead reckoning. Developed by noted survival expert and woodsman Dave Canterbury, this is one of a 10-part series on survival skills. Made in the USA.
This book combines multidisciplinary studies on the environmental consequences of intensified use of land and water, and the fusion of land to provide food for a growing population. Studies on water, vegetation, and soil are addressed from an environmental management perspective with a special focus on the relation between natural elements and humans. This book considers the essential dynamics of humans and the natural environment, which is especially important in areas with shallow water-table that influence directly on agricultural activities (crops, livestock, and forests), land management, flooding, droughts, waterlogging, salt-affected soils (saline and sodic) and variation in obtained water quality in wells where these processes as related to the local and regional geomorphology control. The studies present hydrological processes towards the definition of an adequate use of soil and water with consequences of its management on the environment. Also, water study procedures are presented as well as their relation to other elements of the landscape. Methodologies such as the Tothian flow system concept are recognized by different authors to provide the reader with solid interdisciplinary analyses of related environmental components such as soils, vegetation, surface water, geomorphology, geological framework and groundwater physical-chemical composition.
In this unique edited collection, social scientists reflect upon and openly share insights gathered from researching people and the sea. Understanding how people use, relate to and interact with coastal and marine environments has never been more important, with social scientists having an increasingly vital contribution to make. Yet practical experiences in deploying social science approaches in this field are typically hidden away in field notes and unpublished doctoral manuscripts, with the opportunity for shared learning that comes from doing research often missed. There is a need for reflection on how social science knowledge is produced. This collection presents experiences from the field, its necessary reflexivity and innovation in methods, and the challenges and opportunities of translating across disciplines and policy. It brings to light the tacit expertise needed to study people and the sea and offers lessons which readers could employ in their own research. With a focus on the future direction of marine social sciences, the volume is highly relevant to masters and doctoral students and more experienced researchers engaged in studying people and the sea, as well as policy makers, practitioners and scientists wishing to understand the social dimension of marine and coastal environments. Chapters 2 and 3 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
This book introduces what sclerotia grains are, and where and how they exist in soils, by compiling the results obtained from the studies on fungal sclerotia formed by Cenococcum geophilum (Cg) and related species, the visible black small grains persistent for a few thousand to ten thousands of years in forest soils and sediments. The chapters contain the results and discussions on the ecological distribution and regulating factors, characteristics, and function of Cg sclerotia grains, carried out by researchers from soil geography, soil science, soil microbiology, physiology, forestry, analytical chemistry, environmental chemistry, material science, and related disciplines. The anatomy of sclerotia grains in soil was realized in terms of interdisciplinary joint researches, which resulted in deepening understanding of the ecological function of the mesoscale organic component in soils. This book covers the natural history of sclerotia in soils, pedo-sclerotiology.
This book presents a survey, dynamic monitoring and comprehensive analysis of Sri Lanka's land, vegetation, surface water, ocean and other environmental resources, as well as its economic, transportation, urban, agricultural and tourism development. It offers readers accurate, systematic and comprehensive information on Sri Lanka's ecological setting and socio-economic development. It also sheds light on policies for the protection of the environment and biodiversity.
The overarching contribution of this book is a review and assessment of the current and future impacts of globalization on the world's forests. The work has been developed by the "Resources for the Future" Task Force for the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO). Four key themes are addressed: the effect of globalization on forests (including future trade flows); plantations as the primary source of forest products and its consequences, including plant breeding and forest health; the effect of new products such as bio-products and markets on forests; and the emergence of forest ecosystem services and their impact on the landscape and human communities. These four themes are examined in detail to map out the impacts of these trends for forests throughout the world and at multiple scales, and how forest research needs to be adapted to address these trends. Overall, the volume provides a major synthesis of current thinking and knowledge on the topic for advanced students, as well as policy-makers and professionals in the forest sector.
A revelatory work of reporting on the men and women wrestling to harness and preserve America's most vital natural resource: our rivers. The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America's rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we've arrived at a critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive forces of nature. Tyler J. Kelley spent two years traveling the heartland, getting to know the men and women whose lives and livelihoods rely on these tenuously tamed streams. On the Illinois-Kentucky border, we encounter Luther Helland, master of the most important--and most decrepit--lock and dam in America. This old dam at the end of the Ohio River was scheduled to be replaced in 1998, but twenty years and $3 billion later, its replacement still isn't finished. As the old dam crumbles and commerce grinds to a halt, Helland and his team must risk their lives, using steam-powered equipment and sheer brawn, to raise and lower the dam as often as ten times a year. In Southeast Missouri, we meet Twan Robinson, who lives in the historically Black village of Pinhook. As a super-flood rises on the Mississippi, she learns from her sister that the US Army Corps of Engineers is going to blow up the levee that stands between her home and the river. With barely enough notice to evacuate her elderly mother and pack up a few of her own belongings, Robinson escapes to safety only to begin a nightmarish years-long battle to rebuild her lost community. Atop a floodgate in central Louisiana, we're beside Major General Richard Kaiser, the man responsible for keeping North America's greatest river under control. Kaiser stands above the spot where the Mississippi River wants to change course, abandoning Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and following the Atchafalaya River to the sea. The daily flow of water from one river to the other is carefully regulated, but something else is happening that may be out of Kaiser and the Corps' control. America's infrastructure is old and underfunded. While our economy, society, and climate have changed, our levees, locks, and dams have not. Yet to fix what's wrong will require more than money. It will require an act of imagination. "With meticulous research and insightful analysis" (Publishers Weekly), Holding Back the River brings us into the lives of the Americans who grapple with our mighty rivers and, through their stories, suggests solutions to some of the century's greatest challenges. |
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