This book presents new research on the geomorphological impacts of extreme precipitation events. It focuses on the extreme summer floods, which affected Central and Eastern Europe in 2010. Case studies on their consequences, including inundations, urban flooding, soil erosion, river bank retreat, alluvial fan accumulation, evolution of karst depressions, debris flows, landslides and soil saturation are presented for Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Macedonia. This key applied geomorphology book is crucial for anyone interested in these processes and their consequences and also for decision makers who face these catastrophes.

This book provides an integrated approach to the assessment of seismic hazards. The reduction of losses expected by future earthquakes is probably the most important contribution of seismology to society. Large earthquakes occurred in densely populated areas highlight the dramatic inadequacy of a massive portion of the buildings demonstrating the high risks of modern industrial societies. Building earthquake-resistant structures and retrofitting old buildings on a national scale can be extremely expensive and can represent an economic challenge even for developed western countries. Earthquakes can cause also several psychological problems due to the fact that such kind of disasters will result in casualties, collapsing of houses, strategic buildings and facilities and deeply affect a community. Moreover in our society it is necessary to properly plan emergency responses and rescues taking into account any possible secondary effect in order to avoid more casualties.

Namibia is a vast, ancient place, its legacy an endless expanse of desert sand fringed by coastal plain and rugged mountain terrain and dotted with geological wonders that remain the country’s most impressive features.

Intrigued by the scenic splendour and entranced by the ever-changing landscape that emerges beyond every corner, every towering dune and every mountaintop, Lily and Marcel Jouve travelled the length and breadth of the country to discover the varying facets of the land and its geology. In Secret Namibia, they share their exploration of the terrain, and reveal its secrets – from the geomorphological make-up to the best routes to follow and the finest places to stay.

From the famed Spitzkoppe to Kaokoland, Etosha National Park to the Fish River Canyon, Sossusvlei to Sandwich Harbour, this is Namibia through their lens, their celebration of its rock and sand, valley, canyon and plain – and the unique flora and fauna found in these landscapes. Secret Namibia is an invitation to discover, through word and image, the intriguing natural features of this wild country.

Australia has one of the longest, most diverse and pristine coastlines in the world. From the oldest rocks on the planet to those that are still evolving, the Australian coast is a dynamic, ever-changing suite of dramatic landforms and productive ecosystems. From iconic beaches such as Bondi and long unbroken sands of the Coorong to the endless curtain of the Nullarbor cliffs along the Great Australian Bight, this illuminating book explores these magnificent landforms, revealing how they formed and continue to change. It details the various coastal systems that operate, including beaches, dunes, estuaries, deltas, rocky coast and coral reefs. Written by two of Australia's leading coastal experts, Andrew Short and Colin Woodroffe, The Coast of Australia provides the first comprehensive account of the Australian coast. Covering 36,000 km of shoreline, The Coast of Australia is an engaging exploration of this massive, largely undeveloped and highly variable coastline.

First published in 1987, Maritime Boundaries and Ocean Resources is a collection of essays which examines the political jurisdiction of ocean boundaries and the affects that this has on the world's oceans. It examines how the intensification of ocean use has raised questions of how rational planning, and the management of the oceans can avoid increasingly environmental damage and sea use conflict and examines the ocean as a tool for space, trade and communication. It also addresses the creation of integrated regional planning for ocean management.

Soil Degradation in the United States: Extent, Severity, and Trends examines the magnitude and severity of soil degradation by different processes in the U.S., including water erosion, wind erosion, C depletion, soil compaction, salt build-up, and soil contamination. In addition, it addresses policy issues with regard to economic and environmental impact, land use change, and global trends. It covers past trends and future projections regarding soil degradation. The book provides a ready reference and data source for soil scientists and researchers, agronomists, environmentalists, land use planners, land managers, and policy makers.

Permafrost Hydrology systematically elucidates the roles of seasonally and perennially frozen ground on the distribution, storage and flow of water. Cold regions of the World are subject to mounting development which significantly affects the physical environment. Climate change, natural or human-induced, reinforces the impacts. Knowledge of surface and ground water processes operating in permafrost terrain is fundamental to planning, management and conservation. This book is an indispensable reference for libraries and researchers, an information source for practitioners, and a valuable text for training the next generations of cold region scientists and engineers.

Historically Black colleges and universities play a vital role in the education of African Americans in the United States. For nearly 150 years, these institutions have trained the leadership of the Black community, graduating the nation's African American teachers, doctors, lawyers, and scientists. Despite the wealth of new research on Black colleges, there are topics that remain untouched and accomplishments that go unnoticed by the scholarly community. The chapters in this edited volume focus on topics that deserve further attention and that will push students, scholars, policymakers, and Black college administrators to reexamine their perspectives on and perceptions of Black colleges.

This well-illustrated book aims to enhance observations and understanding of structural features and proximity-indicator minerals, critical in exploration. The book provides a unique blending of different content on observational and critical aspects of data acquisition, geological, structural, tectonic set-up, mineral deposit types, geophysical framework, and proximity indicator minerals. Combining these topics led to a comprehensive understanding to facilitate mineral targeting and exploration in green- and brown-field terrains. Besides field photographs, the write-up is lavishly supplemented with relevant geological and geophysical maps, tables, and case stories in field geology, making it useful for a much larger section of the geoscientific community professional geologists and geophysicists, students, teachers, and also decision-makers in geo-surveys and exploration.

North-East India, comprising the seven contiguous states around Assam, the principal state of the region, is a relatively unknown, yet very fascinating region. The forest clad peripheral mountains, home to indigenous peoples like the Nagas, Mizos and the Khasis, the densely populated Brahmaputra valley with its lush green tea gardens and the golden rice fields, the moderately populated hill regions and plateaus, and the sparsely inhabited Himalayas, form a unique mosaic of natural and cultural landscapes and human interactions, with unparalleled diversity. The book provides a glimpse into the region's past and gives a comprehensive picture of its physical environment, people, resources and its economy. The physical environment takes into account not only the structural base of the region, its physical characteristics and natural vegetation but also offers an impression of the region's biodiversity and the measures undertaken to preserve it. The people of the region, especially the indigenous population, inhabiting contrasting environments and speaking a variety of regional and local dialects, have received special attention, bringing into focus the role of migration that has influenced the traditional societies, for centuries. The book acquaints the readers with spatial distribution, life style and culture of the indigenous people, outlining the unique features of each tribe. The economy of the region, depending originally on primitive farming and cottage industries, like silkworm rearing, but now greatly transformed with the emergence of modern industries, power resources and expanding trade, is reviewed based on authentic data and actual field observations. The epilogue, the last chapter in the book, summarizes the authors' perception of the region and its future.

Originally published in 1984. This major text covers the whole discipline of geomorphology, presenting a clear and comprehensive overview of the field, drawing on the full range of modern research. Landforms and their formative processes are treated on a broad spectrum of spatial scales, and examples are drawn from the major geological, climatic and biotic environments. The book is divided conveniently into some 170 clearly defined sections to allow readers to make the most efficient use of those parts of the text relevant to their particular needs. After introducing the basic concepts such as systems analysis, morphologic and cascading systems, the historical-evolutionary approach and process-response geomorphology, the book moves on to the geological background to geomorphology and then the extensive third part deals with the geomorphic processes and responding landforms. Part four examines climatic geomorphology and the appendix touches on applied geomorphology, especially fluvial processes.

The Bhagirathi-Hooghly Basin in India is one of the most densely populated regions in the world and is undergoing rapid transformation of its natural landscape induced by human interventions, such as mushrooming of dams and barrages, deforestation, and urbanization. Human activities and interventions on basin landforms and the processes that shape those landforms have accelerated at an alarming rate. This book uses spatio-temporal analysis to understand the major anthropogenic signatures on land use and land cover changes and the impact these activities have on the landforms and processes of the Bhagirathi-Hooghly River and its sub-basins. It answers the what, where, why, and how of the anthropogenic signatures involved. Recent case studies on the impact of anthropogenic signatures on fluvial forms and processes make this book a useful resource for students and researchers in the earth sciences, local governments, urban planners, and all concerned with rural developments. Features: Explores for the first time the new concept of anthropogeomorphology for the river basin-an emerging field Analyses the impact of anthropogenic activities, especially the construction of dams and reservoirs, and urbanization on major fluvial landscapes using advanced geospatial modelling techniques Investigates human interference in river systems, their effects on the dynamics of the river, and the livelihoods of the people residing along the river Addresses issues related to geology, geomorphology, geography, planning, land use, and land management areas Fills the need for data-driven governance and policy decisions for the future of urban-industrial growth in India.

Originally published in this form in 1971, the content of this book was originally part of a larger composite volume 'Water, Earth and Man' (1969) which provided a synthesis of hydrology, geomorphology and socio-economic geography. This volume brings together the systematic theme of geomorphology while maintaining a link with the original book which emphasised the benefit of the study of water being considered in the widest sense within the physical and social environments.

Originally published in 1972. This book covers from 'linear' statistical methods, regression and variance analysis to multivariate methods to wider spatial analytic techniques, in which a clear association is maintained between quantitative data and the spatial coordinates which locate them. The purpose of this volume is to highlight this coherent area of scholarship under the general headings of spatial point systems, networks, continuous distributions, partitioning and simulation. Seventeen authors from Britain and the United States have been brought together to produce a book whose attention is on the body of spatial techniques necessary to enable the building of dynamic spatial models of landforms which formed the keystone of much geomorphic work in future years.

The book summarizes the results of the experimental studies of phase relations in the chemical systems relevant to Earth, carried out by the author in a time period of over 20 years between 1979 and 2001. It is based on 1000 piston-cylinder experiments at pressures up to 4 GPa, and close to 700 experiments carried out with a multi-anvil apparatus at pressures up to 24 GPA. This is the largest published collection of calculated phase diagrams for the chemical systems relevant to Earth. This is also the first time that the phase relations at the relatively low pressures of the lithospheric mantle, mainly applicable to the experimental thermobarometry of metamorphic rocks and mantle xenoliths, are seamlessly integrated with the phase relations of the sublithospheric upper mantle and the uppermost lower mantle, primarily applicable to inclusions in diamond and schocked meteorites. "Tibor Gasparik has devoted his career to determining the high-pressure, high-temperature phase relations of the geologically important Sodium-Calcium-Magnesium-Aluminium-Silicon (NCMAS) oxide system. This book is his opus magnum, summarizing more than 1700 experiments in over 120 figures. ... I have found Phase Diagrams for Geoscientists to be a useful first port-of-call for finding the P-T stability fields ... and I can recommend the book as a reference for geoscientists requiring an overview of the stable phase assemblages in the top 700 km of the Earth." (David Dobson, Geological Magazine, Vol. 142 (2), 2005)

This book provides a general survey of Geocryology, which is the study of frozen ground called permafrost. Frozen ground is the product of cold climates as well as a variety of environmental factors. Its major characteristic is the accumulation of large quantities of ice which may exceed 90% by volume. Soil water changing to ice results in ground heaving, while thawing of this ice produces ground subsidence often accompanied by soil flowage. Permafrost is very susceptible to changes in weather and climate as well as to changes in the microenvironment. Cold weather produces contraction of the ground, resulting in cracking of the soil as well as breakup of concrete, rock, etc. Thus permafrost regions have unique landforms and processes not found in warmer lands. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 provides an introduction to the characteristics of permafrost. Four chapters deal with its definition and characteristics, the unique processes operating there, the factors affecting it, and its general distribution. Part 2 consists of seven chapters describing the characteristic landforms unique to these areas and the processes involved in their formation. Part 3 discusses the special problems encountered by engineers in construction projects including settlements, roads and railways, the oil and gas industry, mining, and the agricultural and forest industries. The three authors represent three countries and three language groups, and together have over 120 years of experience of working in permafrost areas throughout the world. The book contains over 300 illustrations and photographs, and includes an extensive bibliography in order to introduce the interested reader to the large current literature. Finalist of the 2019 PROSE Awards.

Soils and sediments influence current processes, preserve evidence of past processes, indicate evolutionary phases in landscapes and provide a basis for relative and absolute chronologies. They provide an important key to the integration of short-term process studies and investigation of longer-term landform evolution. This book, first published in 1985, has been arranged to provide wide temporal and spatial coverage, with studies ranging from historic to geologic time scales and micro- to macro-spatial scales. The interdisciplinary nature of the subject is reflected in contributions from soil scientists, engineering geologists, hydrologists and geomorphologists.

This book, first published in 1980, is a timely and comprehensive appraisal of thresholds in geomorphology. The papers, arising from the 9th Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium, form the cornerstone of a subject that is increasingly important in geomorphology. This book analyses the historical background to thresholds and geomorphology, as well as fluvial landforms, hydrogeologic regimes and other processes, and the impact of man.

This book, first published in 1989, the proceedings of the 19th Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium, is the first set of essays focused on the history of the subject. The articles analyse the founding precepts of geomorphology, the early pioneers, the formation of a defined discipline, and the present state of the topic.

This book, first published in 1985, is a comprehensive guide to the main ideas in the history of geomorphology. It traces the development of thinking on landforms, with material ranging from the ancient world to the present day. The main areas covered are the Renaissance, the explosive growth of the Natural Sciences in the nineteenth century and the impact of the Second World War. The papers and theories of specialists like James Hutton, John Playfair and W.M. Davies are presented and discussed and the final chapters reflect on future change, based on the past and speculation on possible developments. Balance is maintained between the dual importance and dominance of English and North American contributions to the subject, and quite substantial research was undertaken to provide a more complete approach to some areas hitherto neglected.

This book, first published in 1986, stems from the 1986 Binghamton Geomorphology Symposium. The topic was chosen because of the advances in the study of aeolian processes and landforms, particularly in the area of desertification, and the papers collected here clearly indicate that their study is not constrained by discipline boundaries but are of interest to geologists, physical geographers, soil scientists, meteorologists and engineers.

This unique treatment of geomorphology, first published in 1986, provides a comprehensive work to enable students to see the subject as a whole. Taking the concepts that run through the subject and cut across its standard divisions, the book summarises the history of intellectual debate in geomorphology and then describes modern developments, both pure and applied.

Time is a central feature of geomorphological research, and is used in this book (first published in 1977) to provide a conceptual framework within which to consider and compare old and new approaches to the field of geomorphology. The emphasis is on providing not merely a manual of current research but an introduction to isolate ideas and concepts, stimulate critical discussion and examine some of the problems that are involved in dealing with data.

In this re-evaluation of the basic postulates of geomorphology, first published in 1982, Alistair Pitty examines the subject within its scientific context, arguing that coherence in geomorphology can be demonstrated despite the many apparent divergences, which should themselves be regarded as poles within a spectrum of opinion. Not least, the particularly geological and geographical aspects of geomorphology are carefully identified and explained within this coherence.

This book, first published in 1980, collects together thirteen articles on 'Geomorphology in Arid Regions'. It uses the term 'arid' loosely to include studies from climes which might otherwise be considered semi-arid, in order to provide a diversity of papers dealing with important problems of interest to geomorphologists today.