Problems in nonlinear structural dynamics and critical excitation with elastic-plastic structures are typically addressed using time-history response analysis, which requires multiple repetitions and advanced computing. This alternative approach transforms ground motion into impulses and takes an energy balance approach. This book is accessible to undergraduates, being based on the energy balance law and the concepts of kinetic and strain energies, and it can be used by practitioners for building and structural design. This presentation starts with simple models that explain the essential features and extends in a step-by-step manner to more complicated models and phenomena.

This book is devoted to the Anthropocene, the period of unprecedented human impacts on Earth's environmental systems, and illustrates how Geographers envision the concept of the Anthropocene. This edited volume illustrates that geographers have a diverse perspective on what the Anthropocene is and represents. The chapters also show that geographers do not feel it necessary to identify only one starting point for the temporal onset of the Anthropocene. Several starting points are suggested, and some authors support the concept of a time-transgressive Anthropocene. Chapters in this book are organized into six sections, but many of them transcend easy categorization and could have fit into two or even three different sections. Geographers embrace the concept of the Anthropocene while defining it and studying it in a variety of ways that clearly show the breadth and diversity of the discipline. This book will be of great value to scholars, researchers, and students interested in geography, environmental humanities, environmental studies, and anthropology. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

This hands-on introduction to numerical geodynamic modelling provides a solid grounding in the necessary mathematical theory and techniques, including continuum mechanics and partial differential equations, before introducing key numerical modelling methods and applications. Fully updated, this second edition includes four completely new chapters covering the most recent advances in modelling inertial processes, seismic cycles and fluid-solid interactions, and the development of adaptive mesh refinement algorithms. Many well-documented, state-of-the-art visco-elasto-plastic 2D models are presented, which allow robust modelling of key geodynamic processes. Requiring only minimal prerequisite mathematical training, and featuring over sixty practical exercises and ninety MATLAB (R) examples, this user-friendly resource encourages experimentation with geodynamic models. It is an ideal introduction for advanced courses and can be used as a self-study aid for graduates seeking to master geodynamic modelling for their own research projects.

Geopressure, or pore pressure in subsurface rock formations impacts hydrocarbon resource estimation, drilling, and drilling safety in operations. This book provides a comprehensive overview of geopressure analysis bringing together rock physics, seismic technology, quantitative basin modeling and geomechanics. It provides a fundamental physical and geological basis for understanding geopressure by explaining the coupled mechanical and thermal processes. It also brings together state-of-the-art tools and technologies for analysis and detection of geopressure, along with the associated uncertainty. Prediction and detection of shallow geohazards and gas hydrates is also discussed and field examples are used to illustrate how models can be practically applied. With supplementary MATLAB (R) codes and exercises available online, this is an ideal resource for students, researchers and industry professionals in geoscience and petroleum engineering looking to understand and analyse subsurface formation pressure.

Uncertainty in Policy Making explores how uncertainty is interpreted and used by policy makers, experts and politicians. It argues that conventional notions of rational, evidence-based policy making - hailed by governments and organisations across the world as the only way to make good policy - is an impossible aim in highly complex and uncertain environments; the blind pursuit of such a 'rational' goal is in fact irrational in a world of competing values and interests. The book centres around two high-profile and important case studies: the Iraq war and climate change policy in the US, UK and Australia. Based on three years' research, including interviews with experts such as Hans Blix, Paul Pillar, and Brian Jones, these two case studies show that the treatment of uncertainty issues in specialist advice is largely determined by how well the advice fits with or contradicts the policy goals and orientation of the policy elite. Instead of allowing the debates to be side-tracked by arguments over whose science or expert advice is 'more right', we must accept that uncertainty in complex issues is unavoidable and recognise the values and interests that lie at the heart of the issues. The book offers a 'hedging' approach which will enable policy makers to manage rather than eliminate uncertainty.

This book provides theoretical concepts and applications of fractals and multifractals to a broad range of audiences from various scientific communities, such as petroleum, chemical, civil and environmental engineering, atmospheric research, and hydrology. In the first chapter, we introduce fractals and multifractals from physics and math viewpoints. We then discuss theory and practical applications in detail. In what follows, in chapter 2, fragmentation process is modeled using fractals. Fragmentation is the breaking of aggregates into smaller pieces or fragments, a typical phenomenon in nature. In chapter 3, the advantages and disadvantages of two- and three-phase fractal models are discussed in detail. These two kinds of approach have been widely applied in the literature to model different characteristics of natural phenomena. In chapter 4, two- and three-phase fractal techniques are used to develop capillary pressure curve models, which characterize pore-size distribution of porous media. Percolation theory provides a theoretical framework to model flow and transport in disordered networks and systems. Therefore, following chapter 4, in chapter 5 the fractal basis of percolation theory and its applications in surface and subsurface hydrology are discussed. In chapter 6, fracture networks are shown to be modeled using fractal approaches. Chapter 7 provides different applications of fractals and multifractals to petrophysics and relevant area in petroleum engineering. In chapter 8, we introduce the practical advantages of fractals and multifractals in geostatistics at large scales, which have broad applications in stochastic hydrology and hydrogeology. Multifractals have been also widely applied to model atmospheric characteristics, such as precipitation, temperature, and cloud shape. In chapter 9, these kinds of properties are addressed using multifractals. At watershed scales, river networks have been shown to follow fractal behavior. Therefore, the applications of fractals are addressed in chapter 10. Time series analysis has been under investigations for several decades in physics, hydrology, atmospheric research, civil engineering, and water resources. In chapter 11, we therefore, provide fractal, multifractal, multifractal detrended fluctuation analyses, which can be used to study temporal characterization of a phenomenon, such as flow discharge at a specific location of a river. Chapter 12 addresses signals and again time series using a novel fractal Fourier analysis. In chapter 13, we discuss constructal theory, which has a perspective opposite to fractal theories, and is based on optimizationof diffusive exchange. In the case of river drainages, for example, the constructal approach begins at the divide and generates headwater streams first, rather than starting from the fundamental drainage pattern.

This first full-length book addresses disasters in the context of vulnerability of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands that comprise 572 islands in the Bay of Bengal. It looks at the disasters that the islands have experienced in the last 200 years and analyzes major disasters since colonization by the British. Raising some critical questions, this book attempts to understand the overall profile of disasters - the facts, causes, damage, response and recovery - in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. It discusses earthquakes, cyclones, tsunami and epidemics, as well as impacts of World War II, the penal colony and the post-Independence resettlement on the tribal population. The work will serve as a rich resource with its detailed tables, figures, maps and diagrams; appendices; and database ranging from travelogues, Census of India reports and fieldwork to Right to Information (RTI) petitions that collect hitherto unknown facts. The book will be useful to students of geography, disasters and disasters management, climate and environmental studies, history, sociology, island and ocean studies, and South Asian studies.

The book comprises two parts: Pressure and Flow Well Testing (Part I) and Temperature Well Testing (Part II), and contains numerous authors' developments. Due to the similarity in Darcy's and Fourier's laws the same differential diffusivity equation describes the transient flow of incompressible fluid in porous medium and heat conduction in solids. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that the techniques and data processing procedures of pressure well tests can be applied to temperature well tests. The book presents new methods to determine the formation of permeability and skin factors from tests conducted in simulated wells, designing interference well tests, processing constant bottom-hole pressure tests, estimation of the formation temperature and geothermal gradients from temperature surveys and logs, in-situ determination of the formation thermal conductivity and contact thermal resistance of boreholes, temperature regime of boreholes (cementing of production liners), and the recovery of thermal equilibrium in deep and superdeep wells. Processing and analysis of pressure and geothermal data are shown on numerous field examples from different regions of the world. The book is intended for students, engineers, and researchers in the field of hydrocarbon geophysics and geology, groundwater searching and exploitation, and subsurface environment examination. It will be also useful for specialists studying pressure and temperature in parametric deep and superdeep wells.

This book provides an in-depth discussion of various aspects of metal ecotoxicology. State-of-the-art information and techniques in areas ranging from metal behavior in surface waters to bioaccumulation kinetics and toxicokinetics to community effects are presented in a hierarchical arrangement. Specific topics discussed include metals in abiotic components of ecosystems, autecology (effects of metals relative to the individual or a single species), and metals in marine and freshwater systems in the context of synecology (species associated and interacting as a unit). This is an important book that will be useful to researchers, risk assessment consultants, regulatory personnel, and teachers and students.

Small Island Developing States are often depicted as being among the most vulnerable of all places to the effects of climate change, and they are a cause celebre of many involved in climate science, politics and the media. Yet while small island developing states are much talked about, the production of both scientific knowledge and policies to protect the rights of these nations and their people has been remarkably slow. This book is the first to apply a critical approach to climate change science and policy processes in the South Pacific region. It shows how groups within politically and scientifically powerful countries appropriate the issue of island vulnerability in ways that do not do justice to the lives of island people. It argues that the ways in which islands and their inhabitants are represented in climate science and politics seldom leads to meaningful responses to assist them to adapt to climate change. Throughout, the authors focus on the hitherto largely ignored social impacts of climate change, and demonstrate that adaptation and mitigation policies cannot be effective without understanding the social systems and values of island societies.

Chemical substances, physical agents and built structures bear various types of hazard due to their immanent toxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, reprotoxic and sensitizing character or being destructive for the immune and hormone system. The first step in managing the environment contaminated by chemical substances is to characterize the hazard and quantify their risk manifested when the chemical substances interact with the environment. Chemical models - using only chemical analytical data - are still the most widespread ones for the assessment of adverse effects and the fate and behavior of chemicals in the environment. The chemical models rely on the assumption that the adverse effect is proportional to the concentration, which does not apply in most cases. Other models, such as biological and ecological ones or the regression models are discussed in detail and compared to each other. Environmental risk management has two compartments: risk assessment and risk reduction. Environmental risk comes to a large extent from adverse effects of chemicals and contaminated land; that is why measuring and testing these adverse effects play a key role in risk management.Environmental Toxicology deals with direct measurement of adverse effects of pure chemicals or environmental samples. This book overviews hundreds of standardized and non-standardized, generic and site-specific, conventional and innovative, animal and alternative test methods and demonstrates the utilization of their results for the purposes of regulation and managing environmental risk. The volume gives a general overview on environmental toxicology adapted for engineers. In addition to human, aquatic and terrestrial toxicity measuring methods, new trends in environmental analytics and the integration and complementary use of chemical analyses and the testing of effects are described. Bioavailability and accessibility as key parameters are detailed and the interactive and dynamic testing for their characterization is introduced. Great emphasis is placed on the evaluation and interpretation of environmental fate and adverse effect data as well as the simulation of environmental processes and effects in microcosms and mesocosms.

Drawing on theory from anthropology, sociology, organisation studies and philosophy, this book addresses how the perception, communication and management of risk is shaped by culturally informed and socially embedded knowledge and experience. It provides an account of how interpretations of risk in society are conditioned by knowledge claims and cultural assumptions and by the orientationof actors based on roles, norms, expectations, identities, trust and practical rationality within a lived social world. By focusing on agency, social complexity and the production and interpretation of meaning, the book offers a comprehensive and holistic theoretical perspective on risk, based on empirical case studies and ethnographic enquiry. As a selection of Asa Boholm's publications throughout her career, along with a newly written introduction overviewing the field, this book provides a unified perspective on risk as a construct shaped by social and cultural contexts.This collection should be of interest to students and scholars of risk communication, risk management, environmental planning, environmental management and environmental and applied anthropology.

In Animals as Biotechnology sociologist Richard Twine places the question of human/animal relations at the heart of sustainability and climate change debates. The book is shaped by the emergence of two contradictory trends within our approach to nonhuman animals: the biotechnological turn in animal sciences, which aims to increase the efficiency and profitability of meat and dairy production; and the emerging field of critical animal studies - mostly in the humanities and social sciences - which works to question the nature of our relations with other animals. The first part of the book focuses on ethics, examining critically the dominant paradigms of bioethics and power relations between human and non-human. The second part considers animal biotechnology and political economy, examining commercialisation and regulation. The final part of the book centres on discussions of sustainability, limits and an examination of the prospects for animal ethics if biotechnology becomes part of the dominant agricultural paradigm. Twine concludes by considering whether growing calls to reduce our consumption of meat/dairy products in the face of climate change threats are in fact complicit with an anthropocentric understanding of sustainability and that what is needed is a more fundamental ethical and political questioning of relations and distinctions between humans, animals and nature.

Waste Management Policies and Practices in BRICS Nations explores recent developments in waste management. BRICS nations are the emerging economies of the world. Increasing populations, urbanization, industrialization and uses of chemical fertilizer and pesticide in agriculture for enhanced productivity of food, especially in India and China, to support the large populations harm the natural environment. The rise in the living standards of the human population has increased environmental pollution manifold, resulting in the huge generation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste simultaneously, which has contaminated natural resources such as soil, water and air. It has led to undesirable effects on the environment and human health. The book offers comprehensive coverage of the most essential topics, including: Waste management problems with special reference to MSW in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa Solid waste management in BRICS nations Hazardous waste management in BRICS nations Policies and laws in BRICS nations This book contains both policies and methods used for the management of waste in BRICS nations. The chapters incorporate both policies and practical aspects.

This reference encompasses the fields of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism in a single volume. Both sciences have applications in navigation, in the search for minerals and hydrocarbons, in dating rock sequences, and in unraveling past geologic movements such as plate motions they have contributed to a better understanding of the Earth. The book describes in fine detail the current state of knowledge and provides an up-to-date synthesis of the most basic concepts. It is an indispensable working tool not only for geophysicists and geophysics students but also for geologists, physicists, atmospheric and environmental scientists, and engineers.

Drawing on theory from anthropology, sociology, organisation studies and philosophy, this book addresses how the perception, communication and management of risk is shaped by culturally informed and socially embedded knowledge and experience. It provides an account of how interpretations of risk in society are conditioned by knowledge claims and cultural assumptions and by the orientationof actors based on roles, norms, expectations, identities, trust and practical rationality within a lived social world. By focusing on agency, social complexity and the production and interpretation of meaning, the book offers a comprehensive and holistic theoretical perspective on risk, based on empirical case studies and ethnographic enquiry. As a selection of Asa Boholm's publications throughout her career, along with a newly written introduction overviewing the field, this book provides a unified perspective on risk as a construct shaped by social and cultural contexts.This collection should be of interest to students and scholars of risk communication, risk management, environmental planning, environmental management and environmental and applied anthropology.

Groundwater is becoming increasingly scarce while the demand for water continues to grow at a global scale. Understanding groundwater resources and their sustainable management is imperative for the future of groundwater use, conservation and protection. This revised and updated two-volume set, focused on sustainability, covers the economic values of groundwater production and use, including micro- and macroeconomic factors, groundwater markets, economic evaluation tools, climate change, transboundary issues and policy evaluation. It explores numerous applications and describes ways to evaluate the economics of groundwater use in the context of the larger ecosystem and the natural capital it provides. FEATURES OF THIS VOLUME Includes an important new chapter on groundwater sustainability management Addresses new examples of groundwater use that are applicable at both the local and international levels Provides the foundation for policy, program and project analysis for all major uses of groundwater Updates groundwater use data along with explanations of major production costs and use benefits Gives a new perspective on users' competition for the subsurface environment Production, Use, and Sustainability of Groundwater, Second Edition, the first volume of the two-volume set Groundwater Economics, is a must-have for any professional or student who needs to understand, evaluate and manage water resources from a range of production and use perspectives affecting groundwater resource sustainability.

Groundwater is a vitally important resource and as its use increases, the available supply is depleted, creating a ripple effect of impacts on both the environment and the economy that need to be disseminated to a larger audience of students and practitioners. This second edition of Groundwater Economics accomplishes just that. This two-volume set is a comprehensive work focused on the economic values of groundwater resources and use, and it reinforces the need for a strong economic rationale in decision-making relating to that use. This new edition includes a new chapter on sustainability as well as updating all chapters with a focus on sustainability. It thoroughly explains the economic value of groundwater for sustainable use and needs, with practical examples, and includes thirteen new and updated case studies on the economics of groundwater data for decision-making. It also addresses both local and regional groundwater economic choices through a series of applications at an international level. This set, written by a sustainability professional with decades of experience in managing groundwater use and protection, is written for other professionals as well as students, who need to understand and evaluate water resources and mange their use from a variety of sustainable approaches.

Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Infrastructures: Challenges and Opportunities reveals how environmental research infrastructures (RIs) provide new valuable insights on ecological processes that cannot be realized by more traditional short-term funding cycles and are integral to understand our changing world. This book bonds the latest state-of-the-science knowledge on environmental RIs, the challenges in creating them, their place in addressing scientific frontiers, and the new perspectives they bear. Each chapter is thoughtfully invested with fresh viewpoints from the environmental RI vantage as the authors explore and explain many topics such as the rationale and challenges in global change, field and modeling platforms, new tools, challenges in data management, distilling information into knowledge, and new developments in large-scale RIs. This work serves an advantageous guide for academics and practitioners alike who aim to deepen their knowledge in the field of science and project management, and logistics operations.

Time-series analysis is used to identify and quantify periodic features in datasets and has many applications across the geosciences, from analysing weather data, to solid-Earth geophysical modelling. This intuitive introduction provides a practical 'how-to' guide to basic Fourier theory, with a particular focus on Earth system applications. The book starts with a discussion of statistical correlation, before introducing Fourier series and building to the fast Fourier transform (FFT) and related periodogram techniques. The theory is illustrated with numerous worked examples using R datasets, from Milankovitch orbital-forcing cycles to tidal harmonics and exoplanet orbital periods. These examples highlight the key concepts and encourage readers to investigate more advanced time-series techniques. The book concludes with a consideration of statistical effect size and significance. This useful book is ideal for graduate students and researchers in the Earth system sciences who are looking for an accessible introduction to time-series analysis.

Absolute Risk: Methods and Applications in Clinical Management and Public Health provides theory and examples to demonstrate the importance of absolute risk in counseling patients, devising public health strategies, and clinical management. The book provides sufficient technical detail to allow statisticians, epidemiologists, and clinicians to build, test, and apply models of absolute risk. Features: Provides theoretical basis for modeling absolute risk, including competing risks and cause-specific and cumulative incidence regression Discusses various sampling designs for estimating absolute risk and criteria to evaluate models Provides details on statistical inference for the various sampling designs Discusses criteria for evaluating risk models and comparing risk models, including both general criteria and problem-specific expected losses in well-defined clinical and public health applications Describes many applications encompassing both disease prevention and prognosis, and ranging from counseling individual patients, to clinical decision making, to assessing the impact of risk-based public health strategies Discusses model updating, family-based designs, dynamic projections, and other topics Ruth M. Pfeiffer is a mathematical statistician and Fellow of the American Statistical Association, with interests in risk modeling, dimension reduction, and applications in epidemiology. She developed absolute risk models for breast cancer, colon cancer, melanoma, and second primary thyroid cancer following a childhood cancer diagnosis. Mitchell H. Gail developed the widely used "Gail model" for projecting the absolute risk of invasive breast cancer. He is a medical statistician with interests in statistical methods and applications in epidemiology and molecular medicine. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and former President of the American Statistical Association. Both are Senior Investigators in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health.

Ring lasers are commonly used as gyroscopes for aircraft navigation and attitude control. The largest ring lasers are sensitive enough that they can be used for high resolution inertial rotation sensing of the Earth in order to detect tiny perturbations to the Earth's rotation caused by earthquakes or global mass transport. This book describes the latest advances in the development of large ring lasers for applications in geodesy and geophysics using the most sensitive and stable devices available. Chapters cover our current knowledge of the physics of the laser gyroscope, how to acquire and analyse data from ring lasers, and what the potential applications are in the geosciences. It is a valuable reference for those working with ring lasers or using the data for applications in geodesy and geophysics; as well as researchers in laser physics, photonics and navigation.

This volume is a major revision and expansion of Taylor's seminal book Radiocarbon Dating: An Archaeological Perspective. It covers the major advances and accomplishments of the 14C method in archaeology and analyzes factors that affect the accuracy and precision of 14C-based age estimates. In addition to reviewing the basic principles of the method, it examines 14C dating anomalies and means to resolve them, and considers the critical application of 14C data as a dating isotope with special emphasis on issues in Old and New World archaeology and late Quaternary paleoanthropology. This volume, again a benchmark for 14C dating, critically reflects on the method and data that underpins, in so many cases, the validity of the chronologies used to understand the prehistoric archaeological record.

This is the third volume of the five-volume book series "Engineering Tools for Environmental Risk Management". The book series deals with the following topics: * Environmental deterioration and pollution, management of environmental problems * Environmental toxicology - a tool for managing chemical substances and contaminated environment * Assessment and monitoring tools, risk assessment * Risk reduction measures and technologies * Case studies for demonstration of the application of engineering tools The authors aim to describe interactions and options in risk management by providing a broad scientific overview of the environment, its human uses and the associated local, regional and global environmental problems; interpreting the holistic approach used in solving environmental protection issues; striking a balance between nature's needs and engineering capabilities; understanding interactions between regulation, management and engineering; obtaining information about novel technologies and innovative engineering tools. This third volume provides an overview on the basic principles, concepts, practices and tools of environmental monitoring and contaminated site assessment. The volume focuses on those engineering tools that enable integrated site assessment and decision making and ensure an efficient control of the environment. Some topics supporting sustainable land use and efficient environmental management are listed below: * Efficient management and regulation of contaminated land and the environment; * Early warning and environmental monitoring; * Assessment of contaminated land: the best practices; * Environmental sampling; * Risk characterization and contaminated matrix assessment; * Integrated application of physical, chemical, biological, ecological and (eco) toxicological characterization methods; * Direct toxicity assessment (DTA) and decision making; * Online analyzers, electrodes and biosensors for assessment and monitoring of waters.; * In situ and real-time measurement tools for soil and contaminated sites; * Rapid on-site methods and contaminant and toxicity assessment kits; * Engineering tools from omics technologies, microsensors to heavy machinery; * Dynamic characterization of subsurface soil and groundwater using membrane interface probes, optical and X-ray fl uorescence and ELCAD wastewater characterization; * Geochemical modeling: methods and applications; * Environmental assessment using cyclodextrins. This book series focuses on the state of knowledge about the environment and its conscious and structured application in environmental engineering, management and decision making.

Chemical substances, physical agents and built structures exhibit various types of hazard due to their inherent toxic, mutagenic, carcinogenic, reprotoxic and sensitizing character or damaging to the immune and hormone system. The first steps in managing an environment contaminated by chemical substances are characterization of hazards and quantification of their risks. Chemical models - using only analytical data - are still the most widely used applications for assessing potential adverse effects and the fate and behavior of chemicals in the environment. Chemical models rely on the assumption that the adverse effect is proportional to the concentration, which in most cases is incorrect. In this volume, other models such as biological and ecological or regression models are discussed in detail and compared. Environmental risk management has two subsections: risk assessment and risk reduction. Environmental risk, to a large extent, arises from the adverse effects of chemicals and contaminated land; that is why measuring and testing these effects plays a key role in risk management. "Environmental Toxicology" deals with direct measurement of adverse effects of pure chemicals or environmental samples. This book has therefore been created specifically for engineers and gives a general overview of environmental toxicology. It provides an overview of hundreds of standardized and nonstandardized, generic and site-specific, conventional and innovative, animal and alternative test methods, and demonstrates how to apply these results to the regulation and management of environmental risk. In addition to human, aquatic and terrestrial methods for measuring toxicity, new trends in environmental analytics and the integration and complementary use of chemical analyses and the testing of effects are described. Bioavailability and accessibility as key parameters are detailed and the interactive and dynamic characterization of contaminants in soil is introduced. Emphasis is placed on the evaluation and interpretation of environmental fate and adverse effect data as well as the simulation of environmental processes and effects in microcosms and mesocosms.