Tropical forests affect climate, and the removal of the forests will change climate. Or not? This book discusses basic questions on how far, if at all, tropical deforestation leads to climatic change. The question of this uncertainty is particularly addressed. One important consequence of the uncertainties of whether deforestation affects climate is how scientific findings best illuminate the policy-making process.

Human impact on natural landscapes through urbanization and agricultural expansion are becoming more and more dramatic and are the cause of serious environmental problems. This volume examines the effect of landscape disturbance on plant and animal diversity in the five mediterranean-climate regions of the world. It begins with three introductory chapters broadly reviewing the issues of landscape degradation. Further contributions describe regional land use conflicts in each of the five regions. Landscape disturbance and plant diversity, and landscape disturbance and animal diversity are treated in separate chapters. Four contributions deal with demography and ecophysiology in vegetation succession following disturbance. The volume closes with a consideration of the future addressing aspects of environmental politics.

The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water both in area and volume. Its drainage area is approximately 3. 5 million square kilometers, extending 2500 km in length, 35 DegreesN to 600N, and on average 1000 km wide, 400E 0 to 60E (Fig. 1). Located in a large continental depression about 27 m below sea level and with no surface outlets, the Caspian Sea is particularly sensitive to climatic variations. As with other closed-basin lakes, its level depends on the balance between precipitation and evaporation, which is directly linked to atmospheric circulation. Because of its large area and volume of water, the Caspian Sea effectively. filters climatic noise, and as such may serve as a good indicator of climatic changes through observed changes in its water level. Recently, the Caspian Sea has come under increased attention from physical and social scientists owing to its unique natural characteristics as well as the' very important role it plays in the ecoriomil:!s of such countries as Azerbaijan" Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. Dissolution of the Soviet Union and creation of new independent states resulted in difficult negotiations to divide the wealth of the Caspian Sea and to establish new economic zones. According to one assessment (Ratkovich, 1988), the Caspian Sea basin accounted for about one-third of the total economic output, one-fifth of the agricultural production, and one-third of the hydroelectric production of the former Soviet Union.

This book is intended as an introduction to radioactivity and aerosols for the scientifically literate reader who has had no previous exposure to either of these subjects. Although its main focus is radioactive aerosols, on the road to this subject I provide short, somewhat independent introductions to both radioactivity and aerosols, with some emphasis on experimental aspects. The audience I have in mind is upper-level undergraduates or beginning graduate students with a minimum background of introductory college courses in physics, chemistry, and calculus. This book may also be useful to "crossover" professional- professionals in other fields of science and engineering, for example biology or geoscience, who would like a step-by-step introduction to this subject matter from the physical science perspective. In writing this book I have been sensitive to requests and suggestions from students who need some background in this subject matter but will probably not specialize in it. These students are bright, but busy, and they sometimes feel overwhelmed by the mass of information in advanced, comprehensive texts. No matter how noble the intentions of the authors (or the teachers assigning the books ), these students often do not have time to read such books through cover to cover, and they fmd it difficult to pick out a coherently-connected subset of the material. Furthermore, modern students studying an interdisciplinary subject like radioactive aerosols are likely to be more diversified than ever, in educational background, in interests, and in preparation.

Bioremediation - the use of microorganisms for environmental clean-up - is a technology that is experiencing a rapid phase of development. The authors of this text an understanding of the current progress and limitations of technologies that are designed to help nature herself. The book draws together many different aspects of environmental remediation: the environmental engineer is introduced to the bacteria of contaminated environments and the ideas developing from genetic engineering; the environmental microbiologist can grasp site assessment and the predictive kinetic analysis of potentials. The book provides an introduction to the nature of and potential for bioremediation to contribute to a critical global effort in eliminating contamination of the world's resources and to start to reverse decades of environmental mismanagement and neglect.

The second book by the bestselling author of Extraordinary Insects Trees clean air and water; hoverflies and bees pollinate our crops; the kingfisher inspired the construction of high-speed trains. In Tapestries of Life, bestselling author Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson explains how closely we are all connected with the natural world, highlighting our indelible link with nature's finely knit system and our everyday lives. In the heart of natural world is a life-support system like no other, a collective term that describes all the goods and services we receive - food, fresh water, medicine, pollination, pollution control, carbon sequestration, erosion prevention, recreation, spiritual health and so much more. In this utterly captivating book, Anne Sverdrup-Thygeson sets out to explore these wonderful, supportive elements - taking the reader on a journey through the surprising characteristics of the natural world.

A panel of respected air pollution control educators and practicing professionals critically survey the both principles and practices underlying control processes, and illustrate these with a host of detailed design examples for practicing engineers. The authors discuss the performance, potential, and limitations of the major control processes-including fabric filtration, cyclones, electrostatic precipitation, wet and dry scrubbing, and condensation-as a basis for intelligent planning of abatement systems, . Additional chapters critically examine flare processes, thermal oxidation, catalytic oxidation, gas-phase activated carbon adsorption, and gas-phase biofiltration. The contributors detail the Best Available Technologies (BAT) for air pollution control and provide cost data, examples, theoretical explanations, and engineering methods for the design, installation, and operation of air pollution process equipment. Methods of practical design calculation are illustrated by numerous numerical calculations.

The current policy for climate change prioritises mitigation over adaptation. The collected papers of Climate Change as Environmental and Economic Hazard argue that although efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are still vital, the new policy paradigm should shift the priority to adaptation, with a special focus on disaster risk reduction. It should also consider climate change not purely as a hazard and a challenge, but as a window of opportunity to shift to a new sustainable development policy model, which stresses the particular importance of communities' resilience. The papers in this volume explore the key issues linked to this shift, including: ' Increasing research into the Earth Sciences, climate reconstruction and forecasting in order to decrease the degree of uncertainty about the origin, development and implications of climate change; ' The introduction of more binding and comprehensive regulation of both greenhouse gas emissions and adaptation measures, like that in the United Kingdom; ' Matching climate policy with that for disasters and mainstreaming it into overall development strategies. The volume is a valuable addition to previous climate change research and considers a new policy approach to this new global challenge.

*Selected by Emma Watson for her Ultimate Book List* Fashion is political. From the red carpets of the Met Gala to online fast fashion, clothes tell a story of inequality, racism and climate crisis. In The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion, Tansy E. Hoskins unpicks the threads of capitalist industry to reveal the truth about our clothes. Fashion brands entice us to consume more by manipulating us to feel ugly, poor and worthless, sentiments that line the pockets of billionaires exploiting colonial supply chains. Garment workers on poverty pay risk their lives in dangerous factories, animals are tortured, fossil fuels extracted and toxic chemicals spread just to keep this season's collections fresh. We can do better than this. Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion goes beyond ethical fashion and consumer responsibility showing that if we want to feel comfortable in our clothes, we need to reshape the system and ensure this is not our last season.

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

Development is challenged by, at least until 2050, a strong population, more severe environmental strains, growing mobility, and dwindling energy resources. All these factors will lead to serious consequences for humankind. Inadequate agricultural resources, water supply and non renewable energy sources, epidemics, climate change, and natural disasters will further heavily impact human life. The European Space Policy Institute (ESPI) sheds a new light on threats, risks and sustainability by combining approaches from various disciplines. It analyzes what could be the contribution of space tools to predict, manage and mitigate those threats. It aims at demonstrating that space is not a niche but has become an overarching tool in solving today 's problems.

Commissioned by the Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) of the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research (APN), this book offers a detailed survey of the current status of climate change and climate variability in the Asia-Pacific region, a thorough and thoughtful assessment of climate and security and clear recommendations on the best paths of climate research in the future.

"Integrated Risk Governance: Science Plan and Case Studies of Large-scale Disasters" is the first book in the IHDP-Integrated Risk Governance Project Series. It consists of two parts: Part I: Integrated Risk Governance Project Science Plan, which outlines the challenge, research programme, outcomes, and implementation strategy of the IRG Project; and Part II: Case Studies of Large-scale Disasters, which includes case analyses of experience, lessons learned and recommendations on various large-scale disasters around the world, such as the Tangshan and Wenchuan earthquakes and the great ice storm in China, European heat waves, and Hurricane Katrina in the USA. The community model of integrated natural disaster risk governance and paradigm of catastrophe risk governance in China are also presented. Prof. Peijun Shi works at Beijing Normal University, China; Prof. Carlo Jaeger works at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany; Prof.Qian Ye works at Beijing Normal University, China.

This book focuses on developing an integrated holistic approach for harnessing the potential of rain-fed agriculture. In this approach, rainwater management through harvesting and recharging the groundwater is used as an entry point activity for increasing the productivity for farmers through enhanced water use efficiency. To provide the holistic and integrated solutions, the approach of consortium through building partnerships with different stakeholders, eg. different research institutions (State, National and International), development departments, eg. Department of Agriculture, Department of Animal Husbandry etc., Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Farmers Organizations Community-based Organizations (CBOs) along with market linkages through private companies.

This textbook intends to bridge the gap between knowledge about global warming and practical implementation in the political process of the necessary measures for the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It therefore deals with climatology, economics and political science in five sections: - The state of scientific knowledge of climate change, the influencing factors, the man-made effects and the monitoring of GHG sources and sinks. Topics covered include: the transformation of scientific results into politically achievable aims, the criteria for the allocation of the reduction goals, and the GHG inventories of European countries; the relevant political and economical instruments, such as voluntary approaches, the carbon/energy-tax and Activities Implemented Jointly (AIJ) and their working principles; the instrument of tradeable emission permits (the US Acid Rain Programme as an example) and possible designs of a system for CO2 on the national and international level; and comparison and summaries of the efficacy, the cost-efficiency, the achievability and political acceptability of the different instruments.

This resource document brings together available technical information on ground-water management. The book covers measures for prevention of contamination, assessment of extent of contamination, and restoration of ground-water quality.

Controlling Pollution in Transition Economies examines and evaluates the recent experience of implementing pollution charges and the use of environmental permits in Central and Eastern Europe and Russia.The book focuses on controlling point-source air and water pollution. It describes and analyses the experience of implementing pollution charges and fines, and the interactions of these fiscal instruments with systems of pollution permits. The ten country case studies have been written by specialists who have been or are actively involved with the development or revision of pollution charges. Based on the experience of these countries, general conclusions are drawn for implementing pollution charge systems in other contexts. This book will encourage new theoretical and empirical work on the problem of implementing economic instruments (pollution charges), in combination with 'command-and-control' instruments (pollution permits). Practitioners and policy analysts as well as graduate students, academics, researchers and environmental consultants will find this book an important contribution to the existing literature.

Much has already been written about risk assessment. Epidemiologists write books on how risk assessment is used to explore the factors that influence the distribution of disease in populations of people. Toxicologists write books on how risk assess ment involves exposing animals to risk agents and concluding from the results what risks people might experience if similarly exposed. Engineers write books on how risk assessment is utilized to estimate the risks of constructing a new facility such as a nuclear power plant. Statisticians write books on how risk assessment may be used to analyze mortality or accident data to determine risks. There are already many books on risk assessment-the trouble is that they all seem to be about different sUbjects! This book takes another approach. It brings together all the methods for assessing risk into a common framework, thus demonstrating how the various methods relate to one another. This produces four important benefits: * First, it provides a comprehensive reference for risk assessment. This one source offers readers concise explanations of the many methods currently available for describing and quantifying diverse types of risks. * Second, it consistently evaluates and compares available risk assessment methods and identifies their specific strengths and limitations. Understand ing the limitations of risk assessment methods is important. The field is still in its infancy, and the problems with available methods are disappoint ingly numerous. At the same time, risk assessment is being used.

The population explosion that began in the 1960s has been accompanied by a decrease in the quality of the natural environment, e.g. pollution of the air, water and soil with essential and toxic trace elements. Numerous poisonings of people and animals with highly toxic anthropogenic Hg and Cd in the 20th century prompted the creation of the abiotic environment, mainly in developed countries. However, the system is insufficient for long-term exposure to low concentrations of various substances that are mainly ingested through food and water. This problem could be addressed by the monitoring of sentinels - organisms that accumulate trace elements and as such reflect the rate and degree of environmental pollution. Usually these are long-lived vertebrates - herbivorous, omnivorous and carnivorous birds and mammals, especially game species. This book describes the responses of the sentinels most commonly used in ecotoxicological studies to 17 trace elements.

This book offers theoretical and methodological guidelines for researching the complex regulation of local infrastructure, utilities and public services in the context of rapid urbanisation, technological change, and climate change. It examines the interactions between regulators, public officers, infrastructure and utilities firms, public service providers, citizens, and civil society organisations. It contains contributions from academics and practitioners from various disciplinary perspectives and from many regions of the world, illustrated with case studies from several sectors including water, natural gas and electricity distribution, local public transport, district heating, urban waste, and environmental services.

Anja Schmidt's thesis is a unique and comprehensive evaluation of the impacts of tropospheric volcanic aerosol on the atmosphere, climate, air quality and human health. Using a state-of-the-art global microphysics model, the thesis describes and quantifies the impact of volcanic sulphur emissions on global aerosol, clouds and the radiative forcing of climate. The advanced model enables the first ever estimate of the impact of the emissions on aerosol microphysical properties such as particle number concentrations and sizes, and therefore a considerably improved ability to quantify the climate and air quality effects.
There are several important discoveries in this thesis. Firstly, it is shown that continuously degassing volcanoes exert a major effect on global clouds and climate. Secondly, the impact of the 1783 Laki eruption in Iceland is re-examined to show that this long-lasting flood lava eruption would have had major effects on clouds and climate. Thirdly, by combining her research on volcanism, atmospheric science and epidemiology, she shows that a present-day Laki-like eruption would seriously affect European air quality and cause over 100000 premature deaths in the first year.

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of environmental aspects of the Sava River, which is the greatest tributary to the Danube River and the major drainage river system of South Eastern Europe. Hydroelectric power plants, river traffic, intensive agricultural activities, heavy industry and floods have considerable influence on the environment and biota in the basin. Summarizing the results that were gathered in the course of EU, bilateral and national projects, the book highlights the most important stressors and helps readers to better understand the impact of anthropogenic activities on the function of river basins. Topics include: transboundary water cooperation between the riparian countries; climate change projection, including its impact on flood hazards; evaluation of anthropogenic pollution sources; pollution of sediments, metal bioavailability and ecotoxicological and microbiological characterization of the river. The biological part also addresses quality aspects related to wildlife in river aquatic ecosystems (algae, macrophytes, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates and fish) and riparian ecosystems (amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals). The general state of biodiversity and pressures caused by invasive aquatic species are also discussed.

The goal of this book is to examine the complex state of radioactivity in the environment, and to understand the interplay of its two principal sources: man-made and natural. The text examines human contributions to release of radionuclides, with an eye to future reductions, and assesses natural occurrences in an evaluation of baseline radioactivity.

Critically assessing recent developments in environmental and tax legislation, and in particular low-carbon strategies, this timely book analyses the implementation of market-based instruments for achieving climate stabilisation objectives around the world. Through case studies and broader analysis, international experts examine taxes and subsidies in energy intensive sectors including stationary energy and transport in Europe and South America, and low-carbon strategies in Australia and East Asia. They also address cross-cutting policy issues involving water pollution and biodiversity protection. This work illustrates how economic instruments for a low-carbon transition need to align with other governmental policies and together influence behaviour in multiple domains such as energy, mobility, trade, land use and innovation. Providing a rich economic modelling of environmental fiscal policies, this topical book will be an engaging read for environmental tax scholars and professionals, as well as academics across energy and environmental economics, law and policy. Policy makers and practitioners in energy and climate policy will also benefit from its problem-solving approach. Contributors include: M.S. Andersen, E. Aydos, E. Belletti, M. Bisogno, C. Camara Barroso, Q. Changbo, G. Chazhong, J. Dellatte, B. Fenfen, L. Feng, S. Geringer, E. Guglyuvatyy, T. Iliopoulos, T. Kawakatsu, D. Kortschak, K. Kratena, V. Kulmer, A. Lerch, I. Meyer, M. Molinos-Senante, M. Pizzol, S. Rudolph, K. Schlegelmilch, S. Seebauer, M. Sommer, C. Sotiriou, N.P. Stoianoff, H. Thodsen, A. Tomo, J. Tumpel, M. Villar Ezcurra, Z. Zachariadis, J.M.M. Zanocchi