This thesis presents an impressive summary of the potential to use passive seismic methods to monitor the sequestration of anthropogenic CO2 in geologic reservoirs. It brings together innovative research in two distinct areas - seismology and geomechanics - and involves both data analysis and numerical modelling. The data come from the Weyburn-Midale project, which is currently the largest Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project in the world. James Verdon's results show how passive seismic monitoring can be used as an early warning system for fault reactivation and top seal failure, which may lead to the escape of CO2 at the surface.

Contemporary cities face phenomenal risks, and they face particularly high levels of mounting social and environmental risks, including social polarization, urban conflicts, riots, terror, and climate change threats. This book suggests that climate change and its resulting uncertainties challenge the concepts, procedures, and scope of conventional approaches to planning, creating a need to rethink and revise current planning methods. Therefore, this book suggests a paradigm shift in our thinking, interrogation, and planning of our cities. Based on the contemporary conditions of risk at cities, this book conceptualizes the risk city as a construct of three interlinked concepts of risk, trust, and practice. It is a construct of risk and its new evolving conditions and knowledge of uncertainties stem from climate change and other risks and uncertainties. As a construct of practices, the risk city produces social and political institutional framework and promotes practices accordingly in order to reduce risk and risk possibilities and to increase trust. In light of the complex challenges and risks to the human habitat that have emerged in recent years, many cities have prepared various types of plans aimed at addressing the challenges posed by climate change. Nonetheless, despite the importance of these plans and the major public resources invested in their formulation, we still know little about them and have yet to begin studying them and assessing their contributions . From the innovative perspective of the risk city, this book asks critical questions about the nature, vision, practices, and potential impact of the recent climate change-oriented plans. What kinds of risks do they attempt to address, what types of practices do they institute, and what types of approaches do they apply? Do they adequately address the risks and uncertainties posed? How do they contribute to the worldwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? This book uses the methodologically innovative Risk City framework to examine the nature, vision, outcomes, practices, and impact of these crucial plans, as well as their contribution to the resilience of our cities and to global efforts toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

This book puts the spotlight on Southern Africa, presenting a cutting-edge concept never previously explored in the context of climate change and putting forward arguments for regional integration and cooperation. The Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (CRIDF) is the new water infrastructure program of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) for Southern Africa. The CRIDF promotes the establishment of small to medium-scale infrastructure across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) through technical assistance aimed at developing sustainable pro-poor projects, while also facilitating access to the financial resources needed to deliver said infrastructure. Further, it focuses on regional water resource management goals and basin plans, as well as on building climate resilience for the beneficiary communities. The Facility's Virtual Water and Nexus Project works to improve regional peace dividends by translating the Nexus concept into national and regional policies; it ultimately promotes sovereign security through greater regional integration across the water, food and energy sectors, while taking into account potential benefits in connection with carbon sequestration and emission mitigation.

This study develops a new indicator for national and global sustainability. The main components of the EIIW-vita indicator are: the share of renewable energy, the genuine savings rate and the relative "green export" position of the respective countries; it is in line with OECD requirements on composite indicators. As green exports are related to technological progress and environmental-friendly products, there is also a Schumpeterian perspective of this indicator. An extended version furthermore looks at water productivity. The analysis highlights the BRIICS countries as well as the US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the UK and Japan. Moreover the special challenges and dynamics of ASEAN countries and Asia are discussed. The book derives key implications for economic and environmental policy and shows that the new global sustainability indicator is not only relevant for green progress, but also useful as a signal for international investors. The construction of the EIIW-vita global sustainability indicator is such that investors, citizens and governments can easily interpret the results. Correlation analysis of the new sustainability indicator with the human development index indicates complementarity, so that a new hybrid superindicator can be constructed. Sustainability rhetoric dominates environmental policy. This fresh assessment of key "pillars" of sustainable economic performance and growth is a valuable contribution to greening the economy, the leitmotiv of the latest Rio Earth Summit. The book places the discussion of sustainability on solid data. The rather surprising results of its new sustainability index should make policy makers rethink their environmental and economic strategies. Prof. Dr. Peter Bartelmus Columbia University, New York Many people put the economy first when sustainability concerns are raised, while environmental indicators are often developed without a sense of socio-economic performance. This important new book bridges the gap. It sheds light on crucial indicators such as renewable energies, exporting green goods and services, genuine savings, and water productivity. And it helps to observe the impressive changes at a global scale and in countries such as China. A must read for all experts interested in those issues. Prof. Dr. Raimund Bleischwitz University College London

Given our rapidly growing population, the need for judicious management of essential natural resources is becoming a major challenge for planners, managers and scientists/researchers. This book presents a multidisciplinary approach to managing water, energy and bio-resources, described in papers contributed by distinguished scientists and academics working at reputed universities and institutions around the globe. It includes 28 chapters grouped into three sections: Water Resources Management, Energy and Bio-resources Management and Climate and Natural Resources Management, examining case studies from all over the world. These contributions address current challenges, offering modern techniques for managing these resources in various geographical regions. This volume will provide a valuable asset for researchers and students, managers, environmentalists, hydrologists, water resource and energy managers, governmental and other regulatory bodies dealing with water, energy and bio-resources.

Leading scholars assess the transformations in energy security policy that flow from recognition of global climate change. They explore through case studies the key policy responses formulated in the Asia-Pacific and identify potential synergies between energy policy and climate mitigation efforts.

The over-exploitation of important earth resources such as land and water has led to a number of environment-related problems the world over. At the same time, land-use change caused by various human activities has led to extinction of many plant and animal habitats and species. In this context, the relevance of biodiversity for human survival is becoming a major international political issue as scientific evidence builds on the global health implications of biodiversity loss. These issues are closely linked with the issue of climate change, as many of the health risks due to climate change are associated with rapid degradation of biodiversity. This present work focuses on holistic natural resource-based spatio-temporal planning, development and management and considers them as essential to save the degraded ecosystem for sustainable resource management. Contributions are compiled in two volumes: 1. Climate Change and Biodiversity and 2. Landscape Ecology and Water Management. Geoinformatics along with its tools such as remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) have been used in assessing the results of various environmental problems both physical and social. These volumes will be useful for geographers, geoscientists, hydrologists, landscape ecologists, environmentalists, engineers, planners and policy makers.

Deserts are unique ecosystems with their own biotic and abiotic components, and are often rich in renewable natural resources, the appropriate management of which can contribute significantly to the sustainable management of desert regions for the welfare of the people. Yet while there are many books on the flora of the countries fringing the important desert countries of the Mediterranean and Red Seas, there or few books reporting on their ecophysiology and vegetation ecology. This book presents the vegetation types of the African and Asian countries of the Mediterranean and Red Sea coastal regions, and discusses the ecological threats and economic applications of these critical resources. In particular, it examines the relationships between climate and vegetation, and discusses these within the context of desertification, agro-industrial applications, ecotourism and sustainable development. The book will provide a valuable reference for researchers and graduate students involved in plant ecology, biogeography, economic botany and environmental management in the Afro-Asian Mediterranean and Red Sea coastal regions, as well as other desert regions around the world.

This book discusses how climate change and heat islands are a main contributor to water related problems in urban areas in Kosice, Slovakia. Green roofs are used as a tool to assist in solving these water related issues. The need to provide housing in urban areas is expected to rise to 66% in 2050, according to the United Nations. Many urban areas have seen natural permeable green areas replaced with concrete constructions and hard, non-permeable surfaces. The densification of existing built-up areas is responsible for the decreasing vegetation, which results in the lack of evapotranspiration cooling the air, thereby creating urban heat islands. Several studies, discussed in this book, have shown that natural and permeable surfaces, as in the case of green roofs, can play a crucial role in mitigating this negative climate phenomenon and providing higher efficiency for buildings, leading to savings such as water, one of the focal points of this research.

This book provides a collection of the state-of-the-art methodologies and approaches suggested for detecting extremes, trend analysis, accounting for nonstationarities, and uncertainties associated with extreme value analysis in a changing climate. This volume is designed so that it can be used as the primary reference on the available methodologies for analysis of climate extremes. Furthermore, the book addresses current hydrometeorologic global data sets and their applications for global scale analysis of extremes. While the main objective is to deliver recent theoretical concepts, several case studies on extreme climate conditions are provided. Audience The book is suitable for teaching in graduate courses in the disciplines of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth System Science, Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences.

This book advocates a fresh approach to planning that anticipates, rather than reacts to, the changes in climate currently in process. Today's spatial planning procedures rely on historical evidence instead of preparing for factors that by definition lie in the future, yet which are relatively uncontroversial: shortages of water, sea level rise and rises in average temperatures being but three examples. Arguing for more flexibility, the contributors view 'complexity' as the key to transforming the way we plan in order to better equip us to face uncertainties about our future environment.

This book aims to come up with views to address the queries of planners, policymakers, and general people for water resources management under uncertainty of climate change, including examples from Asia and Europe with successful adaptive measures to change the challenge of climate change into opportunities. The availability of clean water is a major global challenge for the future due to a rapidly growing population and urbanization where further stress in water resources is expected due to the impact of climate change. The wide range of impacts includes for example changes in hydrology, moisture availability, spatial and temporal variations in magnitude of stream flow, and dwindling of water levels with adverse effect on wetlands and ecosystem. As a consequence, water management has become a serious issue and was identified as a global societal challenge, and climate change forecasting has become one of the key issues in recent research on sustainable water resources management.

This volume addresses in detail both livestock's role in climate change and the impacts of climate change on livestock production and reproduction. Apart from these cardinal principles of climate change and livestock production, this volume also examines the various strategies used to mitigate livestock-related GHG emissions, and those which can reduce the impacts of climate change on livestock production and reproduction. Presenting information and case studies collected and analyzed by professionals working in diversified ecological zones, the book explores the influence of climate change on livestock production across the globe. The most significant feature of this book is that it addresses in detail the different adaptation strategies and identifies targets for different stakeholders in connection with climate change and livestock production. Further, it puts forward development plans that will allow the livestock industries to cope with current climate changes and strategies that will mitigate the effects by 2025. Lastly, it provides researchers and policymakers several researchable priorities to help develop economically viable solutions for livestock production with less GHG emissions, promoting a cleaner environment in which human beings and livestock can live in harmony without adverse effects on productivity. Given that livestock production systems are sensitive to climate change and at the same are themselves a contributor to the phenomenon, climate change has the potential to pose an increasingly formidable challenge to the development of the livestock sector. However, there is a dearth of scientific information on adapting livestock production to the changing climate; as such, well-founded reference material on sustaining livestock production systems under the changing climate scenarios in different agro-ecological zones of the world is essential. By methodically and extensively addressing all aspects of climate change and livestock production, this volume offers a valuable tool for understanding the hidden intricacies of climatic stress and its influence on livestock production.

Even with significant reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, a certain degree of climate change will inevitably occur. Adapting to climate change, then, will become a necessary step in reducing the vulnerability of many regions across the globe. This is especially true for urban areas where climate change has been shown to have particularly destabilizing effects. Through the identification and analysis of the most relevant impacts facing urban areas, this book makes clear the need to incorporate climate change concerns into the mainstream of local planning, governance and policy making practices. Adaptation as a workable concept within urban areas cannot be treated in isolation from the many pre-existing challenges facing cities. By offering numerous examples of ongoing adaptation programs and strategies across a wide range of contexts, the authors show the growing potential of cities in the fight against climate change. This book has its origins in a collection of papers originally presented at the Resilient Cities 2010 Congress in Bonn, Germany (May 2010), the first global forum on cities and adaptation to climate change, convened by ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability. In this volume, the first in a new series dedicated to this annual event, a range of contributors bring their perspectives to bear on the most pressing issues and controversies surrounding adaptation to climate change within cities. These writings will prove invaluable to anyone interested in understanding and confronting climate change at the local level.

This volume presents the outcome of an Agriculture Workshop organized by the Gulf Research Centre Cambridge (GRCC) and held at Cambridge University, UK during the Gulf Research Meeting 11-14 July 2012. Co-directed by the editors, the workshop, entitled Environmental Cost and Changing Face of Agriculture in the Gulf States was attended by participants from Australia, Bahrain, India, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, UAE, UK and Morocco. These scientists, educators, researchers, policy makers and managers share their experience in agriculture in the Gulf States, with the aim of helping to improve agriculture production and thus bridge the gap between local production and the food import.

The papers gathered here were presented at the workshop and have all passed through rigorous peer review by renowned scientists. The diverse papers present various aspects of agriculture production in the evolving face of climate change and dwindling water resources in the region. The book covers topics such as the prospects of agriculture in a changing climate; the potential of climate-smart agriculture; the impact of food prices, income and income distribution on food security; improved efficiency in water use; challenges in using treated wastewater in agriculture; investment in foreign agriculture and agricultural research and development. The papers span the nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, with specific case studies set in Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait."

not only for land use systems that depend on the regular supply of rain or irrigation water but also for the future development of natural rainforests as drought stress has been shown to a?ect tree growth and species composition in old-growth forests (Wright 1991, Walsh and Newbery 1999, Engelbrecht et al. 2007). A drought experiment conducted in a cacao agroforestry plantation showed that this plantation was surprisingly resilient to an induced drought of more than a year (Schwendenmann et al. 2009). However, droughts can have a strong impact on household incomes from agriculture, they strongly a?ect the vulnerability to poverty and thus have to be analyzed as important exogenous shocks to households, forcing them to adjust their behaviour and develop strategies to cope with these problems. The stability of rainforest margins is a critical factor in the protection of tropical rainforests (Tscharntke et al. 2007). At present, however, rainf- est margins in many parts of the tropics are far from stable, both in soc- economic and in ecological terms. For example, protected areas may attract, rather than repel, human settlement, which may be due to international donor investment in national conservation programs (Wittemeyer et al. 2008). An alternative hypothesis is that protected areas might be compromised if leakage takes place, that is, if impacts that would take place inside the restricted area are displaced to a nearby, undisturbed area (Ewers and Rodrigues 2008).

A major objective of this volume is to create and share knowledge about the socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions of climate change. The authors analyze the effects of climate change on the social and environmental determinants of the health and well-being of communities (i.e. poverty, clean air, safe drinking water, food supplies) and on extreme events such as floods and hurricanes. The book covers topics such as the social and political dimensions of the ebola response, inequalities in urban migrant communities, as well as water-related health effects of climate change. The contributors recommend political and social-cultural strategies for mitigate, adapt and prevent the impacts of climate change to human and environmental health. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in new methods and tools to reduce risks and to increase health resilience to climate change.

To comprehensively address the complexities of current socio-ecological problems involved in global environmental change, it is indispiseble to achieve an integration of ecological understanding and ethical values. Contemporary science proposes an inclusive ecosystem concept that recognizes humans as components. Contemporary environmental ethics includes eco-social justice and the realization that as important as biodiversity is cultural diversity, inter-cultural, inter-institutional, and international collaboration requiring a novel approach known as "biocultural "conservation. Right action in confronting the challenges of the 21st century requires science and ethics to be seamlessly integrated. This book resulted from the 14th Cary Conference that brought together leading scholars and practitioners in ecology and environmental philosophy to discuss core terminologies, methods, questions, and practical frameworks for long-term socio-ecological research, education, and decision making.

The climate of the Earth is always changing. As the debate over the implications of changes in the Earth's climate has grown, the term climate change has come to refer primarily to changes we've seen over recent years and those which are predicted to be coming, mainly as a result of human behavior. This book serves as a broad, accessible guide to the science behind this often political and heated debate by providing scientific detail and evidence in language that is clear to both the non-specialist and the serious student.
* provides all the scientific evidence for and possible causes of climate change in one book
* written by expert scientists working in the field
* logical, non-emotional conclusions
* a source book for the latest findings on climate change

We've become used to thinking of plants as things for us to use: as food, tools, resources, or just as an attractive background to our own lives. But it's time to change our minds. New research shows that plants can think, plan - and may even have memories. We share our planet with beings whose potential we have only glimpsed. Featuring the writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Susie Orbach and Merlin Sheldrake, This Book is a Plant will be your handbook to the new reality: showing you a pathway to completely reimagine your relationship with a different kind of natural world. Delve into a world of moss and fungi: Sheila Watt-Cloutier transports us to the Arctic spring, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan discovers the pleasures of painting trees, and Rebecca Tamas puts roots down through earth and soil. This Book is a Plant is made from paper: it was once part of a tree. But it's also a seed: the first shoots of a radical new way of seeing the world around you. Featuring stunning illustrations by Eduardo Navarro, and accompanying a major 2022 Wellcome Collection exhibition, Rooted Beings.

Energy insecurity is not normally associated with the Middle East. However, away from the oil-rich Persian Gulf, the countries of the eastern Mediterranean are particularly vulnerable. Their fossil fuel endowments are low, while their fractious relationships with each other have long fostered wider political insecurities. Focusing on the Jordan Basin (Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon and Jordan), this timely volume addresses the prospects for the adoption of renewable energy in the oil-poor Middle East. Featuring regional energy experts, it offers an invaluable survey.

After outlining the regional security context, this book first reviews renewable energy policy and practices in the Jordan Basin. It then considers options for greening energy use, including promising pilot projects in North Africa. The initiatives discussed encompass renewable energy finance, energy-efficient rural communities, and solar and wind energy. There is significant potential for an increase in the uptake of renewable energy technologies in the eastern Mediterranean. This window of opportunity has been created by high oil prices, energy infrastructure investment opportunities, and the UN climate change regime. In conclusion, the book considers the institutional conditions for collaborative decision-making on renewable energy. Such cooperation would deliver substantial security and human development benefits to the region, and indeed the world.

The importance of Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is increasing due, in part, to recent major disasters throughout the world. CCA and DRR are closely associated and there has been significant awareness at global and national levels to make collective focus on CCA and DRR. Although there are several books on CCA, this is the first systematic academic publication to highlight the linkages between CCA and DRR, CCA-DRR synergy and interactions. The book is divided into four parts: Part 1 focuses on the theory of CCA and DRR and its enabling environment; Part 2 focuses on governance, education and technology as the framework of CCA-DRR linkage; Part 3 focuses on different entry points with chapters on urban, coast, mountain, river and housing; and Part 4 focuses on regional perspective of CCA and DRR looking at developing nations, south Asia, ASEAN and Small Island Developing States. Key issues and challenges related to the CCA and DRR are highlighted throughout, mostly drawing lessons and experiences from the field practices. This book gives researchers and practitioners greater awareness on the current trend of research in the field.

The volume contains summaries of facts, theories, and unsolved problems pertaining to the unexplained extinction of dozens of genera of mostly large terrestrial mammals, which occurred ca. 13,000 calendar years ago in North America and about 1,000 years later in South America. Another equally mysterious wave of extinctions affected large Caribbean islands around 5,000 years ago. The coupling of these extinctions with the earliest appearance of human beings has led to the suggestion that foraging humans are to blame, although major climatic shifts were also taking place in the Americas during some of the extinctions. The last published volume with similar (but not identical) themes -- Extinctions in Near Time -- appeared in 1999; since then a great deal of innovative, exciting new research has been done but has not yet been compiled and summarized. Different chapters in this volume provide in-depth resumes of the chronology of the extinctions in North and South America, the possible insights into animal ecology provided by studies of stable isotopes and anatomical/physiological characteristics such as growth increments in mammoth and mastodont tusks, the clues from taphonomic research about large-mammal biology, the applications of dating methods to the extinctions debate, and archeological controversies concerning human hunting of large mammals."

By exploring indigenous people's knowledge and use of sea ice, the SIKU project has demonstrated the power of multiple perspectives and introduced a new field of interdisciplinary research, the study of social (socio-cultural) aspects of the natural world, or what we call the social life of sea ice. It incorporates local terminologies and classifications, place names, personal stories, teachings, safety rules, historic narratives, and explanations of the empirical and spiritual connections that people create with the natural world. In opening the social life of sea ice and the value of indigenous perspectives we make a novel contribution to IPY, to science, and to the public

The alpine treeline ecotone (ATE) is an area of transition high on mountains where closed canopy forests from lower elevations give way to the open alpine tundra and rocky expanses above. Alpine tundra is an island biome and its ecotone with forest is subject to change, and like oceanic islands, alpine tundra is subject to invasion or the upward advance of treeline. The invasion of tundra by trees will have consequences for the tundra biome as invasion does for other island flora and fauna. To examine the invasibility of tundra we take a plant s-eye-view, wherein the local conditions become extremely important. Among these local conditions, we find geomorphology to be exceptionally important. We concentrate on aspects of microtopography (and microgeomorphology) and microclimate because these are the factors that matter: from the plant s-eye-view, but we pay attention to multiple scales. At coarse scales, snow avalanches and debris flows are widespread and create disturbance treelines whose elevation is well below those controlled by climate. At medium scales, turf-banked terraces create tread-and-riser topography that is a difficult landscape for a tree seedling to survive upon because of exposure to wind, dryness, and impenetrable surfaces. At fine scales, turf exfoliation of the fronts of turf-banked risers, and boulders, offer microsites where tree seedlings may find shelter and are able to gain a foothold in the alpine tundra; conversely, however, surfaces of needle-ice pans and frost heaving associated with miniature patterned ground production are associated with sites inimical to seedling establishment or survival. We explicitly consider how local scale processes propagate across scales into landscape patterns.
The objective of this book is to examine the controls on change at alpine treeline. All the papers are focused on work done in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA. Although any one place is limiting, we are able to examine the alpine treeline here in some detail and an advantage is that the treeline ecotone in Glacier National Park is quite variable in itself due to the underlying variability in geomorphology at multiple scales.
This book will provide insights into an important ecological phenomenon with a distinctly geomorphic perspective. The editors collectively have over 100 years of experience in working in geomorphology, biogeography, and ecology. They also have each worked on research in Glacier National Park for several decades. The book will be a reference for a variety of professionals and students, both graduate and undergraduate, with interests in Physical Geography, Geomorphology, Ecology, and Environmental Science. Because of the importance of the alpine treeline ecotone for recreation and aesthetic interests in mountain environments, wildland and park managers will also use this book.
* Subject matter: geomorphology at alpine treeline
* Expertise of contributors: each editor brings over 25 years of experience in studies of ecotones and geomorphology, and collectively over 100 years of experience in Glacier National Park
* Changing alpine treeline examines climate change"