The grass family, known as Poaceae, is probably the most important plant family on earth. Grasses were the first food plants to be cultivated by man. Grass crops, such as maize, wheat, rice and sugarcane are still our most important food source to farm animals and the large herds of grazing animals in the wild. The identification of grasses becomes important during land management as the various grass species differ in their grazing value and other ecological functions. Furthermore, weedy grasses react differently to different herbicides and therefore need to be correctly identified. This title, Guide to grasses of southern Africa, is the most comprehensive colour identification guide to the common grasses of southern Africa and includes, among others, the following features: descriptions and illustrations of the 320 most important grasses in southern Africa, an easy-to-use grass identification key, more than 1 000 excellent photographs in full colour, thirteen short, fully illustrated introductory chapters with general information on grasses, common names of grasses in indigenous languages, icons that enable the reader to obtain certain information at a glance.

This book presents both state-of-the art knowledge from Recent coral reefs (1.8 million to a few centuries old) gained since the eighties, and introduces geologists, oceanographers and environmentalists to sedimentological and paleoecological studies of an ecosystem encompassing some of the world's richest biodiversity. Scleractinian reefs first appeared about 300 million years ago. Today coral reef systems provide some of the most sensitive gauges of environmental change, expressing the complex interplay of chemical, physical, geological and biological factors. The topics covered will include the evolutionary history of reef systems and some of the main reef builders since the Cenozoic, the effects of biological and environmental forces on the zonation of reef systems and the distribution of reef organisms and on reef community dynamics through time, changes in the geometry, anatomy and stratigraphy of reef bodies and systems in relation to changes in sea level and tectonics, the distribution patterns of sedimentary (framework or detrital) facies in relation to those of biological communities, the modes and rates of reef accretion (progradation, aggradation versus backstepping; coral growth versus reef growth), the hydrodynamic forces controlling water circulation through reef structures and their relationship to early diagenetic processes, the major diagenetic processes affecting reef bodies through time (replacement and diddolution, dolomitization, phosphatogenesis), and the record of climate change by both individual coral colonies and reef systems over the Quaternary.
* state-of-the-art knowledge from Recent corals reefs
* introduction to sedimentological and paleoecological studies of an ecosystems encompassing some of the world's richest biodiversity.
* authors are internationally regarded authorities on the subject
* trustworthy information

Mountaintops have long been seen as sacred places, home to gods and dreams. In one climbing year Peter Boardman visited three very different sacred mountains. He began in the New Year, on the South Face of the Carstensz Pyramid in New Guinea. This shark's fin of steep limestone walls and sweeping glaciers is the highest point between the Andes and the Himalaya, and one of the most inaccessible, rising above thick jungle inhabited by warring Stone Age tribes. During the spring Boardman was on more familiar, if hardly more reassuring, ground, making a four-man, oxygen-free attempt on the world's third highest peak, Kangchenjunga. Hurricane-force winds beat back their first two bids on the unclimbed North Ridge, but they eventually stood within feet of the summit - leaving the final few yards untrodden in deference to the inhabiting deity. In October, he was back in the Himalaya and climbing the mountain most sacred to the Sherpas: the twin-summited Gauri Sankar. Renowned for its technical difficulty and spectacular profile, it is aptly dubbed the Eiger of the Himalaya and Boardman's first ascent of the South Summit took a committing and gruelling twenty-three days. Three sacred mountains, three very different expeditions, all superbly captured by Boardman in Sacred Summits, his second book, first published shortly after his death in 1982. Combining the excitement of extreme climbing with acute observation of life in the mountains, this is an amusing, dramatic, poignant and thought-provoking book, amply fulfilling the promise of Boardman's first title, The Shining Mountain, for which he won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1979.

When American explorers crossed the Texas Panhandle, they dubbed it part of the ""Great American Desert."" A ""sea of grass,"" the llano appeared empty, flat, and barely habitable. Contemporary developments - cell phone towers, oil rigs, and wind turbines - have only added to this stereotype. Yet in this lyrical ecomemoir, Shelley Armitage charts a unique rediscovery of the largely unknown land, a journey at once deeply personal and far-reaching in its exploration of the connections between memory, spirit, and place. Armitage begins her narrative with the intention to walk the llano from her family farm thirty meandering miles along the Middle Alamosa Creek to the Canadian River. Along the way, she seeks the connection between her father and one of the area's first settlers, Ysabel Gurule, who built his dugout on the banks of the Canadian. Armitage, who grew up nearby in the small town of Vega, finds this act of walking inseparable from the act of listening and writing. ""What does the land say to us?"" she asks as she witnesses human alterations to the landscape - perhaps most catastrophic the continued drainage of the land's most precious resource, the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet the llano's wonders persist: dynamic mesas and canyons, vast flora and fauna, diverse wildlife, rich histories. Armitage recovers the voices of ancient, Native, and Hispano peoples, their stories interwoven with her own: her father's legacy, her mother's decline, a brother's love. The llano holds not only the beauty of ecological surprises but a renewed realization of kinship in a world ever changing. Reminiscent of the work of Terry Tempest Williams and John McPhee, Walking the Llano is both a celebration of an oft-overlooked region and a soaring testimony to the power of the landscape to draw us into greater understanding of ourselves and others by experiencing a deeper connection with the places we inhabit.

Established in 1905, The Forest Service is steeped in history, conflict, strong personalities (including Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot), and the challenges of managing 193 million acres of national forests and grasslands. This unique federal agency is one that combines forest management with wildlife, fish, recreation, mining, grazing, and hundreds of other uses. It operates in the midst of controversy and change. The original intent was to protect the public forests, protect the water supplies, and, when appropriate, provide timber. Much has changed over the last 100 years including many new laws, but the fact that these lands are still fought over today shows the foresight of politicians, foresters, scientists, and communities. This work brings to light the many and varied activities of the agency that many people know little about in a world that is constantly changing. Written by a former Forest Service national historian, topics discussed in the work include wilderness and the Wilderness Act of 1964, recreation battles and interagency rivalry with the National Park Service, timber management including clearcutting, ecosystem management, roadless area and controversies over RARE and RARE II studies, fish and wildlife management including endangered species before and after the Endangered Species Act of 1973, and mining and the General Mining Act of 1872. It also discusses the future challenges: forest fires, water protection and restoration, recreation, involving the public, and fish and wildlife.

The Phytochemical Society of North America held its forty-fourth annual meeting in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada from July 24-28, 2004. This year's meeting was hosted by the University of Ottawa and the Canadian Forest Service, Great Lakes Forestry Centre and was held jointly with the International Society of Chemical Ecology. All of the chapters in this volume are based on papers presented in the symposium entitled "Chemical Ecology and Phytochemistry of Forest Ecosystems." The Symposium Committee, Mamdouh Abou-Zaid, John T. Arnason, Vincenzo deLuca, Constance Nozzolillo, and Bernard Philogene, assembled an international group of phytochemists and chemical ecologists working primarily in northern forest ecosystems. It was a unique interdisciplinary forum of scientists working on the cutting edge in their respective fields. While most of these scientists defy the traditional labels we are accustomed to, they brought to the symposium expertise in phytochemistry, insect biochemistry, molecular biology, genomics and proteomics, botany, entomology, microbiology, mathematics, and ecological modeling.
* A collection of papers presented at the 44th Annual meeting of the Phytochemical Society of North America
* Representation from a unique interdisciplinary forum of scientists
* Includes discussions on new genomics research in forest health

Over the last decade, the field of plant ecology has significantly developed and expanded, especially in research concerning the herb layer and ground vegetation of forests. This revised second edition of The Herbaceous Layer in Forests of Eastern North America accounts for that growth, presenting research that approaches the ecology of the herb layer of forests from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. The book synthesizes the research of top ecologists and biologists on herbaceous layer structure, composition, and dynamics of a variety of forest ecosystem types in eastern North America. The 2003 first edition of The Herbaceous Layer in Forests of Eastern North America was praised for containing the most extensive listing of herb-layer literature in existence. This second edition brings this material up to date, revised to include current research and data. The book incorporates quantitative data to support analyses that was previously unavailable during the publication of the first edition. Also featured are six entirely new chapters, focused on the response of the herbaceous layer to a wide variety of natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Building on the over 1,200 references and sources of the first edition, the second edition of The Herbaceous Layer in Forests of Eastern North America is an invaluable resource for plant ecologists, forest ecologists, and conservationists.

This book discusses various statistical models and their implications for developing landslide susceptibility and risk zonation maps. It also presents a range of statistical techniques, i.e. bivariate and multivariate statistical models and machine learning models, as well as multi-criteria evaluation, pseudo-quantitative and probabilistic approaches. As such, it provides methods and techniques for RS & GIS-based models in spatial distribution for all those engaged in the preparation and development of projects, research, training courses and postgraduate studies. Further, the book offers a valuable resource for students using RS & GIS techniques in their studies.

Global change threatens ecosystems worldwide, and tropical systems with their high diversity and rapid development are of special concern. We can mitigate the impacts of change if we understand how tropical ecosystems respond to disturbance. For tropical forests and streams in Puerto Rico this book describes the impacts of, and recovery from, hurricanes, landslides, floods, droughts, and human disturbances in the Luquillo Mountains of Puerto Rico. These ecosystems recover quickly after natural disturbances, having been shaped over thousands of years by such events. Human disturbance, however, has longer-lasting impacts. Chapters are by authors with many years of experience in Puerto Rico and other tropical areas and cover the history of research in these mountains, a framework for understanding disturbance and response, the environmental setting, the disturbance regime, response to disturbance, biotic mechanisms of response, management implications, and future directions. The text provides a strong perspective on tropical ecosystem dynamics over multiple scales of time and space.

This is the first English language book to systematically introduce basic theories, methods and applications of disaster risk science from the angle of different subjects including disaster science, emergency technology and risk management. Viewed from basic theories, disaster risk science consists of disaster system, formation mechanism and process, covering 3 chapters in this book. From the perspective of technical methods, disaster risk science includes measurement and assessment of disasters, mapping and zoning of disaster risk, covering 4 chapters in this book. From the angle of application practices, disaster risk science contains disaster management, emergency response and integrated disaster risk paradigm, covering 3 chapters in the book. The book can be a good reference for researchers, students, and practitioners in the field of disaster risk science and natural disaster risk management for more actively participating in and supporting the development of "disaster risk science".

Deserts - vast, empty places where time appears to stand still. The very word conjures images of endless seas of sand, blistering heat and a virtual absence of life. However, deserts encompass a large variety of landscapes and life beyond our stereotypes. As well as magnificent Saharan dunes under blazing sun, the desert concept encompasses the intensely cold winters of the Gobi, the snow- covered expanse of Antarctica and the rock- strewn drylands of Pakistan. Deserts are environments in perpetual flux and home to peoples as diverse as their surroundings, peoples who grapple with a broad spectrum of cultural, political and environmental issues as they wrest livelihoods from marginal lands. The cultures, environments and histories of deserts, while fundamentally entangled, are rarely studied as part of a network. To bring different disciplines together, the 1st Oxford Interdisciplinary Deserts Conference in March 2010 brought together a wide range of researchers from backgrounds as varied as physics, history, archaeology anthropology, geology and geography. This volume draws on the diversity of papers presented to give an overview of current research in deserts and drylands. Readers are invited to explore the wide range of desert environments and peoples and the ever-evolving challenges they face.

The 50th anniversary of the Disaster Research Center of the University of Delaware provoked a discussion of the field's background, its accomplishments, and its future directions. Participants representing many disciplines brought new methods to bear on perennial problems relevant to effective disaster management and policy formation. However, new concerns were raised, stemming from the fact that we live today in a globally unfolding environmental crisis every bit as pressing and worrisome as that of the 1960s when the Disaster Research center was founded. This volume brings together ideas of participants from that workshop as well as other contributors. Topics include: the history and evolution of disaster research, innovations in disaster management, disaster policy, and ethical considerations of disaster research. Readers interested in science and technology, public policy, community action, and the evolution of the social sciences will find much of interest in this collection.

This book focuses on the spatial distribution of landslide hazards of the Darjeeling Himalayas. Knowledge driven methods and statistical techniques such as frequency ratio model (FRM), information value model (IVM), logistic regression model (LRM), index overlay model (IOM), certainty factor model (CFM), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), artificial neural network model (ANN), and fuzzy logic have been adopted to identify landslide susceptibility. In addition, a comparison between various statistical models were made using success rate cure (SRC) and it was found that artificial neural network model (ANN), certainty factor model (CFM) and frequency ratio based fuzzy logic approach are the most reliable statistical techniques in the assessment and prediction of landslide susceptibility in the Darjeeling Himalayas. The study identified very high, high, moderate, low and very low landslide susceptibility locations to take site-specific management options as well as to ensure developmental activities in theDarjeeling Himalayas. Particular attention is given to the assessment of various geomorphic, geotectonic and geohydrologic attributes that help to understand the role of different factors and corresponding classes in landslides, to apply different models, and to monitor and predict landslides. The use of various statistical and physical models to estimate landslide susceptibility is also discussed. The causes, mechanisms and types of landslides and their destructive character are elaborated in the book. Researchers interested in applying statistical tools for hazard zonation purposes will find the book appealing.