The area where urban lands meet and interact with rural lands, the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), is developing into a major battleground on the environmental front. Forests at the Wildland-Urban Interface: Conservation and Management provides information, principles, tools, and case studies that enhance natural resource management, planning, and policy-making for the Wildland-Urban Interface. The text serves as an excellent guide and reference for natural resource professionals and urban planners as they seek insight on effective ways to address the challenges and opportunities associated with WUI issues as related to diminishing forest lands and natural vegetation areas.

Temperature and precipitation increase and decrease because of natural causes. However, anthropogenic changes, such as an enhanced greenhouse effect, may result in alterations in the regional climate and in relative sea level. Serious changes in climate and sea level-with adverse effects particularly along low-lying coasts-would affect millions of people. Climate Change takes an in-depth, worldwide look at coastal habitation with respect to these natural and anthropogenic changes. No universally applicable coastal model can be used to describe climatic changes. This unique book provides individual discussions of beaches and barrier islands, cliffs, deltas, tidal flats and wetlands, reefs, and atolls. The impact of climatic change on coastal ecology and agriculture is investigated, and human responses to the effects of climatic change along the world's coasts are included.

This book, based on conference excerpts, investigates various aspects of contemporary Iranian urbanism. The topics covered range from the impacts of political developments on the cities' rapid socio-economic developments, to the cities' troubled relationship with the country's built-environment history and their frequently ill-managed exposure to Western notions of development and globalisation. Last but not least, the country's vulnerability to natural disasters in an age of increasing urban-population densification is also considered. Alongside more theoretically and artistically oriented debates, the book's individual contributions turn their attention to the now much higher proportion of urban dwellers in the country's rising population. It also discusses the policies designed in response to these demographic moves, including those to develop new towns, find housing for the excess population in existing cities, renovate historic buildings and create new public spaces. The practice-policy oriented contributions also include those concerning the country's responses to natural disasters.

Coastal zones represent a frontline in the battle for sustainability, as coastal communities face unprecedented economic challenges. Coastal ecosystems are subject to overuse, loss of resilience and increased vulnerability. This book aims to interrogate the multi- scalar complexities in creating a more sustainable coastal zone. Sustainability transitions are geographical processes, which happen in situated, particular places. However, much contemporary discussion of transition is either aspatial or based on implicit assumptions about spatial homogeneity. This book addresses these limitations through an examination of socio- technological transitions with an explicitly spatial focus in the context of the coastal zone. The book begins by focusing on theoretical understandings of transition processes specific to the coastal zone and includes detailed empirical case studies. The second half of the book appraises governance initiatives in coastal zones and their efficacy. The authors conclude with an implicit theme of social and environmental justice in coastal sustainability transitions. Research will be of interest to practitioners, academics and decision- makers active in the sphere of coastal sustainability. The multi- disciplinary nature encourages accessibility for individuals working in the fields of Economic Geography, Regional Development, Public Policy and Planning, Environmental Studies, Social Geography and Sociology.

First published in 1999 , the book is based on papers given at the final workshop of a research project into the evolution of environmental regulation in Poland undertaken as part of the UKs ERSC Global Environmental Change Programme. Other invited papers focused on the development of regulatory policy in transforming economies and in the UK. Furthermore the book highlights the weakness of internal political processes in Poland and the important role played by foreign sponsored pressures whilst exsamaning the divergence between the way environmental charges are supposed to operate and the ways in which they are implemented and enforced. Topics covered include the links between privatisation and the environment, the saline water problem in Upper Silesia, enforcement of and compliance with environmental charges, air pollution in Krakow and the structure of the Polish environmental administration system.

Published in 1968: The author not only pioneered modern-style village surveys in both England and India, but also modern style urban surveys and studies in India. There he broke new ground in his remarkable first-hand researches on agricultural labour, village economics, depressed or "Untouchable" classes in town and country, and human and industrial relations in India's first steel town, Jamshedpur. In the text of this book we reproduce thirty-five of the author's papers - in whole, in part, or in summary.

This title represents a defining synthesis of the use and socio-economic value of timber and non-timber resources from indigenous forests and woodlands in South Africa. It provides a review of current research and thinking on policies and practices affecting these two biomes. Indigenous forests and woodlands represent the smallest and largest biomes, respectively, in South Africa, but share the common attribute of having trees as a significant component of their structure, composition, functioning and value, which differentiates them from the other five biomes. They are also both widely distributed across several provinces, posing challenges for workable policies and interventions at the local level. Since 1994 there has been a paradigm shift in the approach to the management of forest and woodland resources, with a move away from former 'preservationist' policies and an increased emphasis on the sustainable extractive use of natural resources, particularly by rural communities. A growing recognition of the potential value that these resources hold for local economies and livelihoods has been accompanied by the restructuring of national institutions governing forests and woodlands, and a number of new policies for integrated management. Indigenous forests and woodlands in South Africa will prove useful to researchers, scientists, and post-graduate students in southern Africa and further afield, as well as to non-governmental organisations, government officials, policy-makers, development practitioners and those involved in managing and conserving our indigenous forest and woodland heritage. It is a wide-ranging volume, incorporating both broad view chapters and more focused case studies.

The seaside has always held a special position in British history as a place of rest, relaxation and recuperation. Over the last 200 years many have made their way to the coast, attracted by the long sunshine hours, the clean ozone-charged air and the opportunities for bathing in and even drinking sea-water. Although the early health resort ideal began to give way to more pleasure orientated themes in the nineteenth century, the seaside holiday was still regarded by many as a wholesome and invigorating break from inland urban life well into the twentieth century. Yet with ever increasing numbers of visitors and rising levels of coastal pollution, this was by no means a forgone conclusion. The Seaside, Health and the Environment in England and Wales since 1800 explores the ways in which English seaside resorts continually reinvented themselves to take account of contemporary trends in popular leisure and maintain their hold on the public's imagination. Particular account is paid to the interwar years when new obsessions with outdoor activities such as sunbathing and tanning were purposefully adopted by the industry to define the modern image of the resort holiday. For these and other reasons the seaside holiday reached new peaks of popularity in the 1930s and 1950s, yet, this very success placed enormous pressures on the environmental amenities that people came to enjoy. As this work shows, environmental stresses were manifold, particularly pollution of the resorts' prime assets, their beaches. As such, serious questions are raised concerning why it took such a long time for a determined effort to be made to reverse beach pollution, and the lessons to be learned regarding the impact of negative images of the coast as a zone of danger and infection.

Since the 1980s, geography as an academic discipline has become more and more reflective, asking the key questions "what are we doing?" and "why are we doing it?" These questions have, so far, been more enthusiastically taken up by human geography rather than physical geography and this volume aims to redress that balance. Written and edited by an international group of physical geographers, this text comprises a collection of the writers' thoughts which reveal personal motivations and look at tensions in the worlds of meaning in which physical geography is involved. How are the meanings of the physical environment derived? Is the future of physical geography one where the only, or at least the dominant, meanings are framed in the contexts of environmental issues? Covering a diverse and lively selection of topics, the contributors of this book offer guides to the contemporary debates in the philosophy of physical geography, and introduce the reader to its wider cultural significance.

A concise textbook emphasizing sedimentary processes and flow in alluvial channels, this title provides comprehensive treatment of flow-bed transport interaction. It emphasizes water flows (basic principles and characterization), fluvial sediment, processes of erosion and sediment transport, bedforms that result from flow-bed sediment interactions in sand and gravel, flow and sedimentary processes in curved, braided and confluent channels, as well as aquatic habits.;The text provides a comprehensive synthesis of current knowledge about physical processes in alluvial channels, with an emphasis on the recent work on flow-bed sediment transport interactions. It is designed for students with an interest in fluvial studies as a part of physical geography, earth sciences, environmental sciences and ecology courses.

Originally published in 1988, Mesa Verde National Park: Shadows of the Centuries is an engaging and artfully illustrated history of an enigmatic assemblage of canyons and mesas tucked into the south-western corner of Colorado. Duane A. Smith recounts the dramatic 1888 "discovery" of the cliff dwellings and other Anasazi ruins and the ensuing twenty-year campaign to preserve them. Smith also details the resulting creation of a national park in 1906 and assesses the impact of more recent developments -- railroads and highways, air pollution, and the growing significance of tourism -- on the park's financial and ecological vitality. This revised and completely redesigned edition includes more than 50 illustrations and will be enjoyed by readers interested in environmental, Western, and Colorado history.

This volume contains the papers contributed to the Nakase Memorial Symposium with the theme: Soft Ground Engineering in Coastal Areas, held in Yokusuka, Japan in November 2002. The meeting was organized as a tribute to Professor Ako Nakase, and was attended by 125 participants including his Japanese colleagues and friends from overseas. The topics covered included: fundamental Characteristics of Clay Soils; Estimation of consolidation settlement in large-scale reclamation; Soil improvement methods in coastal areas; Reuse of dredged soils and behaviour of coastal structures under earthquake; and Evaluation for the stability of coastal structures.

Lowland Grassland and Heathland Habitats contrasts the uniformity of intensively managed grassland with the diversity of traditionally managed grasslands and heathlands. It examines topics of concern to the ecologist or habitat manager such as causes of the loss and deterioration of these habitats, including inappropriate management, eutrophication and climate change. It then evaluates opportunities for positive change, such as conservation, restoration and creation. A series of case studies illustrates the pressures on some lowland grassland and heathland habitat types and looks at ways to enhance them for biodiversity.
This habitat guide features illustrated species boxes of typical plants and animals, as well as a full species list, a series of projects on the ecology of grassland and heathland species, a colour plate section, up-to-date references and information, and a full glossary. It will provide students and environmentalists with a deeper understanding of the nature and importance of lowland grasslands and heathlands.

This book unravels the profound implications of biodiversity offsetting for nature-society relationships and its links to environmental and social inequality. Drawing on people's resistance against its implementation in several urban and rural places across England, it explores how the production of equivalent natures, the core promise of offsetting, reframes socionatures both discursively and materially transforming places and livelihoods. The book draws on theories and concepts from human geography, political ecology, and Marxist political economy, and aims to shift the trajectory of the current literature on the interplay between offsetting, urbanization and the neoliberal reconstruction of conservation and planning policies in the era following the 2008 financial crash. By shedding light on offsetting's contested geographies, it offers a fundamental retheorization of offsetting capable of demonstrating how offsetting, and more broadly revanchist neoliberal policies, are increasingly used to support capitalist urban growth producing socially, environmentally and geographically uneven outcomes. Nature Swapped and Nature Lost brings forward an understanding of environmental politics as class politics and sees environmental justice as inextricably linked to social justice. It effectively challenges the dystopia of offsetting's ahistorical and asocial non-places and proposes a radically different pathway for gaining social control over the production of nature by linking struggles for the right to the city with struggles for the right to nature for all.

A beautiful, lyrical exploration of the places where nature is flourishing in our absence "[Flyn] captures the dread, sadness, and wonder of beholding the results of humanity's destructive impulse, and she arrives at a new appreciation of life, 'all the stranger and more valuable for its resilence.'" --The New Yorker Some of the only truly feral cattle in the world wander a long-abandoned island off the northernmost tip of Scotland. A variety of wildlife not seen in many lifetimes has rebounded on the irradiated grounds of Chernobyl. A lush forest supports thousands of species that are extinct or endangered everywhere else on earth in the Korean peninsula's narrow DMZ. Cal Flyn, an investigative journalist, exceptional nature writer, and promising new literary voice visits the eeriest and most desolate places on Earth that due to war, disaster, disease, or economic decay, have been abandoned by humans. What she finds every time is an "island" of teeming new life: nature has rushed in to fill the void faster and more thoroughly than even the most hopeful projections of scientists. Islands of Abandonment is a tour through these new ecosystems, in all their glory, as sites of unexpected environmental significance, where the natural world has reasserted its wild power and promise. And while it doesn't let us off the hook for addressing environmental degradation and climate change, it is a case that hope is far from lost, and it is ultimately a story of redemption: the most polluted spots on Earth can be rehabilitated through ecological processes and, in fact, they already are.

What causes Ice Ages? How did we learn about them? What were their affects on the social history of humanity? Allan Mazur's book tells the appealing history of the scientific 'discovery' of Ice Ages. How we learned that much of the Earth was repeatedly covered by huge ice sheets, why that occurred, and how the waning of the last Ice Age paved the way for agrarian civilization and, ultimately, our present social structures. The book discusses implications for the current 'controversies' over anthropogenic climate change, public understanding of science, and (lack of) 'trust in experts'. In parallel to the history and science of Ice Ages, sociologist Mazur highlights why this is especially relevant right now for humanity. Ice Ages: Their Social and Natural History is an engrossing combination of natural science and social history: glaciology and sociology writ large.

Coastal zones are critical multiple-use resources, under pressure from constant demands from different sources - conservation, economic growth and social welfare. This book identifies the dilemmas of managing conservation and development in coastal areas. It offers important information on the management, conservation and social implications of coastal resources. The authors present a variety of participatory methods and techniques that can be used to show the success or otherwise of the different uses and how they affect the users. Their interdisciplinary analysis draws upon scientific knowledge as well as the latest social science insights on property rights and governance. The book is intended for researchers and students in geography, development studies and environmental planning, and also for practitioners in natural resource management and coastal zone management.

Coastal zones are critical multiple-use resources, under pressure from constant demands from different sources - conservation, economic growth and social welfare. This book identifies the dilemmas of managing conservation and development in coastal areas. It offers important information on the management, conservation and social implications of coastal resources. The authors present a variety of participatory methods and techniques that can be used to show the success or otherwise of the different uses and how they affect the users. Their interdisciplinary analysis draws upon scientific knowledge as well as the latest social science insights on property rights and governance. The book is intended for researchers and students in geography, development studies and environmental planning, and also for practitioners in natural resource management and coastal zone management.

Lack of water is the limiting factor for many household and community-based activities for millions of people living in dryland areas. Rural water supply programmes tend to focus on only two social aspects: improved access to domestic supply and improved sanitation. Less attention has been paid to how communities prefer to use water to develop their own livelihoods. This is due partly to the difficulties of abstracting sufficient reliable groundwater in dryland areas and partly to a misunderstanding of why wells and boreholes fail, which leads to a general belief that abstraction should be limited to domestic supply to conserve the resource. When more water is available, not only are basic drinking and washing needs satisfied but also other activities with a high economic value become feasible, such as small-scale irrigation, fruit orchards, livestock feedlots, small-scale dairy units, fish farming, brick-making, etc. Such diversification avoids over-reliance on rain-fed cropping of marginal lands.;This book aims to show how research in Southern Africa has shed light on why conventional wells and boreholes fail, on the potential of the groundwater resource to support production through improved siting and selection of more appropriate well designs and on the positive impacts and some problems that can emerge at productive water points. The findings are presented in a practical manner to encourage planners and practitioners in rural water supply to consider developing productive water points in drought-prone areas, and to provide the information they need to follow this through.

Disasters in Australia and New Zealand brings together a collection of essays on the history of disasters in both countries. Leading experts provide a timely interrogation of long-held assumptions about the impacts of bushfires, floods, cyclones and earthquakes, exploring the blurred line between nature and culture, asking what are the anthropogenic causes of 'natural' disasters? How have disasters been remembered or forgotten? And how have societies over generations responded to or understood disaster? As climate change escalates disaster risk in Australia, New Zealand and around the world, these questions have assumed greater urgency. This unique collection poses a challenge to learn from past experiences and to implement behavioural and policy change. Rich in oral history and archival research, Disasters in Australia and New Zealand offers practical and illuminating insights that will appeal to historians and disaster scholars across multiple disciplines.

This book breaks the ground in Geographical texts by transcending a strictly regional or topical focus. It presents the opportunities and constraints that mountains and their resources offer to local and global populations; the impacts of environmental and economic change, development and globalisation on mountain environments. Part of the Ecogeography series edited by Richard Hugget

Building upon the award-winning second edition, this comprehensive textbook provides a fundamental understanding of the formative processes of igneous and metamorphic rocks. Encouraging a deeper comprehension of the subject by explaining the petrologic principles, and assuming knowledge of only introductory college-level courses in physics, chemistry, and calculus, it lucidly outlines mathematical derivations fully and at an elementary level, making this the ideal resource for intermediate and advanced courses in igneous and metamorphic petrology. With over 500 illustrations, many in color, this revised edition contains valuable new material and strengthened pedagogy, including boxed mathematical derivations allowing for a more accessible explanation of concepts, and more qualitative end-of-chapter questions to encourage discussion. With a new introductory chapter outlining the "bigger picture," this fully updated resource will guide students to an even greater mastery of petrology.

This new edition - now with Nancy Jackson as a co-author - continues the themes of the first edition: the need to restore the biodiversity, ecosystem health, and ecosystem services provided by coastal landforms and habitats, especially in the light of climate change. The second edition reports on progress made on practices identified in the first edition, presents additional case studies, and addresses new and emerging issues. It analyzes the tradeoffs involved in restoring beaches and dunes - especially on developed coasts - the most effective approaches to use, and how stakeholders can play an active role. The concept of restoration is broad, and includes physical, ecological, economic, social, and ethical principles and ideals. The book will be valuable for coastal scientists, engineers, planners, and managers, as well as shorefront residents. It will also serve as a useful supplementary reference textbook in courses dealing with issues of coastal management and ecology.

This exciting and diverse collection on conservation originally published between 1974 and 2002, draws together research by leading academics in the area of conservation and provides a focused and interdisciplinary approach to the subject area. Comprised of 8 volumes, the collection offers a diverse snapshot of some important areas in the study of conservation, including: Home conservation; Biodiversity and ecosystems; Trade in wildlife; Environmental campaigning; Political environmentalism This academically stimulating set brings back into print a selection of previously unavailable titles, which addresses areas that are of even more importance and interest in the present day than at their time of publication and will provide a must-have resource for academics and students seeking to better understand conservation and environmental change. The collection will appeal to not only those working in the environmental sciences, but also in the areas of politics, economics and geography.

Science for Geography and Environment introduces students (and academics who need to brush up their knowledge!) to scientific principles in a lively and accessible way, allowing them to proceed through the text at their own pace. The book is structured thematically with a logical development of key topics, all linked by a comprehensive cross-referencing system. Concepts and principles will be grounded in everyday experience and exemplified by reference to geographical/environmental processes. The authors are also testing each stage of the text on their own students, thereby ensuring that student needs are given top priority in the book's development. Lively and relevant introduction to those scientific principles necessary to understand key processes occuring within the natural environment.