This book explores the main methods, models, and approaches of food consumer science applied to six countries of the Western Balkans, illustrating each of these methods with concrete case studies. Research conducted between 2008 and 2011 in the course of the FOCUS-BALKANS project forms an excellent database for exploring recent changes and trends in food consumption.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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."

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.

Carbon footprint is one of the important environmental impacts, which has received greater attention from the public, government and media. It is one of the important topics of even any government's agenda as well and every nation is trying its best to reduce its carbon footprint to the maximum possible extent. Every company would like to reduce the carbon footprint of its products and consumers are looking for the products which emit lower carbon emissions in their entire life cycle. Assessment of Carbon footprint for different products, processes and services and also carbon labelling of products have become familiar topics in the recent past in various industrial sectors. Every industry has its unique assessment and modelling techniques, allocation procedures, mitigation methods and labelling strategies for its carbon emissions. With this background, this book has been framed with dedicated chapters on carbon footprint assessment on various industrial sectors. In each chapter, details pertaining to the assessment methodologies of carbon footprint followed in a particular industry, challenges in calculating the carbon footprint, case studies of various products in that particular industry, mitigation measures to be followed to trim down the carbon footprint, recommendations for further research are discussed in detail. This first volume includes the carbon footprint assessment methodology of agricultural sector, telecommunication sector, food sector, ceramic industry, packaging industry, building and construction sector and solid waste sector.

Climate change is a matter of global concern and specific sectors of society such as universities need to engage and be active in the search for regional and local solutions for what is a global problem. Despite the fact that many universities all around the world are undertaking remarkable efforts in tackling the challenges posed by climate change, few of such works are widely documented and disseminated. The book "Universities and Climate Change" addresses this gap. The book pursues three aims. Firstly, it presents a review of the approaches and methods to inform, communicate and educate university students and the public on climate change being used by universities around the world. Secondly, it introduces initiatives, projects and communication strategies undertaken by universities with a view to informing students and other stakeholders in order to raise awareness on matters related to climate change. Finally, the book documents, promotes and disseminates some of the on-going initiatives.

Using a political-economic approach supplemented with insights from human ecology, this volume analyzes the long-term dynamics of food security and economic growth. The book begins by discussing the nature of preindustrial food crises and the changes that have occurred since the 19th century with the ascent of technical science and the fossil fuel revolution. It explains how these changes improved living standards but that the realization of this improvement was usually dependent on government support for smallholder modernization. The author sets out how the evolution of food security in different regions has been influenced by farm policy choices and how these choices were shaped by local societal characteristics, international relations and changing configurations in metropolitan countries. Separate chapters are devoted to the interaction of this evolution with debates on food security and economic growth and with international economic policies. The final chapters highlight the new challenges for global food security that will arise as traditional sources of biomass production and the more easily extractable reserves of fossil biomass become depleted or can no longer be used. Overall, the book emphasizes the inadequacy of current explanations with regard to these challenges. It explores what is needed to ensure a sustainable future and calls for a rethinking of these issues; a necessary reflection in today's unstable global political situation.

There has been an increased awareness of the need to establish and maintain small-scale forestry in tropical countries. This is due to concerns over continued deforestation, as well as the long-term environmental and economic resources these plantations can contribute if managed successfully. This book examines the constraints that limit the development of small-scale forestry in tropical environments and how they can be overcome. The authors first explain the background to their research and demonstrate how, in contrast to industrial plantations, small-scale forestry has a wide variety of objectives, including the production of fuelwood and a wide variety of non-wood products, and the protection of degraded watersheds and wildlife habitats. They examine a broad range of socio-economic topics under the broad themes of policy development, market considerations, the evolution of small-scale forestry systems, and timber and non-wood benefits. In developing countries for example, small-scale forestry is often regarded as a means of facilitating sustainable regional development. As a result of seven years extensive research they have developed a strong policy line, examining measures such as tax provisions and the targeting of subsidy and extension programs that can help promote the growth of non-industrial forest industries. The authors present an integrated socio-economic analysis of the opportunities, impediments and challenges to small-scale forestry in the tropics. As such, this book will be required reading for scholars of environmental economics and science, land resource economists, and environmental, forestry and resource managers.

The continuously growing human population along the world s coasts will exacerbate the impact of human activities on all coastal environments. Restoration activities will therefore become increasingly important. In particular, sandy shores and coastal dunes will require significant restoration efforts because they are preferred sites for human settlement, industrial and urban development and tourism.

With this book experts in the field present a comprehensive review of restoration studies and activities, where successful and failed studies or approaches from around the world are contrasted and compared. A major asset the book provides is a compendium of studies showing that coastal dune restoration has many definitions and thus leads to many different actions.

This volume addresses those with an interest in conservation ecology and biology, coastal dune dynamics and geomorphology, and coastal management who are seeking information on the different strategies for coastal dune restoration applied in different regions of the world. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for coastal scientists and planners, as well as for local and state officials, residents of coastal communities, environmental advocates and developers.

"

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.

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.

Energy is becoming a prominent driver of economic development. Each year, billions of dollars are invested around the world by the public and private sectors in low-emissions energy development and energy efficiency planning. Energy-based economic development (EBED) is a domain that seizes the opportunities inherent in clean energy development to drive innovation and generate economic growth. Energy-based economic development: How clean energy can drive development and stimulate economic growth delivers working definitions, common approaches, descriptions of supportive policy mechanisms, and suggested metrics for evaluation. The book offers a unified framework for EBED that is supported by examples and leaves readers better equipped to design, plan, and implement EBED initiatives. Case studies illustrate how national and subnational initiatives adopt to a locale's energy asset base, energy and economic development needs, and the context in which the initiative operates. Descriptions of the energy projects supported by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act offer insights about what worked and what did not and suggest ways in which governments can be better prepared to manage EBED projects in the future. This book provides the tools necessary to work toward simultaneous energy and economic development goals and facilitates discussion for an advanced policy agenda of energy efficiency, energy diversification, innovation-led economic growth, and job creation.

his volume brings together and expands on research on the subject of energy T security externalities that we have conducted over a twenty-year period. We were motivated to bring this work together by the lack of a comprehensive analysis of the issues involved that was conveniently located in a single document, by the desire to focus that disparate body of research on the assessment of energy security externalities for policy purposes, and by the continuing concern of researchers and policymakers regarding the issues involved. Many misconceptions about energy security continue to persist in spite of a large body of research to the contrary, and we hope that this volume will help to dispel them. Most of our original research was funded by either the U.S. Department of Energy or Resources for the Future (RFF), and all of it was conducted while we served as staff members of RFF. To these institutions, and to the many individuals who commented on our original work, we wish to express our sincere gratitude. We also wish to express our appreciation to our colleague Margaret Walls for her sub stantial contribution to Chapter 7 on transportation policy."

A collection of writings and a journal of the late Howard Zahniser. Zahniser was the executive director of the Wilderness Society and the author and chief lobbyist for the 1964 Wilderness Act that created the National Wilderness Preservation System. His son, Ed, edited this collection with commentary by George Davis, Paul Schaefer, and Douglas W. Scott.

The book focuses on the negotiation process leading up to the creation of the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the domestic implementation of this international agreement. This political science study of the negotiation process applies several perspectives drawn from international relations theories, while also focusing on the implementation of international environmental agreements in a developing country. Moreover, the links between factors at international and domestic levels are examined, with four proposed mechanisms through which an international institution may affect domestic policies. Evidence is found that the CBD has had a beneficial impact on national biodiversity policies in the country studied, but that necessary compatible legislation is absent in developed country parties. Readership: Policy makers, decision makers, political scientists, lawyers and environmentalists engaged in development assistance work, and academics and industrialists involved in the biotechnology industry.

Planning, operating, and policy making in the electric utility and natural gas sectors involves important trade-offs among economic, social, and environmental criteria. These trade-offs figure prominently in ongoing debates about how to meet growing energy demands and how to restructure the world's power industry. Energy Decisions and the Environment: A Guide to the Use of Multicriteria Methods reviews practical tools for multicriteria (also called multiobjective) decision analysis that can be used to quantify trade-offs and contribute to more consistent, informed, and transparent decision making. These methods are designed to generate and effectively communicate information about trade-offs; to help people form, articulate, and apply value judgments in decision making; and to promote effective negotiation among stakeholders with competing interests. Energy Decisions and the Environment: A Guide to the Use of Multicriteria Methods includes explanations of a wide range of methods, tutorial applications that readers can duplicate, a detailed review of energy-environment applications, and three in-depth case studies.

This book addresses key topics in the current deliberations and debates on low carbon cities that are underway globally. Contributions by experts from around the world focus on the key factors required for creating low carbon cities. These include appropriate infrastructure, ensuring co-benefits of climate actions, making best use of knowledge and information, proper accounting of emissions, and social factors such as behavioral change. Readers will gain a better understanding of these drivers and explore potential transformation pathways for cities. Particular emphasis is given to the current situation of energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the urban level, stressing the complexity of measuring GHG emissions from cities. Chapters also shed new light on the long-term transformation pathways towards low carbon. This book discusses key challenges and opportunities in all these domains to aid in creating low carbon cities, making it of value to policy makers, researchers in academia and consultants working on climate change and energy issues. "The low carbon cities agenda is of bold ambition and demands rapid societal transformation. This book provides invaluable information and analysis on how the goals of this agenda can be achieved and what will be the significant obstacles in the way. The content in the book goes below the surface to reveal on-the-ground economic, engineering and equity issues that are at the heart of the Paris Climate Agreement and the ensuing policy debates. In this way, Creating Low Carbon Cities serves as a critical scholarly benchmark and as a toolkit for further action." William Solecki, Professor, Institute for Sustainable Cities, City University of New York "Creating Low Carbon Cities provides a refreshingly critical approach to low-carbon urban development, what has been achieved so far and the challenges ahead. It will be an important data-driven resource for local leaders, sustainability practitioners and urban planners." Ms. Monika Zimmermann, Deputy Secretary General, ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability