This Handbook approaches sustainable development in higher education from an integrated perspective, addressing the dearth of publications on the subject. It offers a unique overview of what universities around the world are doing to implement sustainable development (i.e. via curriculum innovation, research, activities, or practical projects) and how their efforts relate to education for sustainable development at the university level. The Handbook gathers a wealth of information, ideas, best practices and lessons learned in the context of executing concrete projects, and assesses methodological approaches to integrating the topic of sustainable development in university curricula. Lastly, it documents and disseminates the veritable treasure trove of practical experience currently available on sustainability in higher education.

This unique volume presents up-to-date information and the latest research findings on unconventional water resources in Egypt and their connections to agriculture. It investigates how to cope with the severe shortage of water and how to improve the irrigation system's efficiency. The main aspects addressed include: * History of drainage and drainage projects in Egypt * Towards the integration of irrigation and drainage water * Assessment of drainage systems and environmental impact assessment of irrigation projects * Maximizing the reuse of agricultural drainage water and agricultural waste to improve irrigation efficiency * Developing alternative water resources, such as desalination, for greenhouses * Drainage water quality assessment, microbial hazards and improvement of green and cost-effective technologies for treatment of agricultural drainage water and wastewater for reuse in irrigation * Towards the sustainable reuse of water resources in Egypt * Options for securing water resources in Egypt, and challenges and opportunities for policy planners This book and the companion volume Conventional Water Resources and Agriculture in Egypt are vital resources for researchers, environmental managers and water policy planners - and for all those seeking information on wastewater reuse, green and cost-effective technologies for improving water quality.

This book provides an overview of contemporary trends and challenges in maritime energy management (MEM). Coordinated action is necessary to achieve a low carbon and energy-efficient maritime future, and MEM is the prevailing framework aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions resulting from maritime industry activities. The book familiarizes readers with the status quo in the field, and paves the way for finding solutions to perceived challenges. The 34 contributions cover six important aspects: regulatory framework; energy-efficient ship design; energy efficient ship and port operation; economic and social dimensions; alternative fuels and wind-assisted ship propulsion; and marine renewable energy. This pioneering work is intended for researchers and academics as well as practitioners and policymakers involved in this important field.

This book outlines how Germans convinced their politicians to pass laws allowing citizens to make their own energy, even when it hurt utility companies to do so. It traces the origins of the Energiewende movement in Germany from the Power Rebels of Schoenau to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's shutdown of eight nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The authors explore how, by taking ownership of energy efficiency at a local level, community groups are key actors in the bottom-up fight against climate change. Individually, citizens might install solar panels on their roofs, but citizen groups can do much more: community wind farms, local heat supply, walkable cities and more. This book offers evidence that the transition to renewables is a one-time opportunity to strengthen communities and democratize the energy sector - in Germany and around the world.

This open access book focuses on the meanings, agendas, as well as the local and global implications of bioeconomy and bioenergy policies in and across South America, Asia and Europe. It explores how a transition away from a fossil and towards a bio-based economic order alters, reinforces and challenges socio-ecological inequalities. The volume presents a historically informed and empirically rich discussion of bioeconomy developments with a particular focus on bio-based energy. A series of conceptual discussions and case studies with a multidisciplinary background in the social sciences illuminate how the deployment of biomass sources from the agricultural and forestry sectors affect societal changes concerning knowledge production, land and labour relations, political participation and international trade. How can a global perspective on socio-ecological inequalities contribute to a complex and critical understanding of bioeconomy? Who participates in the negotiation of specific bioeconomy policies and who does not? Who determines the agenda? To what extent does the bioeconomy affect existing socio-ecological inequalities in rural areas? What are the implications of the bioeconomy for existing relations of extraction and inequalities across regions? The volume is an invitation to reflect upon these questions and more, at a time when the need for an ecological and socially just transition away from a carbon intensive economy is becoming increasingly pressing.

This book shows how the links between energy security and national and international law and policies on green energy pose challenges to a transition towards a green energy system. Based on empirical work carried out in two very different country case studies - Great Britain and Brazil - this book attempts to foster a better understanding of the role played by energy security in constructing and deconstructing green energy policy initiatives. The broad range of views raised in national contexts leads to legal disputes in international forums when attempts are made to address the issues of this energy security/green energy interplay. As such, building on the findings of the case studies, this book then analyses the interplay between energy security and green energy development in international trade law as encapsulated in the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Finally, the author proposes a way forward in creating the legal space in the law of the WTO for trade restrictive measures aimed at ensuring green energy security.

This book gathers technical and scientific contributions from leading researchers, academics, and lecturers, focusing on water management, water pollution and water structures in the Czech Republic. It discusses a variety of water resources management issues, from stormwater management in urban areas, water quantity, hydraulics structures and hydrodynamic modeling, to flood protection, presenting state-of-the-art developments for addressing a range of problems. Edited and authored by pioneers in the field who have been at the cutting edge of water management development in the Czech Republic, this book is of interest to environmental professionals, including scientists and policymakers both in the Czech Republic and around the globe.

This book highlights the concept and applications of Remanufactured Fashion. The first book on this subject, it covers reverse logistics, exemplars, and case studies of remanufactured fashion design. Textile waste is a major issue for all countries, and converting that waste into useful products offers a sensible solution. Remanufactured Fashion is one such sustainable waste management strategy. It involves the conversion of discarded garments into useful retail products, without which they would be dumped at landfills, posing a number of environmental issues. Remanufacturing recovers a product's inherent value once that product no longer fulfills the user's desired needs. The application and use of discarded clothing in remanufacturing processes could greatly reduce the percentage of clothing waste (and mitigate related waste management issues), while also contributing to resource conservation. There has been scant research investigating what is actually involved in the fashion remanufacturing process and how the process could be up-scaled to the mass market in order to achieve greater environmental gains. This book addresses that gap in the literature and examines all aspects pertaining to the concept and applications of Remanufactured Fashion.

The aim of this edited volume is to introduce the scientific community to paleoenvironmental studies of estuaries, to highlight the types of information that can be obtained from such studies, and to promote the use of paleoenvironmental studies in estuarine management. Readers will learn about the the application of different paleoecological approaches used in estuaries that develop our understanding of their response to natural and human influences. Particular attention is given to the essential steps required for undertaking a paleoecological study, in particular with regard to site selection, core extraction and chronological techniques, followed by the range of indicators that can be used. A series of case studies are discussed in the book to demonstrate how paleoecological studies can be used to address key questions, and to sustainably manage these important coastal environments in the future. This book will appeal to professional scientists interested in estuarine studies and/or paleoenvironmental research, as well as estuarine managers who are interested in the incorporation of paleoenvironmental research into their management programs.

This edited volume is devoted to the examination of the implications of the inevitable changes wrought by global change on the welfare and livelihoods of tens of millions of people who live in dryland regions. Global change is more than just climate change and the ramifications of changing trade patterns (geopolitical and economic aspects), the shift to the market economy, demographic factors (population growth, urbanization and re-settlement), receive attention here. Land use change specialists, policy makers and natural resource management agencies will find the book very useful. Chapters focus on examples that are drawn from a number of sources including previously unpublished studies on the impact of climate change, markets and economics on pastoralist and dryland farming households. The key focus is to provide readers with insights into the real world implications of change (including an analysis of the drivers of change) on these vulnerable groups within dryland societies. The role of humans as agents of these changes is canvassed. A regional analysis of the world's drylands is also performed including those in Australia, Argentina, India, North America, China, North Africa, Central Asia and Southern Africa.

The cryosphere stands for environments where water appears in a frozen form. It includes permafrost, glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice and is currently more affected by Global Change than most other regions of the Earth. In the cryosphere, limited water availability and subzero temperatures cause extreme conditions for all kind of life which microorganisms can cope with extremely well. The cryosphere's microbiota displays an unexpectedly large genetic potential, and taxonomic as well as functional diversity which, however, we still only begin to map. Also, microbial communities influence reaction patterns of the cryosphere towards Global Change. Altered patterns of seasonal temperature fluctuations and precipitation are expected in the Arctic and will affect the microbial turnover of soil organic matter (SOM). Activation of nutrients by thawing and increased active layer thickness as well as erosion renders nutrient stocks accessible to microbial activities. Also, glacier melt and retreat stimulate microbial life in turn influencing albedo and surface temperatures. In this context, the functional resilience of microbial communities in the cryosphere is of major interest. Particularly important is the ability of microorganisms and microbial communities to respond to changes in their surroundings by intracellular regulation and population shifts within functional niches, respectively. Research on microbial life exposed to permanent freeze or seasonal freeze-thaw cycles has led to astonishing findings about microbial versatility, adaptation, and diversity. Microorganisms thrive in cold habitats and new sequencing techniques have produced large amounts of genomic, metagenomic, and metatranscriptomic data that allow insights into the fascinating microbial ecology and physiology at low and subzero temperatures. Moreover, some of the frozen ecosystems such as permafrost constitute major global carbon and nitrogen storages, but can also act as sources of the greenhouse gases methane and nitrous oxide. In this book we summarize state of the art knowledge on whether environmental changes are met by a flexible microbial community retaining its function, or if the altered conditions also render the community in a state of altered properties that affect the Earth's element cycles and climate. This book brings together research on the cryosphere's microbiota including permafrost, glaciers, and sea ice in Arctic and Antarctic regions. Different spatial scales and levels of complexity are considered, spanning from ecosystem level to pure culture studies of model microbes in the laboratory. It aims to attract a wide range of parties with interest in the effect of climate change and/or low temperatures on microbial nutrient cycling and physiology.

This book presents and discusses a strategy which includes four approaches to dealing with the risk of sea-level rise and other water hazards. It also offers opportunities for cities to explore urban extensions such as marine estates, aquatic food production systems, new sea related industries, maritime transport developments, new oceanic tourist attractions, and the designation of additional coastal ecological zones. The urban interface between Sea and Cities generates, therefore, both burning issues and valuable opportunities and raises the question of whether it is possible to solve the former by exploiting the latter?

On the night of October 18, 1925, fire raged through the downtown area of the tiny Catskill Mountain Village of Gilboa, New York. Firefighters came from miles around to fight the inferno while tourists sat on the hilltops to watch the show. In the end, 18 buildings lay in smoldering ruins. Yet, this fire was not the end of Gilboa, merely a climax of events that were razing the community more slowly. Gilboa was in the way of the Schoharie Reservoir, one of the numerous artificial lakes collecting water for thirsty New Yorkers. In order for New York City to growing, the people of Gilboa would be forced to move, and the town would need to be burned to the ground. In Gilboa, Alexander Thomas traces the evolving dynamics between New York and its hinterland. Starting with the role of native inhabitants, their Dutch colonizers, and the role of British manor law, this historical investigation then explores the construction of the original reservoir, battles against a second reservoir in the 1970s, and battles over environmental regulations in the 1990s. Gilboa is a must read for those interested in urban and rural issues, social conflict and social movements, and anyone who enjoys New York-state and city-history.

The global food system is the largest segment of the world's economy. As agribusiness-studies pioneer Ray Goldberg suggests, it is also the largest health system on the planet. And it is changing fast. Its size and importance to human, environmental, and economic health means that no system is viewed with as much suspicion by so many people around the globe. Changing societal expectations and scientific and medical advances have made the drivers of the food system-the world's food citizens-realize they must take more responsibility for society's nutritional needs, economic development, and the health of the environment. Goldberg argues that the traditionally commodity-oriented, bargaining relationship between segments of the food system has become win-win, collaborative, and characterized by public and private partnerships. Those who are responding to society's needs are succeeding; those who are not are losing out. The food system's greatest growth area is the developing world, where millions of small-scale producers, workers, and impoverished consumers need help to become part of the commercial food system. In this book, Ray Goldberg interviews the change makers of today's food system: leaders and constructive critics in government, private industry, nonprofits, and academia who provide a panoramic and in-depth look at a revolution in progress.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology attempts to provide concise, critical reviews of timely advances, philosophy and significant areas of accomplished or needed endeavor in the total field of xenobiotics, in any segment of the environment, as well as toxicological implications.

This book reviews the state of the art of natural disasters like floods and landslides, highlighting the possibility of safe and correct land planning and management by means of a global approach to territory. In fact, the events deriving from slope dynamics (gravitational phenomena) and fluvial dynamics (floods) are commonly triggered by the same factor (heavy rainfall), occur at the same time and are closely related. For this reason, this book analyses floods and slope stability phenomena as different aspects of the same dynamic system: the drainage basin.

This volume addresses the latest results of the Major Water Program of the Chinese Government which aims at the restoration of polluted water environments and sustainable management of water resources in China. It specifically summarizes the results of the BMBF-CLIENT project "Management of Water Resources in Urban Catchments" and the related MoST project "Key Technologies and Management Modes for the Water Environmental Rehabilitation of a Lake City from the Catchment Viewpoint" in Chaohu. The project is conducted by the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research UFZ, Technische Universitat Dresden, German and Chinese companies (WISUTEC, AMC, bbe Moldaenke, itwh, OpenGeoSys e.V., HC System and EWaters) in close cooperation with Tongji University, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology of Academy of Sciences, Institute for Hydrobiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chaohu Lake Management Authority. The book explains the development of concepts and solutions for sustained water quality improvement in Chaohu, combining urban water resource management, decentralized sanitation solutions, methods in water quality assurance, environmental information systems and groundwater modeling.

This book reports on a public archaeology project carried out at the ancient site of Tilmen Hoeyuk in south-eastern Turkey. The project developed and applied new methodologies and advanced technologies for the planning, design, conservation and management of an archaeological park at a site of high cultural, environmental and touristic interest, representing a significant study case for other archaeological sites in the Mediterranean area and beyond. It highlights state-of-the-art techniques of remote sensing, both for archaeological surveying and for territorial and environmental analysis through the study of high-definition aerial photos and digital photogrammetry. It also takes into account the ecological and environmental characterization data elaborated by environmental and botanic experts, fundamental for the purposes of eco-sustainability and management of the site, through climate and ground measurements aiming at vegetation control and a management model for the archaeological site itself and its green areas of outstanding naturalistic interest. Further, the book comprehensively discusses the analysis of the state of preservation of the archaeological remains and their effective conservation based on a set of measures guided by the principles of minimum intervention, feasibility and low impact on the remains, the site and its landscape. Moreover, it presents novel devices and fixed structures aimed at protecting the fragile archaeological remains and allowing safe access to visitors to the newly created archaeological park. At the intersection of archaeology, architecture and natural sciences, this book appeals to researchers and specialists in archaeology, social sciences, environmental sciences, conservation, architecture and engineering disciplines.

This book explores current developments in the African energy sector and highlights how these are likely to be affected by the ongoing global efforts to transition to a low-carbon economy. It analyses the legal, regulatory and policy frameworks at the national and regional level as they relate to Energy transition in Africa and discusses how regionalism is increasingly utilized to tackle energy access and climate change challenges. Using case studies from across the continent, several key thematic issues, including gender justice, social license to operate, local content and conflict of energy laws are covered in detail. The authors also uniquely examine the progressive nature of global energy use and introduce the new concept of 'Energy Progression.' This book will be an invaluable reference for researchers and policymakers looking for a comprehensive overview of the field.

The past half century has seen an evolution in thinking from 'flood control' to 'flood risk management', recognizing that risk results from both hazard and vulnerability. Rather than rely only on engineering structures to reduce flood magnitude or extent, recent policies emphasize avoiding construction in flood-prone areas (or moving people from floodplains), reducing impacts on exposed populations through early warning systems, and insurance to aid in recovery. Implementing this new approach faces many challenges but also offers opportunities for synergies, as described in this book for a range of large floodplain rivers and smaller urban streams across North America and Europe. This book is unique in presenting the voices of those on the front lines of implementing a new paradigm in flood risk management, each river with a unique set of challenges and opportunities derived from its specific geography as well as differences in governance between the American and European contexts.

This book details the experiences gained by the Catalan Water Agency (ACA) in a Mediterranean watershed - the Catalan River Basin District - following the launch of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) in the year 2000. Experts in rivers, reservoirs, lakes, wetlands and estuaries present 13 chapters defining tools for water-status assessment specially adapted to Mediterranean conditions. The content of this and the companion volume Experiences from Ground, Coastal and Transitional Water Quality Monitoring: The EU Water Framework Directive Implementation in the Catalan River Basin District (Part II) are the result of an excellent collaboration between the ACA and several Catalan universities and research centers to cope with new challenges provided by the WFD monitoring requirements. The volume serves as a useful guide for environmental managers and scientists engaged in other European as well as Non-European river basins.

This book presents an up-to-the-minute overview of arsenic and fluoride pollution of soil and groundwater in Pakistan. It includes the author's doctoral dissertation on Lahore as a case study and describes the mechanism of pollution on the basis of the findings in that area. The book highlights the concrete situation in Pakistan - including the severity of the problem, its health effects and the risks posed to the people living in affected areas by these two major pollutants- and points out essential research areas that call for immediate attention. As such, it draws attention to the need for management strategies in the affected areas and offers a valuable reference work on Pakistan for students and researchers alike.

Over the last century, the industrialization of agriculture and processing technologies have made food abundant and relatively inexpensive for much of the world's population. Simultaneously, pesticides, nitrates, and other technological innovations intended to improve the food supply's productivity and safety have generated new, often poorly understood risks for consumers and the environment. From the proliferation of synthetic additives to the threat posed by antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the chapters in Risk on the Table zero in on key historical cases in North America and Europe that illuminate the history of food safety, highlighting the powerful tensions that exists among scientific understandings of risk, policymakers' decisions, and cultural notions of "pure" food.

The evidence suggests that many solar programs are being designed and implemented in isolation and without reliance on published guidelines or the experience gained by others. The conclusion is obvious: the likelihood of a program being successful would be greatly improved if program implementers were made more aware of best practice guidelines and of the lessons and experience learned by others in implementing previous programs. Furthermore, the best practice guidelines not only need to be readily available but need to describe the stages, issues and the stakeholders' roles in designing and implementing a SHS program. This book showcases a detailed road map that has been developed for the implementation of rural electrification projects in developing countries using solar PV. Features of this book will be case studies derived from personal participatory observation of the authors on Solar Home Systems, their impact, their advantages and disadvantages and their operation.