Water scarcity is the next big climate crisis. Water stress - not just scarcity, but also water-quality issues caused by pollution - is already driving the first waves of climate refugees. Rivers are drying out before they meet the oceans and ancient lakes are disappearing. It's increasingly clear that human mismanagement of water is dangerously unsustainable, for both ecological and human survival. And yet in recent years some key countries have been quietly and very successfully addressing water stress. How are Singapore and Israel, for example - both severely water-stressed countries - not in the same predicament as Chennai or California? In The Last Drop, award-winning environmental journalist Tim Smedley meets experts, victims, activists and pioneers to find out how we can mend the water table that our survival depends upon. He offers a fascinating, universally relevant account of the environmental and human factors that have led us to this point, and suggests practical ways to address the crisis, before it's too late.

Future Sustainable Ecosystems: Complexity, Risk, Uncertainty provides an interdisciplinary, integrative overview of environmental problem-solving using statistics. It shows how statistics can be used to solve diverse environmental and socio-economic problems involving food, water, energy scarcity, and climate change risks. It synthesizes interdisciplinary theory, concepts, definitions, models and findings involved in complex global sustainability problem-solving, making it an essential guide and reference. It includes real-world examples and applications making the book accessible to a broader interdisciplinary readership. Discussions include a broad, integrated perspective on sustainability, integrated risk, multi-scale changes and impacts taking place within ecosystems worldwide. State-of-the-art statistical techniques, including Bayesian hierarchical, spatio-temporal, agent-based and game-theoretic approaches are explored. The author then focuses on the real-world integration of observational and experimental data and its use within statistical models.

"Sustainable Justice and the Community" is an attempt to locate justice in a workable and sustainable way within the community, introducing 'Sustainable Justice' as a key concept for the coming century. This volume is a critical examination of three key concepts which need to be understood for the management of today's flexible and fluid society, namely Sustainability, Justice and Community. Within this study, we seek to explore both through an analysis built from their original philosophical understandings, through to their contemporary usage and application, ultimately developing new understandings through a combination of the essential thematic notions underpinning these salient concepts.

Supporting Children and Their Families Facing Health Inequities in Canada fills an urgent national need to analyze disparities among vulnerable populations, where socio-economic and cultural factors compromise health and create barriers. Offering solutions and strategies to the prevalent health inequities faced by children, youth, and families in Canada, this book investigates timely issues of social, economic, and cultural significance. Chapters cover a diverse range of socio-economic and cultural factors that contribute to health inequality among the country's most vulnerable youth populations, including mental health challenges, low income, and refugee status. This book shares scientific evidence from thousands of interviews, questionnaires, surveys, and client consultations, while also providing professional insights that offer key information for at-risk families experiencing health inequities. Timely and transformative, this book will serve as an informed and compassionate guide to promote the health and resiliency of vulnerable children, youth, and families across Canada.

Though still a relatively young field, the study of Latin American environmental history is blossoming, as the contributions to this definitive volume demonstrate. Bringing together thirteen leading experts on the region, A Living Past synthesizes a wide range of scholarship to offer new perspectives on environmental change in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean since the nineteenth century. Each chapter provides insightful, up-to-date syntheses of current scholarship on critical countries and ecosystems (including Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, the tropical Andes, and tropical forests) and such cross-cutting themes as agriculture, conservation, mining, ranching, science, and urbanization. Together, these studies provide valuable historical contexts for making sense of contemporary environmental challenges facing the region.

Modern society is beginning to re-examine its whole relationship with animals and the natural world. Until recently issues such as animal welfare and environmental protection were considered the domain of small, idealistic minorities. Now, these issues attract vast numbers of articulate supporters who collectively exercise considerable political muscle. Animals, both wild and domestic, form the primary focus of concern in this often acrimonious debate. Yet why do animals evoke such strong and contradictory emotions in people - and do our western attitudes have anything in common with those of other societies and cultures? Bringing together a range of contributions from distinguished experts in the field, Animals and Society explores the importance of animals in society from social, historical and cross-cultural perspectives.

Lakes, wetlands and coastal regions provide essential services critical to the survival of human, wildlife and, by and large, the ecosystems, which are constantly threatened by anthropogenic activities, environmental degradation and climate change. Marine resources, particularly mangroves and corals, are vulnerable to coastal developments, including coastal reclamation, and human settlements that discharge large quantities of wastes into the seas. Climate change impacts, such as increased salt intrusion and sea level rise, may additionally induce regime shifts detrimental to these delicate ecosystems. And the warmer climate has increased the frequency, duration and intensity of catastrophic coastal disturbances, implicating profound uncertainty to the sustainability of coastal infrastructures and resources essential for human populations.This book is written for students, researchers and practitioners pursuing teaching and research related to sustainable development, and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs). It provides a unique approach on sustainable development, viewed from the perspectives of providing solutions via model simulation, to solve sustainable development issues related to human population growth, and impacts due to climate change. It provides the scientific knowledge and technical skills necessary to achieve valuable insights for mitigating the predicted adverse impacts and for developing sustainable development strategies, incorporating climate and environmental adaptations.

Africa's urban population is growing rapidly, raising numerous environmental concerns. Urban areas are often linked to poverty as well as power and wealth, and hazardous and unhealthy environments as the pace of change stretches local resources. Yet there are a wide range of perspectives and possibilities for political analysis of these rapidly changing environments. Written by a widely respected author, this important book will mark a major new step forward in the study of Africa's urban environments. Using innovative research including fieldwork data, map analysis, place-name study, interviewing and fiction, the book explores environmentalism from a variety of perspectives, acknowledging the clash between Western planning mind-sets pursuing the goal of sustainable development, and the lived realities of residents of often poor, informal settlements. The book will be valuable to advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in geography, urban studies, development studies, environmental studies and African studies.

Africa's urban population is growing rapidly, raising numerous environmental concerns. Urban areas are often linked to poverty as well as power and wealth, and hazardous and unhealthy environments as the pace of change stretches local resources. Yet there are a wide range of perspectives and possibilities for political analysis of these rapidly changing environments. Written by a widely respected author, this important book will mark a major new step forward in the study of Africa's urban environments. Using innovative research including fieldwork data, map analysis, place-name study, interviewing and fiction, the book explores environmentalism from a variety of perspectives, acknowledging the clash between Western planning mind-sets pursuing the goal of sustainable development, and the lived realities of residents of often poor, informal settlements. The book will be valuable to advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses in geography, urban studies, development studies, environmental studies and African studies.

Extractive Relations explores the nature of industrial power and its role in shaping what we understand to be the global mining sector. The authors examine issues at the forefront of contemporary debates: corporate obligations in safeguarding the rights of people displaced by mining, the recognition of community rights and interests in supporting or opposing mining developments, the handling of non-judicial grievances and workability of corporate remedy systems, and the logic of community relations departments in navigating these issues inside and outside of the typical modern mining establishment.The authors develop a unique theoretical approach that highlights the different types and uses of power in these settings. This perspective is supported by the authors' own sustained engagement with the mining sector over many years, drawing on cases from over twenty countries. The analysis of these issues from both 'inside' and 'outside' the sector is a key point of differentiation. For readers seeking to understand how mining companies interpret and interact with the communities and interests around their operations, this book provides invaluable insight and analysis.

The Global Agenda for Social Justice provides accessible insights into some of the world's most pressing social problems and proposes practicable international public policy responses to those problems. Written by a highly respected team of authors brought together by the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), chapters examine topics such as education, violence, discrimination, substance abuse, public health, and environment. The volume provides recommendations for action by governing officials, policy makers, and the public around key issues of social justice. The book will be of interest to scholars, practitioners, advocates, journalists, and students interested in public sociology, the study of social problems, and the pursuit of social justice.

Concepts from justice and ethics can significantly inform energy decision-makers. Benjamin K. Sovacool introduces readers to the injustices and insecurities inherent in the global energy system before presenting an energy justice conceptual framework consisting of availability, affordability, due process, good governance, prudence, intergenerational equity, intragenerational equity, and responsibility. He showcases the application of these principles to eight real-world case studies involving national energy planning in Denmark, the Warm Front program in the United Kingdom, the World Bank's Inspection Panel, the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, Sao Tome e Principe's Natural Resource Fund, solar energy in Bangladesh, climate change adaptation efforts in least developed countries, and the Yasuni-ITT Initiative in Ecuador.

The first comprehensive survey of Chinese environmental history, this book crystallizes a new field of scholarship that studies the creation of distinct environments as a result of the interaction of human social systems with the natural world. Pioneering essays explore new methodologies of historical environmental research, comparisons of China with the West and Japan, and the impact of the early modern ecological transformation on the spread of disease. An indispensable book for those trying to understand the foundations of modern China or the origins of many of contemporary China's most daunting challenges.

The aim of Landscape Ecological Applications in Man-Influenced Areas is not only to expand concept of landscape ecology, but also to apply its principle to man-influenced ecosystems. New dimensions of landscape ecological research in a global change such as urbanization, biodiversity, and land transformation are explored in this book. This book also includes several case studies concerning landscape analysis and evaluation using spatial analysis and landscape modelling for establishing sustainable management strategy in urban and agricultural landscapes. The subtitle of the book suggests the integrative and ubiquitous landscape planning considering harmony of man and nature systems in the socio-economic and cultural background. Such key issues and technology of landscape research will provide implements and guidebook for decision makers and land planners as well as teachers and students at universities.

This book is the first authored overview of resilience in tourism and its relationship to the broader resilience literature. The volume takes a multi-scaled approach to examine resilience at the individual, organisation and destination levels, and with respect to the wider tourism system. It covers the different approaches to understanding resilience (the ecological and engineering approaches) and identifies issues with their understanding and application. The book connects issues of resilience to related key concepts such as vulnerability, adaptation, networks, systems, change and social capital. It is designed to be an upper level undergraduate and postgraduate primer on resilience in a tourism context and will be of interest to tourism researchers in planning, development, geography, impacts, sustainability, disaster management and environmental studies.

This unique study of social harm offers a systematic and critical discussion of the nature of environmental harm from an eco-justice perspective, challenging conventional criminological definitions of environmental harm. The book evaluates three interconnected justice-related approaches to environmental harm: environmental justice (humans), ecological justice (the environment) and species justice (non-human animals). It provides a critical assessment of environmental harm by interrogating key concepts and exploring how activists and social movements engage in the pursuit of justice. It concludes by describing the tensions between the different approaches and the importance of developing an eco-justice framework that to some extent can reconcile these differences. Using empirical evidence built on theoretical foundations with examples and illustrations from many national contexts, `Environmental harm' will be of interest to students and academics in criminology, sociology, law, geography, environmental studies, philosophy and social policy all over the world.

Earth and its inhabitants face an unprecedented crisis--the human-caused destruction of the planet's life support systems. Deteriorating climate bringing super storms, mass forest fires, melting glaciers, droughts, extreme heat and rising seas, a decline in food production, soil loss, water pollution and declining fisheries all threaten the future of life on earth with a looming extinction event not seen for 60 million years. Beginning in the 17th century, we developed a civilization based on radical materialism, exploitation of natural resources and the myth of endless economic growth. For all its technological wonders, this "hypercivilization" has proven unsustainable. This book explores ways we can create an "ecocivilization" compatible with the laws and limits of nature--a new way of living already developing, with new technologies, new forms of social organization and a new story about ourselves and the Earth.

This book develops the concept of feminist technoecologies as a theoretical and methodological tool for examining the co-constitutive relation between technology and ecology, which have typically been considered as distinct objects of studies. In underscoring how their dynamic relationality troubles the location of agency, this book challenges the idea that technology, as the marker of the innovative capacity of the human, either corrupts or saves ecology. The contributions to the volume present feminist approaches that contextualise and historicize such issues as multi-species survival, border control regimes, solar power, bioart, artificial intelligence and air pollution. They insist on the centrality of corporeality, affects, ethics and vulnerability in the materialisation of technoecological relations, and call into question the exceptional status of the figure of (hu)Man. Together they offer critical and creative tools or modes of inquiry for imagining alternative modalities of practicing care and thinking environmental sustainability. As a creative contribution to the growing literature on new configurations of bodies, technologies and environments against the backdrop of ecological degradation, digital technologization, and precarity in late capitalism, Feminist Technoecologies extends the interchanges between feminist materialisms, environmental humanities and feminist technosciences studies, and will be a resource for all those interested in these fields. This book was originally published as a special issue of Australian Feminist Studies.

This book examines social and natural environmental changes in present-day Laos and presents a new research framework for environmental studies from an interdisciplinary point of view. In Laos, after the Lao version of perestroika, Chintanakaan Mai, in 1986, for better or worse, rural development and urbanization have progressed, and people's livelihoods are about to change significantly. Compared to those of the neighboring countries of mainland Southeast Asia, however, many traditional livelihoods such as region-specific/ethnic-specific livelihood complexes, which combined traditional rice farming with a variety of subsistence activities, have been carried over into the present in Laos. The biggest challenge this book presents is to elucidate livelihood strategies of people who cope successfully with both social and environmental changes and to illustrate how to maintain this rich social and natural environment of Laos in the future. The book includes chapters on social, cultural, and natural concerns and on ethnicity, urbanization, and regional development in Laos. All chapters are based on original data from field surveys. These data will greatly contribute not only to local studies in Laos but also to environmental studies in developing countries.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Climate change is the main challenge facing developed countries in the 21st century. To what extent does this agenda converge with issues of poverty and social exclusion? Climate change and poverty offers a timely new perspective on the 'ecosocial' understanding of the causes and symptoms of, and solutions to, poverty and applies this to recent developments across a number of areas, including fuel poverty, food poverty, housing, transport and air pollution. Unlike any other publication, the book therefore establishes a new agenda for both environmental and social policies which has cross-national relevance. It will appeal to students in social policy, public policy, applied social studies and politics and will also be of interest to those studying international development, economics and geography

Climate change is the main challenge facing developed countries in the 21st century. To what extent does this agenda converge with issues of poverty and social exclusion? Climate change and poverty offers a timely new perspective on the 'ecosocial' understanding of the causes and symptoms of, and solutions to, poverty and applies this to recent developments across a number of areas, including fuel poverty, food poverty, housing, transport and air pollution. Unlike any other publication, the book therefore establishes a new agenda for both environmental and social policies which has cross-national relevance. It will appeal to students in social policy, public policy, applied social studies and politics and will also be of interest to those studying international development, economics and geography

This new volume of Chinese Research Perspectives on the Environment (formerly the China Environment Yearbook) includes selected articles from the 2013 annual environmental report compiled by Friends of Nature, a leading environmental protection NGO in China, with contributions from academics, environmental protection activists, public service activists, and the media. In this volume, readers are brought up to date on the main environmental issues and events of 2012, including environmental health, dams and cross-border water issues, a rise in environmental awareness and public action in China, sustainable consumption, and heavy metal pollution. Air pollution control has continued to attract attention from the public, media, academics, and government. This volume also discusses the controversy of the revision of the Environmental Protection Law. Like other volumes in the Chinese Research Perspectives on the Environment series, this one aims to record, evaluate, and reflect on China's current environmental conditions.

This timely and accessible book explores the links between politics, learning and sustainability. Its central focus is the future of people and the planet itself. The challenges that we face in combatting climate change and building a more sustainable world are complex and the book argues that if we are to successfully meet these challenges we need a fundamental change in the way we do politics and economics, embedding a lifelong commitment to sustainability in all learning. We have no option but to make things work for the better. After all, planet earth is the only home we have! The book will be important reading for academics and students in a variety of related subjects, including politics, public policy, education, sustainable development, geography, media, international relations and development studies. It will also be a valuable resource for NGOs and policy makers.

Ecological Restoration and Management of Longleaf Pine Forests is a timely synthesis of the current understanding of the natural dynamics and processes in longleaf pine ecosystems. This book beautifully illustrates how incorporation of basic ecosystem knowledge and an understanding of socioeconomic realities shed new light on established paradigms and their application for restoration and management. Unique for its holistic ecological focus, rather than a more traditional silvicultural approach, the book highlights the importance of multi-faceted actions that robustly integrate forest and wildlife conservation at landscape scales, and merge ecological with socioeconomic objectives for effective conservation of the longleaf pine ecosystem.

The Achuar Indians of the Upper Amazon have developed sophisticated strategies of resource management. The author documents their knowledge of the environment, and explains how it is interwoven with cosmological ideas that endow nature with the characteristics of society.