The aim of the book is to present for non-specialist researchers as well as for experts a comprehensive overview of the background, key ideas, basic methods, implementation details and a selection of solutions offered by a novel technology for the optimisation of the location of dangerous offshore activities in terms of environmental criteria, as developed in the course of the BalticWay project. The book consists of two parts. The first part introduces the basic principles of ocean modeling and depicts the long way from the generic principles to the practical modeling of oil spills and of the propagation of other adverse impacts. The second part focuses on the techniques for solving the inverse problem of the quantification of offshore areas with respect to their potential to serve as a source of environmental danger to vulnerable regions (such as spawning, nursing or also tourist areas). The chapters are written in a tutorial style; they are mostly self-contained and understandable for non-specialist researchers and students. They are carefully peer-reviewed by international experts. The goal was to produce a book that highlights all key steps, methods, models and data sets it is necessary to combine in order to produce a practically usable technology and/or decision support system for a particular sea region. Thus the book is useful not only as a description and a manual of this particular technology but also as a roadmap highlighting the complicated technical issues of ocean modeling for practical purposes. It describes the approaches taken by the authors in an understandable way and thus is useful for educational purposes, such as a course in industrially and environmentally relevant applications of ocean modeling.

The management of water resources is extremely important for survival. Depending on the climate, certain regions require different strategies to maintain sustainable hydrological systems. Hydrology and Best Practices for Managing Water Resources in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands is a crucial scholarly resource that outlines current trends in water management and offers solutions for the future of this growing field. Highlighting pertinent topics such as hydrological processes modelling, satellite hydrology, water pollution, and climate resources, this publication is ideal for environmental engineers, academicians, graduate students, and researchers that are eager to discover more about the issues and processes currently shaping water management technology.

The Hilbert-Huang Transform ((HHT) is a recently developed technique which is used to analyze nonstationary data. Hydrologic and environmental series are, in the main, analyzed by using techniques which were developed for stationary data. This has led to problems of interpretation of the results. Environmental and hydrologic series are quite often nonstationary. The basic objective of the material discussed in this book is to analyze these data by using methods based on the Hilbert-Huang transform. These results are compared to the results from the traditional methods such as those based on Fourier transform and other classical statistical tests.

Floodplains are ecosystems which are driven by periodic inundation and oscillation between terrestrial and aquatic phases. An understanding of such pulsing systems is only possible by studying both phases and linking the results into an integrated overview.
This book presents the results of a 15-year study of the structure and function of one of the largest tropical floodplains, the Amazon River floodplain. It covers qualitative aspects, e.g., adaptations of aquatic and terrestrial organisms to the flood pulse as well as quantitative aspects, e.g., studies of biomass, primary production, decomposition, and nutrient cycles. The authors interpret their findings and the most important data from other studies under an integrating scientific concept, the Flood Pulse Concept.

This book discusses water resources management in Romania from a hydrological perspective, presenting the latest research developments and state-of-the-art knowledge that can be applied to efficiently solve a variety of problems in integrated water resources management. It focuses on a wide range of water resources issues - from hydrology and water quantity, quality and supply to flood protection, hydrological hazards and ecosystems, and includes case studies from various watersheds in Romania. As such, the book appeals to researchers, practitioners and graduates as well as to anybody interested in water resources management.

This original analysis of the Middle East water problems highlights questions and issues which have so far only received minimal attention. The author develops a multi-layered account of the nature and causes of the conflict and the Pealestinian water crisis. Each chapter addresses a particular aspect of the Israeli-Palestine water conflict and the author uses these to illustrate both the broader nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations and factors that the existing water literature underplays or simply gets wrong. The book should interest students, scholars and practitioners in a wide range of disciplines including Middle East studies, politics and international relations, water policy, geography, environmental studies and environmental management.

Africa, the cradle of many old civilizations, is the second largest world continent, and the homeland of nearly one-eighth of the world population. Despite Africa's richness in natural resources, the average income per person, after excluding a few countries, is the lowest all over the world, and the percentage of inhabitants infected with contagious diseases is the highest. Development of Africa to help accommodate the ever-increasing population and secure a reasonable living standard to all inhabitants, though an enormous challenge is extremely necessary. Water is the artery of life, without it all living creatures on earth cannot survive. As such, a thorough knowledge of the meteorological and hydrological processes influencing the yield and quality of the water resources, surface and subsurface, and their distribution and variability in time and space is unavoidable for the overall development of any part of the world. It is highly probable that the said knowledge is at present a top priority to Africa, a continent that has been for so long-and probably still-devastated by the endless ambitions of colonial powers not to forget the corruption and destruction practiced by the internal powers, at least in some countries. The present book "Hydrology and Water Resources of Africa" is written with the aim of bringing together in one volume a fair amount of knowledge any professional involved in hydrology and water resources of Africa needs to know.

This book provides an updated discussion of snow and glacier hydrology, drawing on the results of recent investigations. It serves as a source of reference at the senior undergraduate or beginning graduate level and stimulates further interest in this important part of the hydrologic cycle.

The need for tsunami research and analysis has grown dramatically following the devastating tsunami of December 2004, which affected Southern Asia. This book pursues a detailed theoretical and mathematical analysis of the fundamentals of tsunamis, especially the evolution and dynamics of tsunamis and other great waves. Of course, it includes specific measurement results from the 2004 tsunami, but the emphasis is on the nature of the waves themselves and their links to nonlinear phenomena.

In many geological epochs, glacial sediments are widespread. This type of sedimentation results from the interaction between atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere under temperatures ranging from 0 to -80. Two types of glacial sediments exists: those from sea-ice and those from icebergs. Both types can be subdivided into various subfacies. Most widespread in the Northern Hemisphere is the Siberian subfacies, characterized by silt and clay and often misinterpreted as sediments of temperate zones. This reference book for researchers working on this kind of sediments provides a complete overview of the various glacial deposits in the ocean.

This book provides a detailed description of light absorption and absorbents in seawaters with respect to provenance, region of the sea, depth of the occurrence and trophicity. The text is based on a substantial body of contemporary research results taken from the subject literature (over 400 references) and the work of the authors over a period of 30 years.

The book gives a first consistent overview of methods and applications of ocean forecasting around the world. This sector of marine science and technology is developing rapidly due to the increasing need for reliable, multidisciplinary information about the marine system, allowing the sustainable usage of coastal resources and the mitigation of global change effects. Several chapters are devoted to the conceptual and theoretical bases of ocean forecasting, ranging from the design of observational and modelling systems, data assimilation techniques and numerical ecosystem modelling. The book also includes examples of modelling/forecasting systems currently in use or being set-up in the ocean for different space and time scales. The book is useful for advanced graduate students as well as scientists in related disciplines, as it enables them to understand the present level of knowledge and performance of existing forecasting systems.

Clustering techniques are used to identify group(s) of watersheds which have similar flood characteristics. This book is a comprehensive reference on how to use these techniques for RFFA and is the first of its kind. It provides a detailed account of several recently developed clustering techniques, including those based on fuzzy set theory and artificial neural networks. It also documents research findings on application of clustering techniques to RFFA that remain scattered in various hydrology and water resources journals.

In Chapter 1 the methodological principles of systemization and visualization of multidimensional ecological information for its operational dissemination among potential users are stated. Their realization results in creation of the geographic-and ecologic model of marine basin as an information base for diagnosis of the marine ecosystem state, estimation of consequences of economic activity, and modelling of its changes with the use of mathematical tools. In Chapter 2 the geographic-and-ecological aspects of mathematical modelling of marine ecosystems, the possibilities and peculiarities of the most adequate models, the Russian hydrodynamic model of oil spills "SPILLMOD" and hydroecological model of organogenic compound transformation in the sea, are investigated. In the following six Chapters the examples of practical realization of geographic-and-ecological (as information source) and mathematical (as computing apparatus) modelling at the investigations of specific ecological problems associated with consequences of natural hazards and economic activity on aquatory and within the whole Black Sea basin are given.

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Satelli te oceanography, as the term is used in this book, is a generic term that means application of the technology of aerospace electromagnetic remote sensing to the study of the oceans. The key words here are "application of technology **. to the study of the oceans." The goal is to learn more about our planet's hydrosphere. As such, remote sensing technology is another tool in the oceanographer's sea bag, just like a bathythermograph or a plankton net. But is a whole book necessary if remote sensing is just another tool? While it is true that no one has written a whole book on plankton nets, volumes have been written about what is found in those nets. Today's state-of-the-art measurements from spacecraft or aircraft first must be interpreted in terms of their physics; then the interpretations must be understood in terms of oceanic processes. This is not materially different from the analogy to Ii plankton net; marine biolo gists still argue about what didn't get caught in the net.

This book is a research monograph on high-Frequency Seafloor Acoustics. It is the first book in a new series sponsored by the Office of Naval Research on the latest research in underwater acoustics. It provides a critical evaluation of the data and models pertaining to high-frequency acoustic interaction with the seafloor, which will be of interest to researchers in underwater acoustics and to developers of sonars. Models and data are presented so as to be readily usable, backed up by extensive explanation. Much of the data is new, and the discussion in on two levels: concise descriptions in the main text backed up by extensive technical appendices.

The transfer across the surface of environmental waters is of interest as an important phase in the geophysical and natural biochemical cycles of numer ous substances; indeed it governs the transition, one way or the other, be tween the dissolved state in the water and the gaseous state in the atmo sphere. Especially with increasing population and industrialization, gas transfer at water surfaces has become a critical factor in the understanding of the various pathways of wastes in the environment and of their engineering management. This interfacial mass transfer is, by its very nature, highly complex. The air and the water are usually in turbulent motion, and the interface be tween them is irregular, and disturbed by waves, sometimes accompanied by breaking, spray and bubble formation. Thus the transfer involves a wide variety of physical phenomena occurring over a wide range of scales. As a consequence, scientists and engineers from diverse disciplines and problem areas, have approached the problem, often with greatly differing analytical and experimental techniques and methodologies."

Ocean Hotspots provides a comprehensive overview of recent and ongoing research on intraplate volcanism in the ocean basins with special emphasis on the Pacific Ocean. The geology of the seamounts and their associated seamount chains is described, along with detailed geophysical, geochemical and hydrothermal observations made by a multi-disciplinary group of marine geoscientists. These observations lead to a deeper understanding of how the ascending mantle melts, represented by hotspots, are able to penetrate the lithosphere, build seamounts, and enhance hydrothermal circulation. The "fixed" hotspot-generated seamount chains also provide key constraints on plate tectonic reconstructions on the Earth's crust.

Leander McCormick literally fished his way around the world. These many miles produced a catalog of stories in his book. From his first perch on the shores of Lake Michigan, to youthful pursuits of eels in England, to ultimate angling for the giants of the sea, he demonstrates a deep insight into both the fish and the people who pursue them. Having angled for and caught dozens of different species of fish, McCormick dryly comments, "Some were more sport to catch than others, but I assert that all fishing is good, though some is better."

Sediment dynamics in fluvial systems is of great ecological, economic and human-health-related significance worldwide. Appropriate management strategies are therefore needed to limit maintenance costs as well as minimize potential hazards to the aquatic and adjacent environments. Human intervention, ranging from nutrient/pollutant release to physical modifications, has a large impact on sediment quantity and quality and thus on river morphology as well as on ecological functioning. Truly understanding sediment dynamics requires as a consequence a multidisciplinary approach.River Sedimentation contains the peer-reviewed scientific contributions presented at the 13th International Symposium on River Sedimentation (ISRS 2016, Stuttgart, Germany, 19-22 September 2016), and includes recent accomplishments in theoretical developments, numerical modelling, experimental laboratory work, field investigations and monitoring as well as management methodologies.

This book deals with the concept of moments, and how they find application in subsurface hydrologic problems-particularly those dealing with solute transport. Both temporal and spatial moments are dealt with in some detail for a wide variety of problems. Several examples using experimental data, both from laboratory columns and field experiments, are provided to give the readers a clear idea about the scope of this method.

In this book, scientists from eleven countries summarize the results of an EU project (CLIME) that explored the effects of observed and projected changes in the climate on the dynamics of lakes in Northern, Western and Central Europe. Historical measurements from eighteen sites were used to compare the seasonal dynamics of the lakes and to assess their sensitivity to local, regional and global-scale changes in the weather. Simulations using a common set of water quality models, perturbed by six climate-change scenarios, were then used to assess the uncertainties associated with the projected changes in the climate. The book includes chapters on the phenology and modelling of lake ice, the supply and recycling of nitrogen and phosphorus, the flux of dissolved organic carbon and the growth and the seasonal succession of phytoplankton. There are also chapters on the coherent responses of lakes to changes in the circulation of the atmosphere, the development of a web-based Decision Support System and the implications of climate change for the Water Framework Directive.

Evapotranspiration and its components (evaporation and transpiration) as a process is one of the basic terms of Earth's water balance; its importance is accented by the fact that transpiration is the vital element of the biomass production process. The second important property of evapotranspiration is its extreme consumption of solar energy, thus controlling the temperature of the atmosphere and creating favourable conditions for life. Evapotranspiration as an energy consuming process is also the connection between the energy and mass cycles of the Earth. Evapotranspiration is a process performing in the Soil-Plant -Atmosphere System (SPAS); therefore this book is presenting and quantifying it as a catenary process, describing transport of water in the soil, including root extraction patterns and methods of its evaluation. Transport of water through the plant and from the canopy to the atmosphere is also described and quantified. A variety of evapotranspiration (and its components evaporation and transpiration) calculation methods are described, starting from empirical methods up to the most sophisticated ones based on the solution of the transport equations of water and energy in the SPAS. The most important (and widely used) calculation method - modified Penman-Monteith method is described in details, ready to be used with data in the book only. Water balance method of evapotranspiration estimation as well as sap flow method description can be found in the book as well. The book can be used by hydrologists, biologists, meteorologists and other specialists as well as byecology students.

Key themes: soil hydrology - evapotranspiration - hydropedology- plant physiology -water movement in soils -evaporation -transpiration

Dr. Viliam Novak isa water resources scientist at the Institute of Hydrology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava (Slovakia)."