Mineral processing technologies have been used for decades to protect the environment and many examples of such applications are given here. The book covers four major subject areas: fundamentals; environmental pollution and its prevention; separation processes; and innovative techniques. Audience: Scientists, engineers and technologists conducting both applied and basic research into the different environmental aspects of mineral processing.

This volume presents the latest research related to the current water situation, as well as its significance for the peaceful coexistence of the neighbouring countries. The book focuses on crucial topics: water resources, water protection, water management and water as a source of conflict. Topics such as sewage disposal and soil protection, as well as the transfer of environmental technology are also discussed.

The research category of the landscape ecology, which researches the structure, functions, and the spatio-temporal changes of the ecological landscapes, has now been contributing to the human life and the shifts of the socio-economic paradigm. Global warming has been influencing the universal life patterns of the mankind which have been maintained in the past several hundreds of years. And it has been having the influences on the international social problems and economic problems. Although the diverse plans for adapting to the climate changes have been the topics of the conservations among the ecologists internationally, it is the reality that the speed of the changes of the environment has been quicker than the time it takes to complete the solutions. In order to maintain the sustainable earth and the sustainable society, the role of the landscape ecology has been coming to the fore. Especially, the theories and the methodologies of the landscape ecology have been applied to the multidisciplinary researches by going beyond the research category of ecology, including the maximization of the efficiencies of the land spaces, the management of the ecological space (habitats) in which the biological diversity can be maintained, the utilization of the resources that are absolutely needed by the human beings (Here, it is compressed to water, energy, and food), etc. and until reaching the human society. It is considered that, to that extent, the utilizations and the applications of the landscape ecology are very much needed for the diagnoses and the evaluations of the global environmental problems which have been proceeded with rapidly in the modernity. This book is not comprised of any general remarks that explain the theories and the methods of the landscape ecology. Already, based on the basic theories of the landscape ecology, the writers have conducted the investigations on the farm villages, the cities, and the coastal ecosystems. And, through the space analyses and interpretations, the structure and functions of the landscapes were analyzed. Of course, in this book, too, the diverse ecosystems and the landscape ecological methodologies regarding the land use have been presented. However, the core of this book focuses more on what role the landscape ecology must play for the materialization of a sustainable society in the future. At the farm villages, the sustainable agriculture will be presented, and, at the cities, the discussions on the green networks and the energies will be proceeded with. Also, regarding the coasts and the seas, a thesis on the safety of the life zones of the residents adjacent to the sea and on the conservation of the island ecosystems will be presented. The sustainable society is a system that is formed by having the sustainable development as a basis. It is considered to be one aspect within a kind of a sustainable process with regard to which the natural world and the human world coexist and are in a symbiotic relationship harmoniously. In order to maintain the biodiversity, the reasonable adjustments of the human activities, like the use of the resources, are absolutely needed. Without the biological resources, the cultural diversity of the human beings, too, cannot exist. Consequentially, recently and internationally, there are a lot of the case examples that express the biocultural diversity by linking the biological diversity with the cultural diversity. In this book, the role of the landscape ecology as an academic link which can connect the two possible, if possible, is highly expected. It is, indeed, the biocultural landscape. It can be said that this concept, also, is the interconnection of the multidisciplinary spaces that must be dealt with in the modern landscape ecology. Through this book, it is intended to present a new directionality which can contribute to the sustainable society at the same time as the organization of the theories and the methods of the landscape ecology.

Many of the major environmental challenges facing governments and societies today are collective problems, calling for joint solutions. However, even when effective solutions can be found only through joint efforts, international cooperation is often hard to establish and maintain. This makes it all the more important to understand the conditions for success' and the causes of failure'. This book examines some of the political mechanisms at work in the formation and operation of international environmental regimes. What are the major factors that shape the national positions that governments bring to the negotiating table? How do the international institutions and negotiation processes through which these preferences and positions are adjusted and aggregated affect outcomes? What are the main mechanisms determining whether or not international environmental agreements are successfully implemented at the domestic level? The Politics of International Environmental Management is published in cooperation with the European Science Foundation.

Biomass obtained from agricultural residues or forest can be used to produce different materials and bioenergy required in a modern society. As compared to other resources available, biomass is one of the most common and widespread resources in the world. Thus, biomass has the potential to provide a renewable energy source, both locally and across large areas of the world. It is estimated that the total investment in the biomass sector between 2008 and 2021 will reach the large sum of $104 billion. Presently bioenergy is the most important renewable energy option and will remain so the near and medium-term future. Previously several countries try to explore the utilization of biomass in bioenergy and composite sector. Biomass has the potential to become the world s largest and most sustainable energy source and will be very much in demand. Bioenergy is based on resources that can be utilized on a sustainable basis all around the world and can thus serve as an effective option for the provision of energy services. In addition, the benefits accrued go beyond energy provision, creating unique opportunities for regional development.The present book will provide an up-to-date account of non-wood, forest residues, agricultural biomass (natural fibers), and energy crops together with processing, properties and its applications to ensure biomass utilization and reuse. All aspects of biomass and bioenergy and their properties and applications will be critically re-examined. The book consists of three sections, presenting Non wood and forest products from forestry, arboriculture activities or from wood processing, agricultural biomass (natural fibers) from agricultural harvesting or processing and finally energy crops: high yield crops and grasses grown especially for energy production."

Decision making in land management involves preferential selection among competing alternatives. Often, such choices are difficult owing to the complexity of the decision context. Because the analytic hierarchy process (AHP, developed by Thomas Saaty in the 1970s) has been successfully applied to many complex planning, resource allocation, and priority setting problems in business, energy, health, marketing, natural resources, and transportation, more applications of the AHP in natural resources and environmental sciences are appearing regularly. This realization has prompted the authors to collect some of the important works in this area and present them as a single volume for managers and scholars. Because land management contains a somewhat unique set of features not found in other AHP application areas, such as site-specific decisions, group participation and collaboration, and incomplete scientific knowledge, this text fills a void in the literature on management science and decision analysis for forest resources.

Emerging Threats to Energy Security and Stability January 23 to January 25, 2004, Windsor Castle, UK This two-day NATO-sponsored workshop was organised by the Windsor Energy Group and MEC International Ltd with support from NATO's Science Committee. The workshop was designed to promote a public-private sector exchange on how best to address issues arising in energy security at a time of growing uncertainty. In particular, it sought to assess emerging threats to energy security and stability and discuss new security strategies to protect global energy supplies from regional instability and terrorism. The format involved a wide-ranging international group of poli- formers and advisers from NATO, Partner and other countries, in a unique forum for intensive expert discussion. Background The international community is increasingly conscious of the need to develop new energy security strategies in order to protect global energy supplies from regional instability and terrorism. Energy security is a vital element in international stability. However, a variety of energy-related economic, technical, and military/political factors pose serious challenges to the international community's pursuit of energy security and stability: The global economy is expected to continue to be largely dependent on oil and gas for the next twenty to thirty years. Current levels of production may need to be doubled in this period, with most of the increment coming from the Gulf States who control 66% of global oil reserves and 40% of global natural gas reserves. There are forecasts of significant capacity shortfalls.

Over the past 100 years, there has been a steady process by which natural resources have been increasingly managed by centralized institutions. Governments and other national agencies have argued that this promotes efficiency and equity. Recently this orthodoxy has been challenged by experiments that show how centralized management tends to fail. Global, national and local goals are more likely to be met, at lower cost and with other benefits (such as promoting better democratic institutions) by involving local populations in collaborative management agreements. This volume, based on detailed case studies from around the world, subjects some of these experiments to critical study, and suggests limits to the participative approach as well as ways it can be improved and made suitable for new contexts.

Water is the source of life and the building block of all civilisation. The control of water has shaped politics, health, population growth, city planning, technology and religion. Controlling water has driven progress, through the growth of intensive farming and industrial revolution. It has also become a symbol of our civilisation - evidence that we have mastered nature.From the hanging gardens of Babylon and the ancient myth of the Nile to the fountains in Las Vegas, water is the one constant. We are fed by irrigated fields, live in plumbed cities, and turn on a tap without a moment's thought. Yet, this simple technology that underpins everything is at bursting point. There are too many people for the available water, and war may follow. How did we get here, and what can we do about it?

Today, the effect of global climate change is clear to all. It is clearly dangerous in developing countries such as Bangladesh. The industrial revolution caused major changes in technology, socio-economy and cultures in the late 18th and early 19th century, beginning in Britain and spreading throughout the world. The technology dominated economy was mostly dependent on energy produced from fossil fuel, which still holds true today. It is well known that fossil fuel burning has increased the GHGs to the atmosphere, thus creating global warming. Among the GHGs, the concentration of CO2 has been confirmed as the largest. Terrestrial ecosystems are clearly influencing the concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere. Greenhouse gases are constantly entering and leaving the atmosphere. Actively growing trees and other plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, combine it with water through photosynthesis and create sugars and more stable carbohydrates. Through this process, trees capture and store atmospheric CO2 in vegetation, soils and biomass products. The Kyoto Protocol, in 1997, explored a flexible mechanism, CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) where Annex I and non-Annex I parties interact for climate change mitigation. Forestry activities have been considered important in the arena of climate change as they act both as a sink and sources of carbon. The purpose of this book is to highlight the means of efficiently reducing global warming through forestry options in Bangladesh and the positive implications of CDM.

Governance failure and corruption are increasingly identified as key causes of tropical deforestation. In Nigeria's Edo State, once the showcase of scientific forestry in West Africa, large-scale forest conversion and the virtual depletion of timber stocks are invariably attributed to recent failures in forest management, and are seen as yet another instance of how "things fall apart" in Nigeria. Through an in-depth historical and ethnographic study of forestry in Edo State, this book challenges this routine linking of political and ecological crisis narratives. It shows that the roots of many of today's problems lie in scientific forest management itself, rather than its recent abandonment, and moreover that many "illegal" local practices improve rather than reduce biodiversity and forest cover. The book therefore challenges preconceptions about contemporary Nigeria and highlights the need to reevaluate current understandings of what constitutes "good governance" in tropical forestry.

Pauline von Hellermann is Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has conducted research on landscapes and politics in Nigeria and Tanzania and is editor of "Multisited Ethnography: Problems and Possibilities in the Translocation of Research Methods" (with Simon Coleman, Routledge, 2011).

Addressing the links between science and the real world with a sound scientific baseline, "Coastal Water Bodies" targets researchers of various disciplines whose interest lies in the integrated sustainable management of coastal water bodies. The main topic of this book is not the ecology according to its accepted meaning, but rather the places and people concerned the coastal zones of the Mediterranean that are rich in ecological value and the local people who survive thanks to these environmental resources.

Integration is the joint consideration of different aspects of water uses and values, and new ways of understanding and managing conflicts around water use are needed if people are to benefit from integration. Sustainability of the ecological and socioeconomic environments requires a climate in which conflicts, if they need to exist, are properly managed in a non-destructive manner.

Attempts to manage natural resources through collaboration rather than competition, by agreements rather than conflict, have become the touchstone for many who see these efforts as the harbinger of global sustainable development. The contributors to this volume advise caution as well as optimism for projects conducted in this way. By drawing on the experience of NGOs, national governments, and donor sectors as well as academic researchers this volume analyzes the theory and practice of participatory natural resource management and demonstrates the value of constructive dialogue between all those involved.

Systems approaches for agricultural development are needed to determine rational strategies for the role of agriculture in national development. Mathematical models and computer simulation provide objective tools for applying science to determine and evaluate options for resource management at field, farm and regional scales. However, these tools would not be fully utilizable without incorporating social and economic dimensions into their application. The second international symposium, Systems Approaches for Agricultural Development (SAAD), held in Los Banos, 6-8 December 1995, fostered this link between the biophysical sciences and the social sciences in the selection of keynote papers and oral presentations, a selection of which are included in these books. The contents further reflect how systems approaches have definitely moved beyond the research mode into the application mode. The large number and high quality of interdisciplinary research projects reported from different parts of the globe, to determine land use options that will meet multiple goals and yet sustain natural resource bases, is a key indicator of this coming of age'. At the farm level, where trade-off decisions between processes and products (commodities) feature strongly, much progress is also evident in the development of systems-based tools for decision making. At the field level optimization of resource use and minimizing environmental effects has become of major concern for which systems approaches are indispensable. The books, of which Volume I deals with regional and farm studies level and Volume II with field level studies, will be of particular interest to all agricultural scientists and planners, as well as students interested in multidisciplinary and holistic approaches to agricultural development."

In the late 19th century, the Progressive Era laid the foundations for "scientific management" of lands and natural resources. Yet scientific management, often lauded in concept, is elusive. Land and resource management occurs in a social, economic, and political context in which different values, priorities, and interests influence goals, funding, and management choices. Complexities and uncertainties abound. At least three decades ago, critics of these decision processes began arguing that the complexities of managing natural systems required an interdisciplinary approach. Most books on scientific and political management of natural resources and lands are either theoretical academic tomes, a compendium of case studies, or handbooks. Despite this vast literature, land managers struggle to effectively restore and sustain lands amid conflict, controversy, and sometimes weak application of science to decisions. Though some notable conservation successes exist, in many places land health continues to deteriorate through mismanagement, neglect, and land transformation for development, agriculture, energy production, and other uses. This book examines decision making processes, the intersection of science and policy, and practical examples of how, where, and why successful conservation, restoration, and land management are occurring. The text consists of three sections Science, Technology, and Engineering; Politics and Policy; and People and Action. The Introduction lays out the premise of the book (harmonizing science, politics, and people to take action to restore and sustains lands given the complications of governance and climate change) and puts each chapter in context. The Synthesis is the linchpin chapter. It synthesizes the concepts put forth in each chapter into a plan of action to restore and sustain lands. It makes recommendations how this plan can be tested through action research. The plan will be dynamic; that is it will be designed to adapt to changing circumstances so that action can be taken quickly."

The great migration of farmers leaving rural China to work and live in big cities as 'floaters' has been an on-going debate in China for the past three decades. This book probes into the spatial mobility of migrant workers in Beijing, and questions the city 'rights' issues beneath the city-making movement in contemporary China. In revealing and explaining the socio-spatial injustice, this volume re-theorizes the 'right to the city' in the Chinese context since Deng Xiaoping's reforms. The policy review, census analysis, and housing survey are conducted to examine the fate of migrant workers, who being the most marginalized group have to move persistently as the city expands and modernizes itself. The study also compares the migrant workers with local Pekinese dislocated by inner city renewals and city expansion activities. Rapid urban growth and land expropriation of peripheral farmlands have also created a by-product of urbanization, an informal property development by local farmers in response to rising low-cost rental housing demand. This is a highly comparable phenomenon with cities in other newly industrialized countries, such as Sao Paulo. Readers will be provided with a good basis in understanding the interplay as well as conflicts between migrant workers' housing rights and China's globalizing and branding pursuits of its capital city. Audience: This book will be of great interest to researchers and policy makers in housing planning, governance towards urban informalities, rights to the city, migrant control and management, and housing-related conflict resolutions in China today.

This book, a compendium of 28 papers selected from two recent conferences on the topic, focuses on aspects of rural landscape, broadly related to issues of language, representation and power. These are issues that have not been addressed on a pan-European landscape level before.The aim is to offer a deeper interdisciplinary understanding of historical and contemporary processes in European landscapes.

The electric power sector operates under an archaic regulatory system that is ill-equipped to oversee a competitive, restructured, regionally-organized industry. This book offers the first systematic discourse on regional aspects of regulatory reform, sharing topical perspectives from leading actors and regional case studies that show how the debate plays out on the ground. It frames the policy debate, applies economic and political theoretical lenses to federalism issues, and outlines options for regulatory reform, modes of cooperation, and an analytical basis for decisions. Most important, it provides a strategic road map for the industry over the coming decade. Contributors include current and former regulators at the State and Federal levels, senior utility executives, leading advocates, government policy makers and academics, including Michael Danielson, Michehl Gent, Kenneth Gordon, Kevin Kelly, Raymond Maliszewski, Richard O'Neill, Jackie Pfannensteil, Mary Sharpe Hayes, Charles Stalon, and many others.

As electric restructuring spreads rapidly across countries and states, leading industry experts are increasingly concerned that in many instances policy makers are pushing their proposals into practice more quickly than policy analysts can provide answers to difficult questions of market design. In this process, different structures for organizing this industry are evolving without a firm basic understanding of their implications for long-term market performance. There is a risk that, in the process, we may be inadvertently locked into an inferior market design that will be costly to change. Designing Competitive Electricity Markets develops some guiding principles to be used when evaluating alternative proposals for reorganizing the US electric power industry. Preliminary versions of the papers in this book were presented at a Workshop convened by the Electric Power Research Institute and held at Stanford University in March 1997. The authors are prominent economists, operation researchers, and engineers who have been instrumental in the development of the conceptual framework for electric power restructuring both in the United States and in other countries. Rather than espousing a particular market design for the industry's future, each author focuses on an important issue or set of issues and tries to frame the questions for designing electricity markets using an international perspective. The book focuses on the economic and technical questions important in understanding the industry's long-term development rather than providing immediate answers for the current political debates on industry competition. Extensive issues are covered, including: the role of the system operator; theproblems of ensuring longer-term investment in expanding the transmission system, and in industry research and development; the problems in pricing that are created by arbitrarily segmenting related markets; the relationship between efficiency in the near and long term; ownership rights and incentives; and designing experiments to better understand the operation of different auction mechanisms. The intended audience for this volume includes policy-makers, policy-oriented academics, and corporate leaders with an interest in designing workable and more efficient electricity markets. The arguments in each chapter are based upon sound economic principles but do not require expertise in mathematical modeling or technical economic analysis.

Individual mobility is one of the most important needs of modern society and an important link between private, public and economic life. In contrast, transport also entails severe environmental and social burdens, foiling current efforts for sustainable development. As the main source of CO2 emissions, transport is a prominent driver for climate change, and individual car traffic is responsible for nearly a third of the total energy consumption. However, we have to consider that many commuters feel indeed very dependent on their car. Here, ridesharing promises to contribute to environmental protection, while still offering individual mobility. Although ridesharing options have been discussed since many years, internet and smartphones provide completeley new opportunities to find ridesharing partners today. Thus, this book deals with current efforts on implementing flexible internet- and phone-based ridesharing services. With a main focus on the users' perspective, their demands and acceptance limits, we aim to explore success factors for non-profit, but also commercial ridesharing concepts.

Around the world, intensifying development and human demands for fresh water are placing unsustainable pressures on finite resources. Countries are waging war over transboundary rivers, and rural and urban communities are increasingly divided as irrigation demands compete with domestic desires. Marginal groups are losing access to water as powerful elites protect their own interests, and entire ecosystems are being severely degraded. These problems are particularly evident in Australia, with its industrialised economy and arid climate. Yet there have been relatively few attempts to examine the social and cultural complexities that underlie people's engagements with water. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in two major Australian river catchments (the Mitchell River in Cape York, and the Brisbane River in southeast Queensland), this book examines their major water using and managing groups: indigenous communities, farmers, industries, recreational and domestic water users, and environmental organisations. It explores the issues that shape their different beliefs, values and practices in relation to water, and considers the specifically cultural or sub-cultural meanings that they encode in their material surroundings. Through an analysis of each group's diverse efforts to 'garden the world', it provides insights into the complexities of human-environmental relationships.

This book is a result of the NATO-SPS (NFA) Workshop held in Istanbul, Turkey, in October 2007. The main goal of the Workshop was to provide knowledge and build the skills of scientists, engineers, and decision- and policy-makers for the effective management of watersheds and prevention of or coping with catastrophic events. The aim of this effort was to transfer the multidisciplinary approach, information, and knowledge gained by the LEMSM group (NATO CCMS Pilot Study Group on Ecosystem Modeling of Coastal Lagoons for Sustainable Management) during their 12 years of collaboration on the Pilot Study to international scientists and decision-makers.

The Workshop provided participants with an excellent opportunity to develop understanding and skills in scenario-based decision-making management of watersheds. Participants from 21 countries exchanged knowledge on how to use advanced tools for assessment and decision-making that provide the ability to manage watersheds. Participants benefited from applying the sustainable use and development models to minimize and mitigate effects on the natural capital of water resources, watersheds, and thus socioeconomic systems. This led to recommendations based on a oeecosystem approacha for decision-making for protection of human security and peace. Further, group sessions resulted in the identification of Terms and Principles as well as the recommendations for application and implementation of sustainable use and development practices in developing countries. The program of the Workshop was challenging by embracing a a oehands ona learning experience.

The book specifically reframes the need for decision support tools and scientific knowledgein watershed management in the context of a multidisciplinary, integrated approach.

This book explains the notational system NUSAP (Numeral, Unit, Spread, Assessment, Pedigree) and applies it to several examples from the environmental sciences. The authors are now making further extensions of NUSAP, including an algorithm for the propagation of quality-grades through models used in risk and safety studies. They are also developing the concept of Post-normal Science', in which quality assurance of information requires the participation of extended peer-communities' lying outside the traditional expertise.

Environmentally Improved Production Processes and Products introduces students at institutes of higher education, company management, civil servants, professional designers and process engineers to the field of environmentally oriented product and process improvement. The book deals with improvements that are integrated into processes and products. It differs from other books currently available in that it covers both production and products. It is also different because both social/economic and technical aspects of the improvement of products and production processes are dealt with, rather than the more usual focus either on technical or on social and/or economic aspects. Another characteristic is the wide range of production processes and products covered, ranging from bakeries to olive growing, from nuclear power plants to glues, from office chairs to breweries, and from television sets to steel plants. Geographical coverage ranges from Sweden to China and from India to Italy and the USA.

Systems approaches for agricultural development are needed to determine rational strategies for the role of agriculture in national development. Mathematical models and computer simulation provide objective tools for applying science to determine and evaluate options for resource management at field, farm and regional scales. However, these tools would not be fully utilizable without incorporating social and economic dimensions into their application. The second international symposium, Systems Approaches for Agricultural Development, held in Los BaAos, 6-8 December 1995, fostered this link between the bio-physical sciences and the social sciences in the choice of keynote papers and oral presentations, a selection of which is included in this book. The book's contents further reflect how systems approaches have definitely moved beyond the research mode into the application mode. The large number and high quality of interdisciplinary research projects reported from different parts of the globe, to determine land use options that will meet multiple goals and yet sustain natural resource bases, is a key indicator of this coming of age'. At the farm level, where trade-off decisions between processes and products (commodities) feature strongly, much progress is also evident in the development of systems-based tools for decision making. This book will be of particular interest to all agricultural scientists and planners, as well as students interested in multidisciplinary and holistic approaches for agricultural development.