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Books > Earth & environment > The environment > Pollution & threats to the environment
This volume investigates the challenges facing the Egyptian Northern coastal lakes, focusing on the impact of climate change, their biodiversity and sustainable management. Presenting up-to-date research, it covers the following topics: climate change and water quality modeling and their impacts on the sustainability of the lakes; the economic role of the lakes; the use of remote sensing in monitoring; and the biodiversity of the lakes with detailed discussions. Further, management strategies for the sustainable development of these valuable resources are proposed to maintain the lakes sustainability. The book closes with a concise summary of the conclusions and recommendations presented in the preceding chapters. As such, it offers an invaluable resource for the academic community and postgraduate students, as well as for environmental managers and policymakers.
In the 20th century, water management focused on the local scale of interest. In the 21st century we will be facing changes in quantity and quality of our water cycle. Triggering forces behind these new challenges are industrialisation, population growth and the delayed awareness that we are to expect a global change. The magnitude and distribution of global changes are not exactly predictable, because we live in an always changing environment, are faced with severe and interfering processes, which all are not yet sufficiently understood. Therefore, to shoulder this task, hydrology should embrace more integrative and interdisciplinary approaches than already existing and has to achieve more flexibility in assessments and decisions. To better approach this challenge, catchments related solutions are more important than local solutions, to satisfy the water demand of agriculture, ecosystems, industry and the private sector. And we should keep in mind that the environment has a "sustainable memory" and our knowledge about attenuation capacities and resilience of the environment is still low.
This book poses the question of whether identifiable individual-level attributes (e.g., values, interests, knowledge, demographic characteristics) lead to support for or opposition to the development and implementation of alternative energy technologies. In recent years, attempts to site alternative energy technologies (e.g., wind, solar, wave) have been met by intense opposition from a variety of sources, including many environmentalists from whom one might expect support for non-carbon based renewable energy initiatives. This volume argues that there are indeed such discernible attributes, and moreover that the identification and exploration are important for the development of support strategies for the well-informed and achievable siting of such technologies.
As climate change and urban development are closely interlinked and often interact negatively, this edited volume takes Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), Vietnam's first mega-urban region as a case study to analyse its vulnerability to climate change and to suggest measures towards a more sustainable urban development. The book offers an overview on land use planning regarding the aspects of urban flooding, urban climate, urban energy and urban mobility as well as spatial views from the angle of urban planning such as the metropolitan level, the city, the neighbourhood and building level. It shows that to a significant degree, measures dealing with climate change can be taken from the toolbox of sustainable urban development and reflects how institutional structures need to change to enhance chances for implementation given socio-cultural and economic constraints. This is merged and integrated into a holistic perspective of planning recommendations, supporting the municipal government to increase its adaptive capacity. The authors are members of a German government funded research project on how to support HCMC's municipal government to adapt to risks related to climate change.
The book offers a review of the work of the Polish Research Group on selected topics of environmental magnetism: the application of magnetic methods to study pollution of outdoor and indoor air, street dust, polluted soil, air filters and indoor dust; the use of magnetic properties to study pedogenic processes in soils and soil structure; as well as deposition processes in recent sediments. The authors focus on detailed cases and provide in-depth explanations of the causes of and relations between physical processes. The examples of different studies demonstrate how to apply magnetometry to solve problems in related disciplines, how to better understand the complexity of the magnetic structure of substances and mediums as well as how to trace interactions between the environment and natural and anthropogenic factors.
Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions is about a specific 'promise' that participation holds for environmental decision-making. Many of the arguments for public participation in (inter)national environmental policy documents are functional, that is to say they see public participation as a means to an end. Sound solutions to environmental problems require participation beyond experts and political elites. Neglecting information from the public leads to legitimacy questions and potential conflicts. There is a discourse in the literature and in policy practice as to whether decision-making improves in quality as additional relevant information by the public is considered. The promise that public participation holds has to be weighed against the limitations of public participation in terms of costs and interest conflicts. The question that Public Participation and Better Environmental Decisions seeks to answer for academics, planners and civil servants in all environmental relevant policy fields is: What restricts and what enables information to hold the 'promise' that public participation lead to better environmental decision-making and better outcomes?
Community participation in fighting climate change is crucial, and the authors here assess the potential for action at the community level as well as some of its limitations. For example, community action offers a significant way to reach global climate targets and bring participants into programs on a relatively personal level, but also has drawbacks in that it can operate contrary to broader programs and constraints. Some topics include: facilitating the low carbon transition, challenges for local level climate change policy and alternative models for low carbon community governance, and models of sustainable and low carbon community activities. Editors Peters, Fudege, and Jackson (RESOLVE, U. of Surrey, U.K), and 17 co-authors contributed to the book.
This book identifies four key forms of air pollution: indoor, urban, regional and global. It discusses how these four types of pollution are manifest in today's society and examines the scientific and policy challenges that stand in the way of progress. Written in a style that balances scientific underpinnings with accessible language, Pearson and Derwent examine the sources and historical context of air pollutants, before dedicating a chapter to each of the key forms. Armed with these basics, they begin to address the challenges faced by improving indoor, urban and regional air quality, whilst reducing global warming in the years ahead. This leads to a greater understanding of the challenges of global climate change, with new proposals for reducing global warming. However, the authors conclude that it is only when we have a scenario of reforestation combined with reductions in emissions of all greenhouse gases that real progress will be made in the fight against climate change. Then, air pollution will also be consigned to history. With a foreword written by Professor James Lovelock, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change and environmental policy, as well as air quality professionals working in this important field.
This book addresses the climate change crisis through scientific, historical, and spiritual lenses. Using Bernard Lonergan's functional specialization method, developed to facilitate collaboration among specialists, Raymaker and Durrani not only analyze data and rebut the claims of climate change deniers, but also look for inspiration to motivate and coordinate needed action by persons, groups, and nations. The book is wide-ranging in its historical examination of leaders who have shown us ways to work together constructively in finding solutions to problems. Lonergan's method helps us study the past with a view to change the future. To do so, we must first reform ourselves.
The U.S. Clean Water Act calls for the minimization of "adverse environmental impact" at cooling water intake structures. To facilitate an exchange of information among all stakeholders in the issue, the Electric Power Research Institute organised a national symposium in 2001 to discuss the meaning of adverse environmental impact and methods for its assessment. Technical experts in federal and state resource agencies, academia, industry and non-governmental organizations attended the symposium. This is a collection of peer-reviewed papers, intended both to inform and to encourage the development of rules regarding the minimization of adverse environmental impact at cooling water intake structures.
Subsequent to the profiling of organometal(loid) compounds in important biogeogenic and anthropogenic deposits, the importance of this class of compounds for human health are evaluated by the analysis of both physicochemical and biological formation, distribution and transformation processes. Multidisciplinary articles written by experts from disciplines as diverse as biogeochemistry, ecotoxicology, analytical chemistry, microbiology and genetics estimate the global levels of biogeogenic and anthropogenic emissions of organometal(loid) compounds, and thus obtain an insight to processes which influence the genesis, as well as the distribution and stability of organometal(loid) species and their interaction with each other and other matrix compounds. The authors evaluate various environmentally relevant sources from a toxicological point of view, in order to identify potential "hot spots" of organometal(loid)s, which can negatively influence ecosystems and human health.
Many environmental problems resulting from atmospheric, land and water pollution are now widely understood. The combination of both improved technology and legislative pressure has led to a reduction in pollution from industrial practices in the West in recent years. However, sustainable development is dependent upon a new approach to environmental protection - clean technology. This book is in two parts. The first explores the ecological principles governing the function of ecosystems, sustain ability and biodiversity (Chapter 1) and the problems resulting from atmospheric pollution (Chapter 2), water pollution (Chapter 3) and land pollution (Chapter 4). For example, there is increasing international concern that the combustion of fossil fuels is leading to an increase in the levels of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen gases which pollute the atmosphere of our planet. The enhanced levels of carbon gases such as carbon dioxide may cause change in our global climate and, in tum, lead to flooding and loss of low-lying coastal regions. In addition, the deposition of sulphur and nitrogen oxides is believed to be the cause of 'acid rain' which has led to loss of fish stocks from upland lochs and damage to forestry plantations.
This latest Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will again form the standard reference for all those concerned with climate change and its consequences, including students, researchers and policy makers in environmental science, meteorology, climatology, biology, ecology, atmospheric chemistry and environmental policy.
In their pursuit of policies to combat global warming, countries will find that they may also receive additional benefits which are not directly associated with the primary aim. These ancillary benefits are likely to include, for example, a reduction in pollution as a result of carbon containment policies. International Climate Policy to Combat Global Warming is one of the first books which analyses climate policy, taking account of ancillary as well as primary benefits. The author integrates ancillary benefits into the theory and explores the implications for international policy measures. Because of the private character of ancillary benefits, the author is able to treat climate policy as an impure public good which in turn has an impact on the efficient climate protection level. He highlights the general failures of the standard approach to climate policy design and goes on to propose a new approach to international negotiations on climate change. He suggests a flexible matching scheme which would help overcome free-rider incentives and which would have considerable advantages over traditional co-operative designs. By proposing a novel framework for the analysis of, and solution to, the problem of global warming, this book will be welcomed by environmental and ecological economists, policymakers and researchers of political science.
In situ remediation techniques have experienced a boom over the last few years, thereby producing a wide range of valuable experiences. Their results have demonstrated that in situ techniques are a mature alternative to conventional remediation techniques. Irrespective of future policy developments, it is impossible to imagine future remediation practice without the use of in situ techniques. The book presents an overview of recent developments in the field of in situ soil remediation. The book is unique in that it is not a compilation of unrelated case studies. A conceptual approach has been chosen; remediation models described in this book are illustrated from a practical point of view. The authors present the Dutch way of treating contaminated land; The Netherlands is renowned for being at the forefront of remediation techniques as a result of the country's progressiveness and experience in this area.
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.
A new interpretation of imperialism and environmental change, and the anxieties imperialism generated through environmental transformation and interaction with unknown landscapes. Tying together South Asia and Australasia, this book demonstrates how environmental anxieties led to increasing state resource management, conservation, and urban reform.
Consensus is growing internationally that traditional command-and-control approaches to environmental regulation have borne much of their low-hanging fruit. Yet it is far from clear what should complement or replace them. Regulatory agencies and policy-makers are struggling with a lack of information about regulatory reform, about what works and what doesn't, and about how best to harness the resources of both government and non-government stakeholders. Progress is being impeded unnecessarily by a lack of shared knowledge of how similar agencies elsewhere are meeting similar challenges and by a lack of data on the success or otherwise of existing initiatives. Despite recent and valuable attempts to deal with such problems in the European Union and North America, these remain islands of wisdom in a sea of ignorance. For example, when it comes to dealing with small and medium-sized enterprises, very little is known, and what is known is not effectively distilled and disseminated. Much the same could be said about the roles of third parties, commercial and non-commercial, as surrogate regulators, and more broadly of many current initiatives to reconfigure the regulatory state. Based on the authors' work for the OECD, Victorian Environmental Protection Authority and the Western Australian Department of Environment Protection, Leaders and Laggards addresses these problems by identifying innovative regulatory best practice internationally in a number of specific contexts, evaluating empirically the effectiveness of regulatory reform and providing policy prescriptions that would better enable agencies to fulfil their regulatory missions. Focusing primarily on the differing requirements for both corporations and small and medium-sized enterprises in North America and Europe, the book aims to complement existing initiatives and to expand knowledge of regulatory reform by showing: how existing experience can best be put to practical use "on the ground"; by drawing lessons from experiments in innovative regulation internationally; by reporting and extrapolating on original case studies; and by advancing understanding on which instruments and strategies are likely to be of most value and why. The authors argue that the development of theory has outstripped its application. In essence, Leaders and Laggards aims to ground a myriad of theory on the reinvention of environmental regulation into practice. The book will be essential reading for environmental policy-makers, regulatory and other government officials responsible for policy design and implementation, academics and postgraduate students in environmental management, environmental law and environmental policy, and a more general readership within environmental policy and management studies. It will also be of interest to those in industry, such as environmental managers and corporate strategists, who are considering the use of more innovative environmental and regulatory strategies, and to environmental NGOs.
The lntergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently summarized the state ofthe art in research on climate change (Climate Change 1995). The most up to date research findings have been divided into three volumes: * the Science ofClimate Change (working group I), * the Impacts, Adaption and Mitigation of Climate Change (working group II), and * the Economic and Social Dimensions ofClimate Change (working group III) There is a general consensus that a serious change in climate can only be avoided if the future emissions of greenhouse gases are reduced considerably from the business as usual projection and if at the same time the natural sinks for greenhouse gases, in particular that of CO , are maintained at the present level or 2 preferrably increased. Forests, forestry and forestry industry are important parts of the global carbon cycle and therefore they are also part of the mitigation potentials in at least a threefold way: 1. During the time period between 1980 and 1989 there was a net emission of CO from changes in tropical land use (mostly tropical deforestation) of 2 1. 6 +/- 1 GtC/a, but at the same time it was estimated that the forests in the northem hemisphere have taken up 0. 5 +/- 0. 5 GtC/a and additionally other terrestrial sinks (including tropical forests where no clearing took place) have been a carbon sink ofthe order of l. 3 +/- l.
This PhD looks at Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Baten Bay, Indonesia. Recommendations are given on how environmental information and stakeholder participation in the coastal EIA process can be improved.
More than 50% of the world's population already live in cities, and the proportion is rising extremely rapidly towards developed country levels of more than 90%. Groundwater from wells is the major source of water supply for many of these cities, however, groundwater is polluted by the cities that overlie it and sewerage systems are often absent, or leak. Industrial landuse implies the use of large quantities of chemicals, and it is the poor disposal and accidental spillage of these chemicals which results in the contamination of virtually every industrial site in the world. Much of this pollution migrates deeper to damage groundwater. Groundwater has slow turnover time, often measured in decades and centuries, reducing the self-cleansing capacity. Urban aquifers are therefore vitally important but very fragile, easily damaged and slow to repair. Urban groundwater problems and solutions vary greatly around the world. Mature cities often have remote and clean water supplies, good sewerage systems, strict controls on groundwater and land use, and declining industries. However, they have a legacy of more than one hundred years of waste disposal and industrially-contaminated land which continues to cause problems. Rapidly urbanising cities are frequently dependent on local groundwater and have poor sanitation and uncontrolled industry. These factors present many immediate risks to human health. This book explains the nature and value of urban groundwater, discussing the types of pollutants that are found, and their sources. The unique aspect of this book is the in-depth discussion of six different urban environments, complete with case studies. These environments are: Mature industrial cities; Arid-zone cities; Weathered crystalline aquifers in sub-Saharan Africa; Cities overlying karst aquifers; Alluvial aquifer systems; Shallow aquifers in Mediterranean climates.
This book describes six months of initial intensive activities within a motivating multidisciplinary project to achieve sustainable social, economic, and environmental revitalization in the historic core of Multan City, Pakistan. The project is managed by Fondazione Politecnico di Milano within the framework of the "Pakistan-Italian Debt for Development Swap Agreement and has five components: a livelihood improvement program, a living conditions improvement program, revitalization of physical assets, establishment of a Pakistan-Italian resource centre in Multan, and an Italian collaboration program for training and capacity building. All aspects are covered in this book, which provides a comprehensive account of progress in this excellent example of cross-cultural cooperation between a Western and an Eastern country in regenerating an historic populated site."
At present, we have been living in an ice age for around 2.5 million years, a geological epoch in which there is ice on Earth and in which the curve of the global mean temperature is subject to significant fluctuations (current trend: temperature increase). At nearly 16 million square kilometers, about ten percent of the land surface is currently covered by glacial ice-and glacial ice plays a major role in shaping landscapes. This compact textbook sharpens the eye for such landscapes. It makes the forms and the shaping processes comprehensible, which the author illustrates with numerous regional examples, especially from Central Europe, such as the North German Plain and the Alpine foothills, but also from Iceland. What traces have the glaciers and their meltwaters left behind? What formation processes can be inferred? How can recent climate history, in particular that of the Ice Age, be reconstructed? It is exciting to look at current developments in glaciated areas and also to take a look at the (climate) future of the Earth. For example, the question arises as to what influence glaciers have on sea level and on future climate change. In this context, natural processes such as the ice age cycles, for which there are various ice age formation hypotheses, and anthropogenic influences in global warming must be weighed against each other. Practice questions help to deepen understanding. |
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