This book focuses primarily on the advantages and implications of sustainable bioenergy production in terms of ensuring a more sustainable world despite its growing energy demands. It addresses a new concept that focuses on the interactions between different uses of agricultural land (for example, agriculture for food, forage or energy and nature conservation) and their ecological, economic and societal impacts. This research concept provides new insights into the competition for resources and the synergies between different land uses. This book seeks to improve people's understanding of bioenergy's potentials for the future. It will be of interest not only to those involved in sustainable energy, but also to environmental planners, agriculture and soil specialists, and environmental policy-makers.

Drylands in East Asia (DEA) are home to more than one billion people with an environment vulnerable to natural and anthropogenic changes. One of the critical needs in the region is to fully understand how dryland ecosystems respond to the changing climate and human activities in order to develop strategies to cope with continued climate change. This book provides state-of-the-art knowledge and information on drylands ecosystem dynamics, changing climate, society, and land use in the region. In addition to the synthesis of the existing research and knowledge of DEA, the book provides a role model for regional ecological assessment. With a wide spectrum of contributions from experts around the globe, the book should be of interest to researchers and students both internationally and in East Asia. Lessons learned from this synthesis effort in DEA should be useful for developing climate adaptation strategies for other similar regions around the globe.

This book focuses primarily on the advantages and implications of sustainable bioenergy production in terms of ensuring a more sustainable world despite its growing energy demands. It addresses a new concept that focuses on the interactions between different uses of agricultural land (for example, agriculture for food, forage or energy and nature conservation) and their ecological, economic and societal impacts. This research concept provides new insights into the competition for resources and the synergies between different land uses. This book seeks to improve people's understanding of bioenergy's potentials for the future. It will be of interest not only to those involved in sustainable energy, but also to environmental planners, agriculture and soil specialists, and environmental policy-makers.

The water resources of the Selenga River/Lake Baikal system are of fundamental importance for the ecosystems and socio-economic development of the region. In this large-scale river and lake basin, there are strong contrasts between regions of relatively pristine nature and massive anthropogenic impacts on the environment. Climate change effects are more pronounced than in most other parts of the earth, and the transition from socialism into a more market-oriented economy has led to a boom in mining but also to a partial collapse of environmental monitoring and urban waste water management systems. Moreover, the expansion of agriculture and mining has triggered a considerable land cover change, rising water consumption, and the release of contaminants that had previously been unknown to the region. The consequences for the water resources and the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems depending on them have become increasingly visible in recent years. This book, which is based on contributions to the 2014 "Bringing Together Selenga-Baikal Research Conference", provides a multidisciplinary insight into current water-related challenges and strategies for their solution from the viewpoint of the international scientific community.

Die Klimatologie ist in den letzten Jahren zu einer globalen a žSystemwissenschafta oe des Klimasystems bzw. des Erdsystems als Ganzes geworden und stellt heute eine hoch interdisziplinAre und extrem problemgetriebene a žMega-Sciencea oe dar. Dieses neue Lehrbuch greift diese Entwicklung auf. Es besteht aus drei gleichmAAig gewichteten Kernbereichen a " Teil I: Basiswissen Klimatologie, Teil II: Klimawandel / Global Change, Teil III: Klima und Politik / Gesellschaft a " und zielt auf die Vermittlung der ZusammenhAnge von Klimafaktoren a " Klimawandel a " Gesellschaft a " Politik ab.

Anders als bisherige LehrbA1/4cher der Klimatologie geht es sehr ausfA1/4hrlich auf das hochaktuelle Themenfeld a žGlobal Changea oe ein und verdeutlicht die gesellschaftliche Relevanz der Klimaforschung. In dem es einen klaren Zusammenhang zwischen den a žnatA1/4rlichena oe Grundlagen a " klassische Klimatologie, Global Change a " und den Auswirkungen auf die Gesellschaften der Erde herstellt, geht es A1/4ber die eigentliche Kernklientel eines Lehrbuchs fA1/4r Klimatologen/Meteorologen hinaus und spricht einen sehr breiten Leserkreis an. Insofern ist das Buch auf dem deutschen Markt ein Novum.

The book introduces a variety of latest techniques designed to represent, enhance, and empower multi-disciplinary approaches of geographic information system (GIS), artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning (DL), machine learning, and cloud computing research in healthcare. It provides a unique compendium of the current and emerging use of geospatial data for healthcare and reflects the diversity, complexity, and depth and breadth of this multi-disciplinary area. This book addresses various aspects of how smart healthcare devices can be used to detect and analyze diseases. Further, it describes various tools and techniques to evaluate the efficacy, suitability, and efficiency of geospatial data for health-related applications. It features illustrative case studies, including future applications and healthcare challenges. This book is beneficial for computer science and engineering students and researchers, medical professionals, and anyone interested in using geospatial data in healthcare. It is also intended for experts, offering them a valuable retrospective and a global vision for the future, as well as for non-experts who are curious to learn about this important subject. The book presents an effort to draw how we can build health-related applications using geospatial big data and their subsequent analysis.

This volume is a compilation of studies on interactions of changes in land cover, land use and climate with people, societies and ecosystems in drylands of Greater Central Asia. It explores the effects of collapse of socialist governance and management systems on land use in various parts of Central Asia, including former Soviet Union republics, Mongolia and northern drylands of China. Often, regional land-atmosphere feedbacks may have large global importance. Remote sensing is a primary tool in studying vast dryland territories where in situ observations are sporadic. State-of-the-art methods of satellite remote sensing combined with GIS and models are used to tackle science questions and provide an outlook of current changes at land surface and potential scenarios for the future. In 10 chapters, contributing authors cover topics such as water resources, effects of institutional changes on urban centers and agriculture, landscape dynamics, and the primary drivers of environmental changes in dryland environment. Satellite observations that have accumulated during the last five decades provide a rich time series of the dynamic land surface, enabling systematic analysis of changes in land cover and land use from space. The book is a truly international effort by a team of scientists from the U.S., Europe and Central Asia. It is directed at the broad science community including graduate students, academics and other professionals at all levels within natural and social sciences. In particular, it will appeal to geographers, environmental and social scientists, economists, agricultural scientists, and remote sensing specialists.