Earth Sciences, Geography & Environment Books

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Book SynopsisAquatic toxicology is the study of the effects of manufactured chemicals and other anthropogenic and natural materials and activities on aquatic organisms at various levels of organization, from subcellular through individual organisms to communities and ecosystems. This book presents the latest research in this field from around the globe.

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Book SynopsisThis book focuses on technological solutions that promise sustainability in the long term including thermodynamic reversibility, negative entropy, direct applications of solar and wind energy, direct-use fuel cell, and other approaches whose essence is profoundly innovative: economically attractive, environmentally appealing and socially responsible.

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Book SynopsisThis book covers an extensive range of issues related to constructed wetlands for treatment of stormwater and wastewater. Chapter One covers the functions and classifications of constructed wetlands, treatment processes of wetlands and a detailed description of microphytes. Chapter Two provides details of the design of wetlands and their construction. Chapter Three provides details of the important issue of operation and maintenance of constructed wetlands. Chapter Four highlights all the experience gained from managing a large and prominent urban wetland. Chapter Five outlines the importance of engaging the community when planning, designing and constructing wetlands. The book is useful for environmental professionals desiring a good appreciation of the concepts in constructed wetlands. This book is also a useful reference for graduate and post-graduate students of civil and environmental engineering, chemical engineering, environmental management or environmental science.

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Book SynopsisThe book presents the latest research on ecology which is the study of the interrelationships between organisms and their environment, including the biotic and abiotic components. There are at least six kinds of ecology: ecosystem, physiological, behavioural, population, and community. Specific topics include: Acid Deposition, Acid Rain Revisited, Biodiversity, Biocomplexity, and Carbon Sequestration in Soils, Coral Reefs, Ecosystem Services, Environmental Justice, Fire Ecology, Floods, Global Climate Change, Hypoxia, and Invasion.

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Book SynopsisThe Bush Administration has pursued several avenues to attempt to contain or end the potential threat posed by Iran, at times pursuing limited engagement, and at other times leaning toward pursuing efforts to change Iran''s regime. Some experts believe a potential crisis is looming over Iran''s nuclear program because the Bush Administration is sceptical that efforts by several European allies to prevent a nuclear breakout by Iran will succeed, although the Administration announced steps in March 2005 to support those talks. U.S. concerns have been heightened by the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an admitted hardliner, in Iran''s presidential election on June 24, 2005. Some advocate military action against Iran''s nuclear infrastructure, but others believe that a combination of diplomatic and economic rewards and punishment are the only viable options on the nuclear issue. U.S. sanctions currently in effect ban or strictly limit U.S. trade, aid, and investment in Iran and penalise foreign firms that invest in Iran''s energy sector, but unilateral U.S. sanctions do not appear to have materially slowed Iran''s WMD programs to date. Other major U.S. concerns include Iran''s policy in the Near East region, particularly Iran''s material support to groups that use violence against the U.S.-led Middle East peace process, including Hizballah in Lebanon and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Some senior Al Qaeda activists are in Iran as well, although Iran claims they are "in custody" and will be tried. Iran did not obstruct the U.S. effort to oust Iraq''s Saddam Hussein, a long-time Tehran adversary, at least partly in the expectation that pro-Iranian Shiite Islamic factions would come to power in Iraq in the aftermath. That result occurred as a product of 30 January 2005 elections there. Iran is also assisting pro-Iranian local leaders in Afghanistan, although that support does not appear to be materially hindering the stabilisation and development of Afghanistan. Iran''s human rights practices and strict limits on democracy have been consistently criticised by official U.S. and U.N. reports, particularly for Iran''s suppression of political dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities. New limits on personal freedoms could be imposed by Ahmadinejad, who has consistently advocated a return to many of the original principles of the Islamic revolution as set down by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. However, Iran does hold elections for some positions, including that of president, suggesting to some experts that there might be benefits to engaging Iranian officials. According to this view, new sanctions or military action could harden Iran''s positions without necessarily easing the potential threat posed by Iran.

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Book SynopsisGround-level ozone is an air pollutant with harmful effects on the respiratory systems of animals. Ozone in the upper atmosphere filters potentially damaging ultraviolet light from reaching the Earth''s surface. It is present in low concentrations throughout the Earth''s atmosphere. It has many industrial and consumer applications.This new book presents the latest research in the field from around the globe.

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Book SynopsisGlobal warming and its effects have caused a increased surge of research and funding on ocean research. This book is dedicated to new oceanographic research on the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.

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Book SynopsisGrasslands are areas where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae) and other herbaceous (non-woody) plants (forbs). Plants of the sedge (Cyperacae) and rush (Juncaceae) families can also be frequent in grasslands. Grasslands occur naturally on all continents except Antarctica, and in many other areas they have replaced the natural vegetation due to human influence. In temperate latitudes, such as north-west Europe, grasslands are dominated by perennial species, whereas in warmer climates annual species form a greater component of the vegetation. Grasslands can be found in most terrestrial climates. Grassland vegetation can vary in height from very short, as in chalk downland where the vegetation may be less than 30 cm high, to quite tall, as in the case of North American tallgrass prairie, South American grasslands and African savannah. Woody plants, shrubs or trees, may occur on some grasslands - forming wooded, scrubby or semi-wooded grassland, such as the African savannahs or the Iberian dehesa. Such grasslands are sometimes referred to as wood-pasture or Savannah woodland. Grasslands cover nearly fifty percent of the land surface of the continent of Africa. This book gathers new and important research from around the world in this field.

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Book SynopsisThis is an E-supplement to GAO-08-128, which was released on November 30, 2007. The Environmental Protection and Community Right-to-Know Act requires certain facilities to submit Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports to their respective states, which have a created range of TRI programs. In order to learn about states'' TRI activities, the authors conducted a survey of state TRI co-ordinators in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. This document presents selected results of their survey.

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Book SynopsisAfrican forests provide the focus for a growing body of historical research in Zimbabwe. This book draws on economic and environmental history approaches in exploring the exploitation and conservation of woodland, respectively. The main focus of the investigation is the consumption-conservation relationship between humans and the forest zone. Customary forest practice in the Zambezi teak or Baikiea woodland points towards a better understanding on the subject, informed by a wide range of sources; oral tradition, missionary records, travel accounts and colonial documents. British imperial interest in Zimbabwe accelerated in the mid-1880s motivated and accelerated by speculative mineral discoveries thought to rival the Witwatersrand gold mines in South Africa. The British South Africa Company colonised Zimbabwe in 1890 expecting to finding rich gold deposits and when these hopes were dashed, white settlers turned their interest to other resources, land and forests. The rapidity with which the BSAC surveyed forest resources was testament to their expected commercial value. The mkusi and other commercial species motivated the government to gazette and establish eight state forest reserves in North-Western Matabeleland with a combined total of 1.6 million acres. In the company era, timber merchants exploited gusu with little or no control and their activities resulted in much deforestation. When European farmers and miners established commercial farms and mines in colonial Zimbabwe, the latter received preferential treatment in timber and energy requirements from the government because they contributed the bulk of state revenue. This policy was a source of protracted conflict between miners and farmers over forest exploitation. However, the state also sought to orient settler farmers towards the production of export crops: tobacco, maize and cotton. The two major pillars of the colonial economy, mining and agriculture, directly caused a fundamental transformation in soil and forest use, leading to deforestation and soil erosion. Soil erosion was a major risk that was faced along with the logistic and financial difficulties of pioneer farming. It however highlighted the negative impact of settler farming, particularly the perennial cultivation of the same crop on the same field, notably tobacco and maize. Land was used for short-term economic gain. What was missing was a willingness on the part of the settler society to deal effectively with the problems of deforestation and erosion, and the need for radical change in individual and collective attitudes towards natural resources.

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Book SynopsisA fundamental requirement of Agenda 21 of UNCED is to support sustainable development while safeguarding the Earth''s environment. This requires optimal management of natural resources which depends on the availability of reliable and timely information at the global, national, regional and local scales. One such technology, "Geoinformatics", consisting of Remote Sensing (RS), Geographical Information System (GIS), and Global Positioning System (GPS) is source of reliable and timely information needed for natural resource management, environmental protection and addressing issues related to sustainable development. It offers a powerful tool for resource assessment, mapping, monitoring, modelling, management etc. It is also capable to make use of recent developments in the digital integration of human reasoning, data and dynamic models. These tools have been available for past three decades. Many institutions and organisations are carrying out various research and operational applications of direct relevance particular to natural resource management. However, there are still limitations in understanding the underlying science and research elements, as there are larger questions of capacity building to use geoinformatics in natural resource management and associated sustainable development applications. These programs also find gaps between the theoretical concepts and the operational utilisation of these tools. This could be solved by providing wide range of applications and prospective potential of this technology to the students and research community in this area. "Geoinformatics for Natural Resource Management" contains chapters written by noted researchers and experts. The focus emerged with filling a gap in the available literature on the subject by bringing together the concepts, theories and experiences of the experts in this field.

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Book SynopsisAviation contributes a modest but growing proportion of total U.S. emissions, and these emissions contribute to adverse health and environmental effects. Aircraft and airport operations, including those of service and passenger vehicles, emit ozone and other substances that contribute to local air pollution, as well as carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. EPA estimates that aviation emissions account for less than 1 percent of local air pollution nation-wide and about 2.7 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, but these emissions are expected to grow as air traffic increases.

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Book SynopsisAntimicrobial agents, called fungicides, sporicides or biocides have long been used to control, prevent and remediate microbial growth. Currently public concern about the impact of pesticides, including fungicides, on human health is greater than ever before. Pesticides are essential in agricultural production, but they constitute a potential risk to humans who are exposed to them directly through various ways and indirectly through diet. In vitro techniques used to study in vitro metabolism and interactions are briefly described in this book, summarising the metabolic and kinetic properties of selected fungicides. Different analytical methods are reported in the literature for the analysis of fungicides. Developments in the methods devoted to fungicide analysis in environmental samples over the past 15 years are also looked at. In addition, biological contaminants, especially mould in buildings, which are known to act as sources of indoor air pollution, discomfort, asthma and pulmonary disease in building occupants and antimicrobial treatments of indoor mould and bacteria are reviewed. Finally, this book shows the current situation of the analysis of fungicide residues in environmental, biological and food samples, describing the analytical methods used for their determination.

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Book SynopsisGrowing demands on the transportation system and constraints on public resources have led to calls for more private sector involvement in the provision of highway and transit infrastructure through what are known as "public-private partnerships" (PPPs). A PPP, broadly defined, is any arrangement whereby the private sector assumes more responsibility than is traditional for infrastructure planning, financing, design, construction, operation, and maintenance. This book describes the wide variety of public-private partnerships in highways and transit, but focuses on the two types of highway PPPs that are generating the most debate: the leasing by the public sector to the private sector of existing infrastructure and the building, leasing, and owning of new infrastructure by private entities.

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Book SynopsisFollowing passage of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act in 1971, limits for the number of horses on each herd unit (referred to as Herd Management Areas or HMA''s) were set. These limits or population goals are referred to as Appropriate Management Levels or AMLs. From 1980 and through the present, more active management reduced wild horse numbers closer to AMLs. Wild horse numbers were reduced to about 40,000 by 1999 and to about 37,186 wild horses in 2003, prior to the foaling season. Some 203 HMAs are managed by the BLM across the Western U.S. The responsibility of monitoring range conditions; allocating range resources between horses, livestock, and wildlife; monitoring horse and burro numbers and managing their population levels represents a large federal management responsibility. The number of animals in most herds are counted or estimated every three to four years, in order to plan for any gathers, and adoptions. Herd management activities, such as gathers and removals, take place for most herd areas every four years.

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Book SynopsisSorting out the appropriate roles of each level of government in addressing climate change is far more complicated than the specific question of whether State climate change programs should be pre-empted. This Paper raises more comprehensive and complex questions that the Committee must consider: what roles are best played by each level of government as we marshal our country''s resources to address climate change and how should these roles be reflected in Federal legislation. Many State and local governments have begun to address climate change, as the Subcommittee heard last year in testimony from State and local witnesses.2 Activity by State and local governments has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has helped build a consensus that we need to address climate change nationally, and is helping to develop and test different policies. The country is now at the difficult and familiar stage of transitioning from multiple, often unconnected, State and local climate change programs to a comprehensive, national approach to addressing the global problem of climate change. For a variety of reasons, State and local environmental programs have often led to enactment of Federal environmental legislation.

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Book SynopsisNature conservation includes under its umbrella disciplines, such as landscape ecology, restoration ecology, theoretical ecology, ecological modelling, ecological economics, conservation biology, wildlife management, environmental planning, policy making, and environmental education. This handbook presents the latest research from around the globe across a wide variety of fields.

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Book SynopsisTurbulence is a fluid regime characterised by chaotic, stochastic property changes. This includes low momentum diffusion, high momentum convection, and rapid variation of pressure and velocity in space and time. This book will give the reader new insights into this natural phenomenon that occurs everyday yet is a puzzle that is not yet fully resolved in classical physics. Climatological estimates of the turbulent exchange is provided. The basic structure of a meteorological model is also given, which uses universal laws of atmospheric physics as well as empirical relationships to calculate wind flow, temperature, humidity, vertical air mixing, and other parameters. Included in this topic is an overview of an alternative approach and artificial intelligence techniques for modelling and forecasting meteorological data. In addition, this book includes aerodynamics research and applications to fields such as offshore wind power and sailing.

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Book SynopsisRangelands are confined to the tropic and sub-tropic regions, and cover about 4.5 billion hectares of the world''s dry lands or one fifth of the earth''s land surface. In spite of their hostile environment, they are important biodiversity conservation landscapes and support livelihoods of nearly 135 million people, yet they are some of the most neglected and abused biomes. This book examines the degradation of rangelands, and its potential ecological and socio-economic implications. Also discussed are the traditional management of dehesa systems, with a focus on the problems and advantages of the livestock diversification which characterise them. A brief description of the Surface Renewal (SR) method and research is given, and performance observed for estimating sensible heat, latent heat and C02 fluxes against the more expensive EC measurements over grasslands are looked at as well. This book also gives an overview of the widespread isotopic techniques applied to study connectivity between streams and groundwater; assumptions, advantages and drawbacks of the isotopic methodologies are reported. In addition, human impact is arguably the most important issue confronting mountain ecosystems today across the world. This book outlines the trajectory of mountain studies in anthropology, from early studies to the peak of mountain anthropology in the 1980s, highlighting major theoretical and research foci. Other chapters in this book review the current threats to inland desert rangelands, ranging from groundwater depletion, habitat fragmentation, exotic species introductions and overgrazing. Recommendations on how to improve the state of irrigated soils and to eliminate anthropogenic desertification are also discussed.

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Book SynopsisUrban development in sub-Saharan Africa has posed more challenges in recent decades, shifting the focus from rural poverty to urbanised poverty. Because of a rapidly urbanising sub-Saharan Africa coupled with failures in urban management, urban economies have grown slower than correspondent population increase, slum growth has increased and poverty has urbanised. Of all urban challenges, housing has posed serious challenges in sub-Saharan Africa, yet the prime basis of urban housing is land. Land management is key to urban development due to its influences on the social, economic development and urban environmental management. Land and housing are important sectors as urbanisation and urban development accelerate. This book examines the relationship between operations of informal land markets and housing development for planning policies that are responsive to the land market conditions.

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Book SynopsisThis book explores policies that Congress is considering to reduce U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases. Prominent among these policies are those promoting the capture and direct sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) from man-made sources such as electric power plants and manufacturing facilities. Carbon capture and sequestration is of great interest because potentially large amounts of CO2 produced by the industrial burning of fossil fuels could be sequestered. Although they are still under development, carbon capture technologies may be able to remove up to 95% of CO2 emitted from an electric power plant or other industrial source. Carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) is a three-part process involving a CO2 source facility, a long-term CO2 sequestration site, and an intermediate mode of CO2 transportation - typically pipelines. The book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

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Book SynopsisThis book reports on abrupt climate change which is defined as a large scale change in the climate system that takes place over a few decades or less, persists (or is anticipated to persist) for at least a few decades, and causes substantial disruptions in human and natural systems. Abrupt climate change presents potential risks for society that are poorly understood. An improved ability to understand and model future abrupt climate change is essential to provide decision-makers with the information they need to plan for these potentially significant changes.

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Book SynopsisLand use is the human modification of natural environment or wilderness into built environment such as fields, pastures, and settlements. More recent significant effects of land use include urban sprawl, soil erosion, soil degradation, salinisation, and desertification. Land use and land management practices have a major impact on natural resources including water, soil, nutrients, plants and animals. This book presents a global perspective on this issue and provides research on scientific databases developed using remote sensing and geospatial analysis of retrospective and prospective scenarios that have facilitated the development of land use planning and policies towards sustainable development. Research is also presented on how agricultural land use change has led to a lowering of the diurnal temperature range.

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Book SynopsisThis book summarises legal and political events related to active sonar and marine mammals. While strandings and mortality of marine mammals, primarily beaked whales, have been observed in concurrence with mid-frequency sonar operation, additional controversy has focused on the development of low-frequency active (LFA) sonar. Some peacetime use of military sonar has been regulated under the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and other statutes due to concerns that active military sonars are operated at frequencies used by some cetaceans (i.e., whales, porpoises, and dolphins), and their high-intensity sound pulses may travel long distances in the ocean. Although mid-frequency sonar has been implicated in several beaked whale strandings, there is scientific uncertainty surrounding the totality of the effects active sonar transmissions may have on marine mammals. This book also addresses the concern regarding environmental effects of ocean noise on three activities -- military sonar exercises, oil and gas exploration, and commercial shipping. This is an edited, excerpted and augmented edition of a CRS publication.

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