Over the past fifteen years regulatory agencies have relied on their approaches to characterise and control the release of toxic substances into the aquatic environment: a GC/MS analysis for U.S. EPA designated 126 priority pollutants and 132 dangerous substances according to the European 76/464/CEE Directive and on the bioassays with aquatic bioorganisms.
"Emerging Contaminants" correspond in most cases to irregulated contaminants, e.g. surfactants, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCP), or gasoline additives.
These two volumes, 5/I and 5/O, of this Handbook deal with the analytical, toxicological and environmental issues of these toxicants. Based on results of up-to-date research, they give the reader a balanced view of this rapidly developing and complex subject.

Property Rights and Climate Change explores the multifarious relationships between different types of climate-driven environmental changes and property rights. This original contribution to the literature examines such climate changes through the lens of property rights, rather than through the lens of land use planning. The inherent assumption pursued is that the different types of environmental changes, with their particular effects and impact on land use, share common issues regarding the relation between the social construction of land via property rights and the dynamics of a changing environment. Making these common issues explicit and discussing the different approaches to them is the central objective of this book. Through examining a variety of cases from the Arctic to the Australian coast, the contributors take a transdisciplinary look at the winners and losers of climate change, discuss approaches to dealing with changing environmental conditions, and stimulate pathways for further research. This book is essential reading for lawyers, planners, property rights experts and environmentalists.

Human induced global climate change is the biggest challenge humankind faces today. Increasing amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases play a crucial role in the evolution of the climate. Without the understanding of the contributing processes, feedbacks and interactions we cannot predict the future changes and develop effective mitigation strategies. To decrease the uncertainty of the global studies detailed regional studies are needed surveying the regional characteristics of the atmospheric greenhouse gas budget and the influencing factors. Atmospheric Greenhouse Gases: The Hungarian Perspective covers a coherent subset of the Hungarian climate change oriented research that is directly related to greenhouse gases. Topics discussed in the book range from the monitoring of the concentrations and fluxes of atmospheric greenhouse gases, through the modeling of atmosphere-biosphere interaction and greenhouse gas exchange processes, to the review of the anthropogenic contribution of Hungary to the greenhouse gas budget of the atmosphere. The studies call the attention to the regional properties which may modulate the European scale or global picture on the variation of atmospheric greenhouse gases.

Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology provides detailed review articles concerned with aspects of chemical contaminants, including pesticides, in the total environment with toxicological considerations and consequences.

Improving urban air quality has become a policy priority for the European Union, national governments and city authorities as more evidence comes to light of the harmful health effects of road traffic pollution. This book clearly illustrates how to work towards effective policies for improved urban air quality.The authors argue that designing and implementing successful policies is not just a matter of deciding on the most appropriate technological solutions. A process of institution building has to take place which works towards consensus among a variety of potentially divergent interests; from the police and highway authorities to business interests and citizens. Making use of policy network theory, this volume presents studies of attempts to build such coalitions, and the factors that have often frustrated them, in countries such as Canada, France, Italy and Switzerland. This book provides a major contribution to the theoretical and empirical understanding of the policies needed to combat road traffic pollution. The Politics of Improving Urban Air Quality will prove invaluable to scholars of environmental studies and public policy.

The public's attitude toward air pollution in the United States evolved substantially during the 1960s. One of the results of the nation's emerging environmental ethic was the creation of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in December of 1970. Prior to this time, research was focused on the impacts of air pollution on human health and welfare and was largely conducted by several federal research agencies, which included the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the U. S. Department of Agricul ture. After the creation of the EPA, much of this work was consolidated in one regulatory agency, which resulted in periodic evaluations of the various effects of atmospheric pollution on human health, materials, agriculture, and forest ecosystems. At the same time that environmental interest was growing in the United States, concern increased in the European scientific community and public over the ecological impacts of acidic deposition. As the magnitude of the damage to European lakes and streams and the widespread decline in Norway spruce and silver fir was reported, concern that similar problems were occurring in the United States increased substantially. This concern was heightened by press reports of high elevation spruce-fir forest declines in the Adirondack and Appalachian Mountains and the decline and death of sugar maples in the northeastern United States and Canada.

Collates the most relevant and up to date information on renewable energy systems in a user friendly format for undergraduate and high school students Focused on power production technologies from renewable energy sources. An introduction to how sources of renewable energy work; their advantages and drawbacks. Timely text with the need for fast adoption of renewable energy technologies around the world. Diverse audience including students with some scientific background such as final year in high school wanting to know more about combatting climate change.

More than a third of national output of the Chinese economy now comes from enterprises in the rural areas outside the plan. This book explains how that sector became so big in China and what it means for economic reform and structural change. The book contains precise measures of the size of the rural enterprise sector and the extent to which it has contributed to growth in China. The sources of both labour and capital used are documented, and their contributions to the growth are estimated. The implications of the growth of these enterprises are explored and the new issues which the growth of the sector has created so far are identified. Special attention is paid to problems associated with the nature of rural enterprise ownership. The analysis stresses the special conditions in China and also highlights some lessons for the process of reform in other economies.

International concern in scientific, industrial, and governmental communities of xenobiotics in foods and in both abiotic and biotic environments over traces has justified the present triumvirate of specialized publications in this field: comprehensive reviews, rapidly published research papers and progress reports, and archival documentations. These three international publications are inte grated and scheduled to provide the coherency essential for nonduplicative and current progress in a field as dynamic and complex as environmental contamina tion and toxicology. This series is reserved exclusively for the diversified litera ture on "toxic" chemicals in our food, our feeds, our homes, recreational and working surroundings, our domestic animals, our wildlife and ourselves. Tre mendous efforts worldwide have been mobilized to evaluate the nature, pres ence, magnitude, fate, and toxicology of the chemicals loosed upon the earth. Among the sequelae of this broad new emphasis is an undeniable need for an articulated set of authoritative publications, where one can find the latest impor tant world literature produced by these emerging areas of science together with documentation of pertinent ancillary legislation. Research directors and legislative or administrative advisers do not have the time to scan the escalating number of technical publications that may contain articles important to current responsibility. Rather, these individuals need the background provided by detailed reviews and the assurance that the latest infor mation is made available to them, all with minimal literature searching."

'The excellent and appalling Losing Earth by Nathaniel Rich describes how close we came in the 70s to dealing with the causes of global warming and how US big business and Reaganite politicians in the 80s ensured it didn’t happen. Read it.' - John Simpson, World Affairs Editor of BBC News

By 1979, we knew all that we know now about the science of climate change – what was happening, why it was happening, and how to stop it. Over the next ten years, we had the very real opportunity to stop it. Obviously, we failed.

Nathaniel Rich’s groundbreaking account of that failure – and how tantalizingly close we came to signing binding treaties that would have saved us all before the fossil fuels industry and politicians committed to anti-scientific denialism – is already a journalistic blockbuster, a full issue of the New York Times Magazine that has earned favorable comparisons to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Rich has become an instant, in-demand expert and speaker. A major movie deal is already in place. It is the story, perhaps, that can shift the conversation.

In the book Losing Earth, Rich is able to provide more of the context for what did – and didn’t – happen in the 1980s and, more important, is able to carry the story fully into the present day and wrestle with what those past failures mean for us at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is not just an agonizing revelation of historical missed opportunities, but a clear-eyed and eloquent assessment of how we got to now, and what we can and must do before it's truly too late.

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.

More countries are now using Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) than ever before. This timely and comprehensive Handbook describes the implementation of SEA in 18 countries around the world, as well as a critical analysis of different SEA methodologies. The Handbook starts by introducing key SEA principles and the legal requirements of the new European SEA Directive (which became law in 2004). It then describes the implementation of SEA in 11 European Union countries, as well as the USA, Canada and New Zealand. This is contrasted with SEA requirements of four developing countries. The Handbook explores public participation issues and the wide-range of SEA methodologies used in terms of resources (soils, water and biodiversity) and sectors of activity (transport, agriculture, waste management and industry). The Handbook concludes with a discussion on best practice, capacity building and the future of SEA.

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.

This book provides a unique, in-depth view of past, present and potential future climatic change in mountain regions, and in particular on the mechanisms which are responsible for this change. Other books which focus on environmental change in mountains focus more generally on the impacts of this change on mountain systems, rather than on the regional features of climatic change itself. The book enters into a high level of detail concerning results of international investigations which involve specialists from numerous climate-related disciplines. The book can be used in an academic and research context, for advanced graduate and doctoral students, as well as researchers working in various domains of relevance to climatic change issues. The book also has relevance in the context of future activities of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in terms of providing up-to-date knowledge of fundamental mechanisms and consequences of climatic change in mountain regions.

Transboundary transport of air pollution has been a topic of scientific research for several decades and has also been addressed already by environmental policies. However, the importance of air pollution transport on the largest - intercontinental - scales, has been recognized only recently. It was soon found that the meteorological and chemical processes involved in intercontinental pollution transport are distinctly different from those occurring during regional-scale transport, and thus new scientific methodologies are required for their study. In this book, leading scientists review the current state of knowledge in this emerging field of research, providing the reader with a process understanding of global-scale transport and its influence on the atmosphere's chemical composition. Long-range transport of anthropogenic pollution is contrasted with that of pollution produced by natural processes such as dust storms or forest fires. Furthermore, the prospects for international management of intercontinental transport of anthropogenic pollution are discussed.

Climate change is one of the biggest challenges for mankind. Although there is increasing evidence that climate change is already occurring, there is neither sufficient knowledge as to what extent climate change poses risks to societies and companies, nor about adequate strategies to cope with these risks.

Bringing together an international group of scholars from environmental economics, political science and business, this book describes, analyses and evaluates climate change risks and responses of societies and companies. The book contributes to the question of how climate change can be mitigated by discussing efficient and effective design of mitigation measures, in particular emissions trading and clean development mechanism (CDM). Placing special emphasis on the impact of climate change risks on business, the book investigates in which way selected sectors of the economy are affected and what measures they can undertake to adapt to climate change risks.

As we transition into the 21st century, it is apparent that this is an exciting time for environmental engineers and scientists studying remediation technologies. There has been a rapid development of new ways to clean-up polluted groundwater. Research activities of the past and next 10 years will have a dramatic impact on the quality of the subsurface environment for the next century. In 20, or even 10 years from now, our approach to subsurface remediation will probably be vastly different than it is today. Many of the emerging technologies presented in this book will form the basis of standard remediation practices of the future. Physicochemical Groundwater Remediation presents detailed information on multiple emerging technologies for the remediation of the contaminated subsurface environment. All of these technologies apply our knowledge of physical and chemical processes to clean up ground water and the unsaturated zone, and many (if not all) of these emerging technologies will help define standard practices in the future. These technologies include in situ sorptive and reactive treatment walls, surfactant-enhanced aquifer remediation, optimization analyses for remediation system design, chemical, electrochemical, and biochemical remediation processes, and monitored natural attenuation. You will learn how palladium catalyzes the dehalogenation of chlorinated solvents. You will find out how barometric pumping can naturally remove significant quantities of volatile organic pollutants from shallow ground water and the unsaturated zone. You can learn about mobilizing non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) without risking significant downward migration of the NAPL. You can find out how processes such as electroosmosis and electromigration can be exploited for groundwater remediation purposes and how zero-valent iron and zeolite treatment walls can be used in situ to treat and control contaminant plume migration. Contributors to this book are experts in groundwater remediation processes, and they represent industry, consulting, academia, and government. If your work involves the clean up of contaminated soil and groundwater, this book is an essential reference to keep you up to date on the most promising new developments in remediation research.

Response to Marine Oil Pollution - Review and Assessment is the essential source book, now updated, for all involved in marine oil pollution consequences and response. It covers policy, planning and operations, and provides technical assessment of the true nature of the problem, of the means to maximise the performance of current techniques and equipment, and of the bases for future improvements. This book provides a fundamental understanding of the oil properties and processes which determine the persistence and impacts of oils in the marine environment. It establishes parameters against which to evaluate performance of all current techniques and equipment, and the environmental impacts of their use. It identifies design parameters, and makes proposals for the creation and development of more effective equipment and techniques. The book also shows how a fresh approach to cargo transfer, and the scaling of spillage response provision to oil releases on immediate impact, will be more effective overall, and will ensure that approved waste handling and disposal facilities are not overwhelmed. The recent Sea Empress incident is reviewed to illustrate the points made and conclusions reached, and to emphasise the need for thorough salvage planning for all future incidents.

In this unique and innovative contribution to environmental security, an international team of scholars explore and estimate the intermediate-term security risks that climate change may pose for the United States, its allies and partners, and for regional and global order through the year 2030. In profiles of forty-two key countries and regions, each contributor considers the problems that climate change will pose for existing institutions and practices. By focusing on the conduct of individual states or groups of nations, the results add new precision to our understanding of the way environmental stress may be translated into political, social, economic, and military challenges in the future.

Countries and regions covered in the book include China, Vietnam, The Philippines, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Central Asia, the European Union, the Persian Gulf, Egypt, Turkey, the Maghreb, West Africa, Southern Africa, the Northern Andes, and Brazil.

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.

As the public increasingly questioned the war in Vietnam, a group of American scientists deeply concerned about the use of Agent Orange and other herbicides started a movement to ban what they called "ecocide."

David Zierler traces this movement, starting in the 1940s, when weed killer was developed in agricultural circles and theories of counterinsurgency were studied by the military. These two trajectories converged in 1961 with Operation Ranch Hand, the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese mission to use herbicidal warfare as a means to defoliate large areas of enemy territory.

Driven by the idea that humans were altering the world's ecology for the worse, a group of scientists relentlessly challenged Pentagon assurances of safety, citing possible long-term environmental and health effects. It wasn't until 1970 that the scientists gained access to sprayed zones confirming that a major ecological disaster had occurred. Their findings convinced the U.S. government to renounce first use of herbicides in future wars and, Zierler argues, fundamentally reoriented thinking about warfare and environmental security in the next forty years.

Incorporating in-depth interviews, unique archival collections, and recently declassified national security documents, Zierler examines the movement to ban ecocide as it played out amid the rise of a global environmental consciousness and growing disillusionment with the containment policies of the cold war era.

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

The objective of the book is to make a comprehensive documentation of the observed variability and change of the regional climate system over the Indian region using the past observed data. The book addresses all the important parameters of regional climate system so that a physically consistent view of the changes of the climate system is documented. The book contains 16 chapters written by the subject experts from different academic and research institutes in India. The book addresses all important components/parameters of the climate system, like rainfall, temperature, humidity, clouds, moisture, sea surface temperature and ocean heat content, sea level, glaciers and snow cover, tropical cyclones and monsoon depressions, extreme rainfall and rainstorms, heat waves and cold waves, meteorological droughts, aerosols, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and atmospheric radiative fluxes. One chapter deals with the past monsoon using monsoon proxy data. The last chapter deals with the future climate change projections over the Indian region (rainfall and temperature) made using coupled climate models. Most of the analyses (especially on rainfall, temperature, extreme rainfall, sea surface temperature, meteorological droughts) are based on the data for a longer period of 110 years, 1901-2010. For some other parameters like moisture, clouds, heat waves and cold waves, atmospheric aerosols, ozone and trace gases and radiative fluxes, data of shorter period have been used. The articles documented inter-annual and decadal variability in addition to documenting long term trends of different parameters. The trends have been tested for statistical significance using standard techniques. It is expected that the present book will be an excellent reference material for researchers as well as for policy makers. These results will be useful in interpreting future climate change scenarios over the region being projected using coupled climate models. Further analysis of these results is required for attributing the observed variability and change to natural and anthropogenic activities.