The continental shelf seas have an importance which is out of proportion to the rela tively small fraction of the area of the global ocean which they occupy. These shallow seas play an important role as the high energy boundary zones of the deep ocean where much of the ocean's tidal and wave energies are dissipated. They are highly productive biologically and are responsible for most of the world's fishery production. In many cases, they are also sources of economically important resources, notably hydrocarbons and they are frequently important as thorough fares for merchant shipping. Because they are the regions of the ocean closest to our centres of population and industrial activity, they have been the first to feel the impact of the increasing pressures imposed by large scale waste disposal into the ocean. The North Sea is an archetypal representative of such seas: we need to be able to understand its processes and predict them if we are to achieve a degree of rational management in the future, as the environmental threats increase. The understanding required extends through a wide range of processes that operate in the shelf seas from the fundamental physics to the chemistry and biology of the water column and the seabed sediments. These processes, and the interactions between them, cut across the traditional discipline boundaries within marine science and require a substantial inter disciplinary effort for their effective study.

Vor dem Hintergrund zahlreicher Richtlinien, Verordnungen, Normen und sonstigen Regelungen im Bereich der Elektromagnetischen Umweltvertraglichkeit (EMVU) vermittelt das Buch eine fundierte Einfuhrung in die Materie. Dadurch soll die Exposition des Menschen und der Umwelt durch elektrische, magnetische und elektromagnetische Felder in sachlicher und wissenschaftlicher Weise dargestellt werden, um daraus Grenzwerte und Vorschriften abzuleiten. Es bietet eine ausfuhrliche Ubersicht zu allen aktuellen Quellen, bewertet diese und prasentiert ein schlussiges Konzept fur EMVU-Messungen. Die Ausfuhrungen werden durch Beispiele aus der Praxis erganzt, welche die Autoren im Rahmen ihrer Arbeit an der Technologietransferstelle fur EMV und EMVU des Landes Rheinland-Pfalz zusammengetragen haben."