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Books > Earth & environment > Earth sciences > The hydrosphere
From the icy oceans of our poles to remote coral islands, David Attenborough has filmed in every ocean habitat on planet earth. Now, with long-term collaborator Colin Butfield, he shares the story of our last great, critical wilderness, and the one which shapes the land we live on, regulates our climate and creates the air we breathe.
Through one hundred years, eight unique ocean habitats, countless intriguing species - and through personal stories, history and cutting-edge science - Ocean uncovers the mystery, the wonder and the frailty of the most unexplored habitat on our planet. And it shows its remarkable resilience: it is the part of our world that can, and in some cases has, recovered the fastest, and in our lifetimes we could see a fully restored marine world, even richer and more spectacular than we could possibly hope, if we act now.
It is a book almost a century in the making, but one that has never been more urgently needed.
Rivers are significant geomorphological agents, they show an
amazing diversity of form and behaviour and transfer water and
sediment from the land surface to the oceans. This book examines
how river systems respond to environmental change and why this
understanding is needed for successful river management. Highly
dynamic in nature, river channels adjust and evolve over timescales
that range from hours to tens of thousands of years or more, and
are found in a wide range of environments. This book provides a
comprehensive overview of recent developments in river channel
management, clearly illustrating why an understanding of fluvial
geomorphology is vital in channel preservation, environmentally
sensitive design and the restoration of degraded river channels. It
covers: flow and sediment regimes: flow generation; flow regimes;
sediment sources, transfer and yield channel processes: flow
characteristics; processes of erosion and sediment transport;
interactions between flow and the channel boundary; deposition
channel form and behaviour: controls on channel form; channel
adjustments; floodplain development; form and behaviour of alluvial
and bedrock channels response to change: how channels have
responded to past environmental change; impacts of human activity;
reconstructing past changes river management: the fluvial
hydrosystem; environmental degradation; environmentally sensitive
engineering techniques; river restoration; the role of the fluvial
geomorphologist. Fundamentals of Fluvial Geomorphology is an
indispensable text for undergraduate students. It provides
straightforward explanations for important concepts and
mathematical formulae, backed up with conceptual diagrams and
appropriate examples from around the world to show what they
actually mean and why they are important. A colour plate section
also shows spectacular examples of fluvial diversity.
Ocean Law and Coastal Law have grown rapidly in the past three
decades as specialty areas within natural resources law and
environmental law. The protection of oceans has received increased
attention in the past decade because of the global overfishing
crisis, widespread depletion of marine living resources (such as
marine mammals and coral reefs), and oil pollution. During this
same period, climate change regulation has emerged as a focus of
international environmental diplomacy, and has gained increased
attention in the wake of disturbing and abrupt climate change
related impacts throughout the world that have profound
implications for ocean and coastal regulation and marine resources.
Climate Change Impacts on Ocean and Coastal Law effectively brings
together the two worlds of climate change and ocean and coastal
management. It raises important questions about whether and how
ocean and coastal law will respond to the regulatory challenges
that climate change presents to resources in the oceans and coasts
of the U.S. and the world. This comprehensive work assembles the
insights of global experts from academia and major NGOs (e.g.,
Center for International Environmental Law, Ocean Conservancy, and
Environmental Law Institute) to address regulatory challenges from
the perspectives of U.S. law, foreign domestic law, and
international law.
Changing concentrations of greenhouse gasses are key to our
changing climate. Biogochemical Cycles and Climate examines the
interaction of the main biogeochemical cycles of the earth with the
physics of climate from the perspective of the earth as an
integrated system. Biogeochemical cycles play a fundamental role in
the Earth's system - they describe the movement of matter and
transfer of energy around the planet. This text aims to answer some
fundamental questions. How have the cycles of key nutrients, such
as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous, and water changed, both in the
geological past and more recently through the impact of humans on
the Earth System? How do these cycles interact with each other and
affect the physical properties of climate? How can we use this
knowledge to mitigate some of the impacts of changing
biogeochemistry on climate, and the Earth's habitability and
resilience? Understanding the complex interactions of
biogeochemistry with the Earth's climate is crucial for
understanding past and current changes in climate and above all,
for the future sustainable management of our planet.
The Elizabeth River courses through the heart of Virginia. The
Jamestown colonists recognized the river's strategic importance and
explored its watershed almost immediately after the 1607 founding.
The Elizabeth River traces four centuries of this historic stream's
path through the geography and culture of Virginia.
European explorers were captivated by the seemingly endless bounty
of natural resources on Cape Cod Bay. One Englishman declared that
the codfish were so thick one "could" walk on their backs. Early
settlers quickly learned how to harness the bay's resources and
excelled at shore whaling, shipping and salt making. But as these
new industries flourished, the native Wampanoag, who helped the
fledgling colony to take root, nearly vanished. Author Theresa
Mitchell Barbo's skillful narrative weaves together the natural and
cultural histories of the bay, highlighting some of the region's
diverse milestones- from the drafting of the Mayflower Compact in
1620 to the establishment of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant 350
years later. "Cape Cod Bay: A History of Salt & Sea" inspires
new appreciation for this storied and stunning seascape, and
underscores the importance of new efforts to preserve the bay's
unique ecosystem.
The year is 1973 and changes are afoot in Great Yarmouth and
Brokencliff-on-Sea as the New Year comes in with bang! Return to a
simpler time when family holidays at the seaside were still fun and
electronic devices had never been heard of. The only sound that was
heard was the gentle lapping of the waves, the gulls circling
above, and the trot of the horse's hooves along the promenade and
music from the funfairs.
Not far from Seattle skyscrapers live 150-year-old clams, more than
250 species of fish, and underwater kelp forests as complex as any
terrestrial ecosystem. For millennia, vibrant Coast Salish
communities have lived beside these waters dense with nutrient-rich
foods, with cultures intertwined through exchanges across the
waterways. Transformed by settlement and resource extraction, Puget
Sound and its future health now depend on a better understanding of
the region's ecological complexities. Focusing on the area south of
Port Townsend and between the Cascade and Olympic mountains,
Williams uncovers human and natural histories in, on, and around
the Sound. In conversations with archaeologists, biologists, and
tribal authorities, Williams traces how generations of humans have
interacted with such species as geoducks, salmon, orcas, rockfish,
and herring. He sheds light on how warfare shaped development and
how people have moved across this maritime highway, in canoes, the
mosquito fleet, and today's ferry system. The book also takes an
unflinching look at how the Sound's ecosystems have suffered from
human behavior, including pollution, habitat destruction, and the
effects of climate change. Witty, graceful, and deeply informed,
Homewaters weaves history and science into a fascinating and
hopeful narrative, one that will introduce newcomers to the
astonishing life that inhabits the Sound and offers longtime
residents new insight into and appreciation of the waters they call
home. A Michael J. Repass Book
Urban Hydroinformatics: Data, Models and Decision Support for
Integrated Urban Water Management is an introduction to
hydroinformatics applied to urban water management. It shows how to
make the best use of information and communication technologies for
manipulating information to manage water in the urban environment.
The book covers the acquisition and analysis of data from urban
water systems to instantiate mathematical models or calculations,
which describe identified physical processes. The models are
operated within prescribed management procedures to inform decision
makers, who are responsible to recognized stakeholders. The
application is to the major components of the urban water
environment, namely water supply, treatment and distribution,
wastewater and storm water collection, treatment and impact on
receiving waters and groundwater, and urban flooding. Urban
Hydroinformatics pays particular attention to modeling, decision
support through procedures, economics and management, and
implementation in developing countries. The book is written with
Post-graduate students, researchers and practicing engineers in all
aspects of urban water management in mind. Visit the IWA WaterWiki
to read an article by the authors:
http://www.iwawaterwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Articles/Urbanhydroinformatics
This title is now available in Hardback: please note change of ISBN
from 9781843392743 to 9781780401362.
A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week 'A subject that could not be more
important. A compact classic!' Bill McKibben 'I learned something
new - and found something amazing - on every page' Anthony Doerr,
author of All the Light We Cannot See From Pulitzer Prize winner
Annie Proulx - whose novels are infused with her knowledge and deep
concern for the earth - comes an urgent and riveting history of
wetlands, their ecological role and how the loss of them threatens
the planet. Fens, bogs, swamps and marine estuaries are the earth's
most desirable and dependable resources, and in four illuminating
parts Proulx documents the emergence of their systemic destruction
in the pursuit of profit and the consequent release of their stored
carbon. Wide-ranging and idiosyncratic, Proulx's explanation of
wetlands takes readers to the fens of sixteenth-century England,
Canada's Hudson Bay Lowlands, Russia's Great Vasyugan Mire and
America's Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and introduces the
nineteenth-century explorers who launched the ravaging of the
Amazon rainforest. Proulx was born in the 1930s, a time, as she
says, when 'in the ever-continuing name of progress, Western
countries busily raped their own and other countries of minerals,
timber, fish and wildlife.' Fen, Bog & Swamp is both a
revelatory history and an urgent plea for wetland reclamation from
a writer whose passionate devotion to observing and preserving the
environment is on glorious display. 'Magnificent, bringing to life
hitherto overlooked habitats' Guardian 'Proulx's sparkling book
will open your eyes to humanity's reckless trashing of wetlands'
Telegraph 'A haunting tribute ... Proulx's poetic description of
these places, and peat itself, is a pleasure to read' Financial
Times
The Rouge River is a mostly urbanized watershed of about 500 square
miles populated by nearly 1.4 million people. While not
geographically large, the river has played an outsized role in the
history of southeast Michigan, most famously housing Ford's massive
Rouge Factory, designed by architect Albert Kahn and later
memorialized in Diego Rivera's renowned "Detroit Industry" murals.
In recent decades, the story of the Rouge River has also been one
of grassroots environmental activism. After pollution from the Ford
complex and neighboring factories literally caused the river to
catch on fire in 1969, community groups launched a Herculean effort
to restore and protect the watershed. Today the Rouge stands as one
of the most successful examples of urban river revival in the
country. Rouge River Revived describes the river's history from
pre-European times into the 21st century. Chapters cover topics
such as Native American life on the Rouge; indigenous flora and
fauna over time; the river's role in the founding of local cities;
its key involvement in Detroit's urban development and intensive
industrialization; and the dramatic clean-up arising from citizen
concern and activism. This book is not only a history of the
environment of the Rouge River, but also of the complex and
evolving relationship between humans and natural spaces.
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