The scientific community has voiced two general concerns about the future of the earth. Climatologists and oceanographers have focused on the changes in our physical environment -- changes in the climate, the oceans, and the chemistry of the air we breathe. Environmental biologists, on the other hand, have addressed issues of conservation and the extinction of species. There is increasing evidence that these two broad concerns are intertwined and mutually dependent. Past changes in biodiversity have both responded to and caused changes in Earth's environment. In its discussions of ten key terrestrial biomes and freshwater ecosystems, this volume uses our broad understanding of global environmental change to present the first comprehensive scenarios of biodiversity for the twenty-first century. Combining physical earth science with conservation biology, Global Biodiversity in a Changing Environment provides a starting point for regional assessments on all scales. The book will be of interest to those concerned with guiding research on the changing environment of the earth and with planning future policy, especially in accordance with the Global Biodiversity Convention.

This book is intended as a practical guide to scientific, legal, and technical issues concerning wetlands. As such, it is written in the most practical terms, with numerous helpful examples and case studies of how specific issues should best be addressed. The book is organized in a way that exposes the reader in logical succession to the full gamut of complex scientific, legal, and technical aspects of wetlands. This book recognizes that wetland science, law, and technology are interdependent disciplines. Most other works focus on one of these disciplines while perhaps providing some cursory treatment of related disciplines. This book attempts to meld several different perspectives on the subject of wetlands and to show the interrelationships between the various professions that deal with wetland issues. The book is organized as a guide through the various scientific, legal, and technical components of wetlands. Within each individual chapter, extensive cross-referencing is provided to help the reader link related aspects of the issue being discussed. Further, within the presentation of each separate chapter is a discussion of how the various scientific, legal, and technical aspects of the subject interrelate. Each chapter has been written by a known authority with specialized experience in the topic being presented.

The author scrutinizes the claim of policy-makers and experts that legal recognition of local water rights would reduce water conflict and increase water security and equality for peasant and indigenous water users. She analyzes two distinct 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' formalization policies in Peru and Bolivia - neoliberal the former, indigenist-socialist the latter. The policies have intended and unintended consequences and impact on marginalized peasants and the complex inter-legal systems for providing water security on the ground. This study seeks to debunk the official myth of the need to create state-centric, top-down legal security in complex, pluralistic water realities. The engagement between formal and alternative 'water securities' and controversial notions of 'rightness' is interwoven and contested; a complex setting is unveiled that forbids one-size-fits-all solutions. Peru's and Bolivia's case studies demonstrate how formalization policies, while aiming to enhance inclusion, in practice actually reinforce exclusion of the marginalized. Water rights formalization is certainly no panacea.

In 1997 disastrous flooding running through the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany took the lives of a great number of people and caused economic damage estimated in tens of billions of dollars. Flooding of the Yangtze river in 1998 killed more than 3000 people, dislocated 230 million souls, and caused direct damage of more than $ 45 billion. Both the general public and the experts are asking what we can learn from these recent events to reduce loss of life and flood damage. The 1997 floods were dealt with by experts from the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany, who presented timely reports on combatting floods, both success stories and shortcomings. This experience is further extended by reports from experts drawn from 13 other countries, developing a broad overview of flood risk management, covering the ecosystem approach to flood management, including socioeconomic issues, flood impacts on water quality, human health, and natural ecosystems.

This fascinating book examines the paramount human rights issue of our time: clean drinking water. Pollution, population surge, and climate change will deprive an estimated 2 billion citizens of this fundamental right by 2050. The author argues for the need to establish innovative, sustainable practices to safeguard this precious human right.

This book is geared for advanced level research in the general subject area of remote sensing and modeling as they apply to the coastal marine environment. The various chapters focus on the latest scientific and technical advances in the service of better understanding coastal marine environments for their care, conservation and management. Chapters specifically deal with advances in remote sensing coastal classifications, environmental monitoring, digital ocean technological advances, geophysical methods, geoacoustics, X-band radar, risk assessment models, GIS applications, real-time modeling systems, and spatial modeling. Readers will find this book useful because it summarizes applications of new research methods in one of the world s most dynamic and complicated environments. Chapters in this book will be of interest to specialists in the coastal marine environment who deals with aspects of environmental monitoring and assessment via remote sensing techniques and numerical modeling."

Biodiversity, sometimes simply understood as "diversity of species," is a specific quality of life on our planet, the dimensions and importance of which have just lately been fully realized. Today we know that "biological diversity is a global asset of incalculable value to present and future generations" (Kofi Annan). Biodiversity is spread unequally over the world: in fact, the main share of biological resources worldwide is harboured predominantly by the so-called developing countries in the tropics and sub tropics. Therefore, Biodiversity - A Challenge for Development Research and Policy was chosen as the title for an international conference which was held in Bonn in 1997 as one of the first major events organized by the then newly established North-South Centre for Development Research (ZEF) at Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn (Germany). Since the ZEF, founded by the Senate of the University of Bonn in 1995, has played a central role in turning Bonn into a centre for international cooperation and North-South dialogue. The Centre is a product of the Bonn Berlin agreement of July 1994 which was adopted to offset the effects caused by the Parliament and much of the Government moving to Berlin. It fits in well with the double strategy to strengthen Bonn's position as an interna tional science arena and as an eminent place for development policy and the national and supranational agencies dealing with this issue."

Volume 1: (edited by Keith W. Hipel) In this landmark collection of papers, highly respected scientists and engineers from around the world present the latest research results in extreme value analyses for floods and droughts. Two approaches that are commonly employed in flood frequency analyses are the maximum annual flood and partial duration series or peak over threshold procedures. Recent theoretical advances as well as illustrative applications are described in detail for each of these approaches. Additionally, droughts and storms are systematically studied using appropriate probabilistic models. A major part of the volume is devoted to frequency analyses and fitting extreme value distributions to hydrological data. Other thought-provoking topics include regionalization techniques, distributed models, entropy and fractal analysis. Volume 1 is of interest to researchers, teachers, students and practitioners who wish to place themselves at the leading edge of flood frequency and drought analyses. Volume 2: (edited by Keith W. Hipel) World renowned scientists present valuable contributions to stochastic and statistical modelling of groundwater and surface water systems. The philosophy of probabilistic modelling in the hydrological sciences is put into proper perspective and the importance of stochastic differential equations in the environmental sciences is explained and illustrated. The new research ideas put forward in groundwater modelling will assist decision makers in tackling challenging problems such as controlling pollution of underground aquifers and obtaining adequate water supplies. Additionally, different types of stochastic models are used in modelling a range ofinteresting surface water problems. Other topics covered in this landmark volume include stochastic optimization, moment analysis, carbon dioxide modelling and rainfall prediction. Volume 2 is of interest to researchers, teachers, students and practitioners who wish to be at the leading edge of stochastic and statistical modelling in the environmental sciences. Volume 3: (edited by Keith W. Hipel; A. Ian McLeod; U.S. Panu; Vijay P. Singh) International experts from around the globe present a rich variety of intriguing developments in time series analysis in hydrology and environmental engineering. Climatic change is of great concern to everyone and significant contributions to this challenging research topic are put forward by internationally renowned authors. A range of interesting applications in hydrological forecasting are given for case studies in reservoir operation in North America, Asia and South America. Additionally, progress in entropy research is described and entropy concepts are applied to various water resource systems problems. Neural networks are employed for forecasting runoff and water demand. Moreover, graphical, nonparametric and parametric trend analyses methods are compared and applied to water quality time series. Other topics covered in this landmark volume include spatial analyses, spectral analyses and different methods for stream-flow modelling. Volume 3 constitutes an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, students and practitioners who wish to be at the forefront of time series analysis in the environmental sciences. Volume 4: (edited by Keith W. Hipel; Liping Fang) In this landmark set of papers, experts from around the world present the latest andmost promising approaches to both the theory and practice of effective environmental management. To achieve sustainable development, organizations and individual citizens must comply with environmental laws and regulations. Accordingly, a major contribution of this book is the presentation of original techniques for designing effective environmental policies, regulations, inspection procedures and monitoring systems. Interesting methods for modelling risk and decision making problems are discussed from an environmental management perspective. Moreover, knowledge-based techniques for handling environmental problems are also investigated. Finally, the last main part of the book describes optimal approaches to reservoir operation and control that take into account appropriate multiple objectives. Volume 4 is of direct interest to researchers, teachers, students and practitioners concerned with the latest developments in environmental management and sustainable development.

The book reveals the changing dynamics of the helium industry on both the supply-side and the demand-side. The helium industry has a long-term future and this important gas will have a role to play for many decades to come. Major new users of helium are expected to enter the market, especially in nuclear energy (both fission and fusion). Prices and volumes supplied and expected to rise and this will prompt greater efforts towards the development of new helium sources and helium conservation and recycling.

Urban land is developed, utilised, abandoned and left to degradation in many different ways. These processes are closely related to four aspects of human activities: the extraction of resources, their transformation into goods, the production of waste and the conflicts that arise when population grows and demands increase while resources remain limited. Urban land is developed and deteriorates in the course of these activities, while cities keep spreading, consuming the green spaces surrounding them. Sustainable city development aims at protecting the environment by reusing urban terrain. The author brings together the different aspects of this transdisciplinary endeavour by discussing the causes of degradation, the strategies of investigation and the techniques of remediation of urban land.

This book critically examines contemporary health and wellness culture through the lens of personalization, genetification and functional foods. These developments have had a significant impact on the intersecting categories of gender, race, and class in light of the increasing adoption of digital health and surveillance technologies like MyFitnessPal, Lifesum, HealthyifyMe, and Fooducate. These three vectors of identity, when analysed in relation to food, diet, health, and technology, reveal significant new ways in which inequality, hierarchy, and injustice become manifest. In the book, Tina Sikka argues that the corporate-led trends associated with health apps, genetic testing, superfoods, and functional foods have produced a kind of dietary-genomic-functional food industrial complex. She makes the positive case for a prosocial, food secure, and biodiverse health and food culture that is rooted in community action, supported by strong public provisioning of health care, and grounded in principles of food justice and sovereignty.

This book brings together, in a single volume, an overview of multiple applications of the concept of environmental sustainability, featuring examples of useful methodologies and tools for pursuing environmental targets, experiences and case studies spanning a variety of sectors, embracing both industry and research projects; and case studies applied to very different territorial contexts.

The first section of the book covers methodologies and tools for environmental sustainability, including Industrial Ecology, Urban Metabolism, Life Cycle Assessment, analysis of industrial water footprint and such chemical technologies as Hypercritical Separation Technology (HYST).

Part Two provides case studies of environmental sustainability in specific industrial sectors including electronics, pharmaceutical manufacturing, bio-energy, agriculture, food and residential construction retrofitting.

Part Three explores experiences of environmental sustainability in territorial contexts on a local, regional or national scale. This section includes chapters on sustainability in the Republic of San Marino, the European Covenant of Mayors urban sustainability initiative and efforts to promote sustainability in Italy, Norway and Poland among others. The book concludes with a discussion of Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in Objective I regions of Italy.

Featuring the contributions of academics, managers operating in various productive sectors and consultants, the book aims to promote the growth and spread of scientific research and technological development for environmental sustainability."

Tourism is an activity that anyone can take part in, regardless of their age, gender, nationality or level of income. This makes tourism one of the most rapidly developing industries in the world. Despite the number of benefits which tourism produces, it also has significant negative impacts on the environment. To minimise the scope of these negative impacts, joint efforts combining tourism and environmental management are called for. This book examines the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method and lifecycle thinking as a tool to generate more accurate and holistic appraisals of the environmental impacts of tourism. Looking at the issue of sustainability of tourism operations, the book evaluates how it can be improved. It highlights the potential of LCA to affect tourist behaviour and contribute to tourism policy-making and managerial practice. This book provides a valuable resource for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers interested in sustainable tourism, sustainable development and environmental impact assessment.

James O. Leckie Environmental Engineering and Science Program, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305-4020, USA Nearly 10 years have passed since the beginning of the systematic studies of the Lerma-Chapala Basin coordinated by the Instituto Mexicano de Tecnologia del Agua. Although many public and private institutions, universities and research centers have conducted studies on the Lerma Chapala Basin over the last two decades, the need for a comprehensive summary of the findings of those studies has become increasingly obvious and important for this critical water resource. The Lerma-Chapala Basin is located in the central part of Mexico, and partly occupies five states. The watershed comprises the Lerma river and Lake Chapala. With a length of over 700 km, the tributary watershed covers 2 approximately 54,000 km . The basin accounts for more than one-third of the country's economic activity, one-fifth of all commerce and one-eighth of the nation's agricultural land. The watershed receives 3% of the country's total rainfall, less than 1 % of the runoff, and accounts for 13% of the total groundwater."

The book sheds understanding on the relations between development and global energy security by looking at China and India. It addresses the following issues: what is the new definition of energy security? How does it affect global politics and international relations? What are the energy security concerns of China and India, and what policies and approaches have they taken to deal with energy security issues? Since China and India are searching for oil and gas in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia, would their acquisition efforts conflict with the interests of other energy giants such as the U.S., Japan, and would their growing overseas activities challenge U.S. policy in those energy-rich regions?

The book provides insight into what the new global energy order may be and how the growth models and energy structures may shape the economic growth and energy. It analyzes both the state-centered approach and market-oriented approach in the global quest for energy resources. It also examines how China and India can adopt a cooperative approach for beneficial relations.

The book will be of interest to anyone who is keen to learn how the World especially U.S.A. can accomodate and adapt to the new global energy dynamics and on China and India as new players in global energy markets.

This book explores the nexus among food, energy and water in peri-urban areas, demonstrating how relevant this nexus is for environmental sustainability. In particular it examines the effective management of the nexus in the face of the risks and trade-offs of mitigation policies, and as a mean to create resilience to climate change. The book delineates strategies and actions necessary to develop and protect our natural resources and improve the functionality of the nexus, such as: integrated management of the major resources that characterize the metabolism of a city, stronger coordination among stakeholders who often weight differently the services that are relevant to their individual concerns, integration of efforts towards environmental protection, adaptation to and prevention of climate change and disaster risks mitigation.

This book illustrates operation and maintenance practices/guidelines for economic generation and managing health of a thermal power generator beyond its regulatory life. The book provides knowledge for professionals managing power station operations, through its unique approach to chemical analysis of water, steam, oil etc. to identify malfunctioning/defects in equipment/systems much before the physical manifestation of the problem. The book also contains a detailed procedure for conducting performance evaluation tests on different equipment, and for analyzing test results for predicting maintenance requirements, which has lent a new dimension to power systems operation and maintenance practices. A number of real life case studies also enrich the book. This book will prove particularly useful to power systems operations professionals in the developing economies, and also to researchers and students involved in studying power systems operations and control.

Selenium is a naturally occurring trace element that can become concentrated and released by industrial, agricultural, petrochemical and mining activities. At concentrated levels it is toxic and has polluted ecosystems around the world. This book will serve as a comprehensive practical handbook for everyone dealing with selenium in aquatic environments. It offers field-tested approaches and methods for assessment and water quality management. Using his twenty-year experience, the author discusses the effects of selenium on fish and bird populations and presents guidelines for identifying sources of pollution, interpreting selenium concentrations, assessing hazardous conditions, setting water quality criteria and ecosystem loading limits (TMDLs). He also includes a procedure for setting environmentally safe limits that ensure compliance with EPA regulations. Selenium Assessment in Aquatic Ecosystems will interest field scientists, natural resource managers, risk assessors and environmental planners.

This book aims at visualizing to a broad audience how fifty years of scientific research can make a huge contribution to worldwide efforts in conservation. A model case is presented showing how interdisciplinary work across a broad range of scientific disciplines (Evolution Science, Botany, vertebrate Zoology, Terrestrial Ecology, Marine Ecology, Fisheries Science, Oceanography, Social and Economic Science) has contributed to the conservation and sustainable development of the Galapagos archipelago, the natural environment made famous by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century.

The book describe the state-of -the-art knowledge on the Galapagos socio-ecosystem, presents modern modelling tools for the integration of information from diverse science disciplines and shall highlight contrasting viewpoints with regard to future scenarios for reconciling conservation with the socio-economic development of the archipelago. The book is innovative in its multidisciplinary focus on conservation and in presenting up to date tools for scenario modelling. Its conclusions are applicable globally.

Russia is the world's foremost energy superpower, rivaling Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer and accounting for a quarter of the world's exports of natural gas. Russia's energy reserves account for half of the world's probable oil reserves and a third of the world's proven natural gas reserves. Whereas military might and nuclear weapons formed the core of Soviet cold war power, since 1991 the Russian state has viewed its monopolistic control of Russia's energy resources as the core of its power now and for the future. Since 2005, the international news has been filled with Russia's repeated demonstrations of its readiness to use price, transit fees, and supply of gas and oil exports as punitive policy instruments against recalcitrant states that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, striking in turn the Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, and Lithuania. Orban reveals for the first time in "Power, Energy, and the New Russian Imperialism" Russia's readiness to wield the same energy weapon against her neighbors on the west, all of them former Soviet satellite states but now EU and NATO member nations: the three Baltic nations and the five East European nations of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia.

Orban shows how the Kremlin since 1991 has systematically used Russian energy companies as players in a concerted neo-mercantilist, energy-based foreign policy designed to further Russia's neo-imperial ambitions among America's key allies in Central East Europe. Her unprecedented analysis is key to predicting Russia's strategic response to American negotiations with Poland and the Czech Republic to host the US missile shield. She also reveals the economic and diplomatic modus operandi by which Russia will increasingly apply its energy clout to shape and coerce the foreign policies of the West European members of the EU, as Russia's contribution to EU gas consumption increases from a quarter today to three-quarters by 2020. Orban proves that Russia's neo-mercantilist energy strategy in East Europe is not at all dependent on the person of Putin, but began under Yeltsin and continues under Medvedev, the former chairman of Gazprom.

Antimicrobial resistance is recognised among the world’s most challenging problems. Despite its global spread, Africa, specifically sub-Saharan Africa, is the most affected by this malaise. Poor living conditions and inadequate access to sanitation and potable water supplies are among contributing factors that have influenced a high disease burden on the continent, requiring extensive antimicrobials. Weak health systems and the absence of firm policies further aggravate the problem, as the use of antimicrobials is mostly unregulated. The increasing demand for animal protein to meet the starving populations’ demands has also influenced the use of these antimicrobials, including those banned on other continents, for food animal production. The ripple effect of indiscriminate use in humans and animals is the massive discharge of antimicrobials, their residues, antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms and their associated genes into the environment.  This 14-chapter unique masterpiece presents the AMR problem in African, addressing the various compartments of the One Health – humans, animals, and the environment, to illustrate the need for concerted efforts in the fight against AMR, especially in Africa. Authors from the four cardinal points present diverse aspects of AMR in Africa, starting with behavioural and social drivers of AMR in Africa. Antimicrobial stewardship in an African context is also discussed. AMR in humans is presented through studies on antibiotic-resistant neonates and nontyphoidal Salmonella infections and the clinical relevance of the genetics of viral resistance. Topics on AMR in mastitis, biosecurity in animal farming and the linkage between disinfectants and AMR are discussed. The environmental dimension of AMR is discussed, notably in the aquatic environment, and its implication for aquaculture and irrigation and using nanomaterials to treat polluted waters from such environments are highlighted. Finally, Africa’s rich floral diversity is portrayed as an eco-friendly and cost-effective approach to combat AMR. Hopefully, the work presented will spur greater collaboration between scientists, environmental, animal and human health practitioners, the general population, and policymakers to assimilate and implement the One Health approach to combating AMR, rather than working in silos on their various sectors

Within a single educational system that of England and Wales the nature of schooling available to a child can be dramatically different. Even between residential areas the differences in educational climate can be striking. Apart from differences in the organization of schools and the availability of buildings, teachers and resources, there are also significant ideological variations between local education authorities. This book considers the evidence of such differences, some of the environmental factors (political, social and economic) that may account for their distribution, and the consequences that appear to spring from them.

Against the background of colonial and postcolonial experiences, this volume shows that power relations and stereotypes embedded in the original Western idea of a national park are a continuing reality of contemporary national and transnational parks. The volume seeks to dispel the myth that colonial beliefs and practices in protected areas have ended with the introduction of 'new' nature conservation policies and practices. It explores this continuity against the backdrop of the development of the national park idea in the West, and its trajectories in colonial and postcolonial societies, particularly southern Africa.

This volume analyses the dynamic relations between people and national parks and assesses these in southern Africa against broader experiences in postcolonial societies. It draws examples from a broad range of situations and places. It reinserts issues of prejudices into contemporary national park systems, and accounts for continuities and interruptions in national parks ideals in different contexts. Its interpretation of material transcends the North-South divide.

This volume is accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. It is of special interest to academics, policymakers and Non-Governmental Organisations. This book can also be used as prescribed or reference material in courses taught at university.

Proceedings of the ISPRA Course Held November 25-29, 1985, Organized in Collaboration with the European Safety and Reliability Association-ESRA