Search results for ""island press""
Island Press The Grand Food Bargain: And the Mindless Drive for More
When it comes to food, Americans seem to have a pretty great deal. Our grocery stores are overflowing with countless varieties of convenient products. But like most bargains that are too good to be true, the modern food system relies on an illusion. It depends on endless abundance, but the planet has its limits. So too does a healthcare system that must absorb rising rates of diabetes and obesity. So too do the workers who must labor harder and faster for less pay. Through beautifully-told stories from around the world, Kevin Walker reveals the unintended consequences of our myopic focus on quantity over quality. A trip to a Costa Rica plantation shows how the Cavendish banana became the most common fruit in the world and also one of the most vulnerable to disease. Walker's early career in agribusiness taught him how pressure to sell more and more fertilizer obscured what that growth did to waterways. His family farm illustrates how an unquestioning belief in "free markets" undercut opportunity in his hometown. By the end of the journey, we not only understand how the drive to produce ever more food became hardwired into the American psyche, but why shifting our mindset is essential. It starts, Walker argues, with remembering that what we eat affects the wider world. If each of us decides that bigger isn't always better, we can renegotiate the grand food bargain, one individual decision at a time.
£30.00
Island Press Protecting Pollinators: How to Save the Creatures That Feed Our World
We should thank a pollinator at every meal. These diminutive creatures fertilize a third of the crops we eat. Yet half of the 200,000 species of pollinators are threatened. Birds, bats, insects, and many other pollinators are disappearing, putting our entire food supply in jeopardy. In North America and Europe, bee populations have already plummeted by more than a third and the population of butterflies has declined 31 percent. Protecting Pollinators explores why the statistics have become so dire and how they can be reversed. Jodi Helmer breaks down the latest science on environmental threats and takes readers inside the most promising conservation initiatives. Efforts include famers reducing pesticides, cities creating butterfly highways, volunteers ripping up invasive plants, gardeners planting native flowers, and citizen scientists monitoring migration. Along with inspiring stories of revival and lessons from failed projects, readers will find practical tips to get involved. They will also be reminded of the magic of pollinators--not only the iconic monarch and dainty hummingbird, but the drab hawk moth and homely bats that are just as essential. Without pollinators, the world would be a duller, blander place. Helmer shows how we can make sure they are always fluttering, soaring, and buzzing around us.
£26.00
Island Press How to Feed the World
Practical and accessible solutions to our future food crisesBy 2050, we will have ten billion mouths to feed in a world profoundly altered by environmental change. How will we meet this challenge? In How to Feed the World, a diverse group of experts from Purdue University break down this crucial question by tackling big issues one-by-one. Covering population, water, land, climate change, technology, food systems, trade, food waste and loss, health, social buy-in, communication, and equal access to food, the book reveals a complex web of challenges. Contributors unite from different perspectives and disciplines, ranging from agronomy and hydrology to economics. The resulting collection is an accessible but wide-ranging look at the modern food system.
£22.99
Island Press Energy Democracy: Advancing Equity in Clean Energy Solutions
A global energy war is underway. It is man versus nature, fossil fuel versus clean energy, the haves versus the have-nots, and, fundamentally, an extractive economy versus a regenerative economy. The near-unanimous consensus among climate scientists is that the massive burning of gas, oil, and coal is having a cataclysmic impact on our atmosphere and climate, and depleting earth's natural resources, including its land, food, fresh water and biodiversity. These climate and environmental impacts are particularly magnified and debilitating for low-income communities and communities of color that live closest to toxic sites, are disproportionately impacted by high incidences of asthma, cancer and rates of morbidity and mortality, and lack the financial resources to adapt to climate impacts. The energy democracy movement tenders a response and joins the environmental and climate movements with a broader call for progressive change. Energy democracy is a way to frame the international struggle of working people, low income communities, and communities of color to take control of energy resources from the energy establishment and use those resources to empower their communities--literally providing energy, economically, and politically. Energy democracy more important than ever as climate advocates and those representing rights for the underserved enter a shocking political reality in the U.S. This volume brings together racial, cultural, and generational perspectives. This diversity is bound together by a common operating frame: that the global fight to save the planet--to conserve and restore our natural resources to be life-sustaining--must fully engage community residents and must change the larger economy to be sustainable, democratic, and just. The contributors offer their perspectives and approaches to climate and clean energy from rural Mississippi, to the South Bronx, to Californian immigrant and refugee communities, to urban and semi-rural communities in the Northeast. Taken together, the contributions in this book show what an alternative, democratized energy future can look like, and will inspire others to take up the struggle to build the energy democracy movement.
£23.71
Island Press Structures of Coastal Resilience
Structures of Coastal Resilience presents new strategies for creative and collaborative approaches to coastal planning for climate change. In the face of sea level rise and an increased risk of flooding from storm surge, we must become less dependent on traditional approaches to flood control that have relied on levees, sea walls, and other forms of hard infrastructure. But what are alternative approaches for designers and planners facing the significant challenge of strengthening their communities to adapt to uncertain climate futures? Authors Catherine Seavitt Nordenson, Guy Nordenson, and Julia Chapman have been at the forefront of research on new approaches to effective coastal resilience planning for over a decade. In Structures of Coastal Resilience, they reimagine how coastal planning might better serve communities grappling with a future of uncertain environmental change. They encourage more creative design techniques at the beginning of the planning process, and offer examples of innovative work incorporating flexible natural systems into traditional infrastructure. They also draw lessons for coastal planning from approaches more commonly applied to fire and seismic engineering. This is essential, they argue, because storms, sea level rise, and other conditions of coastal change will incorporate higher degrees of uncertainty--which have traditionally been part of planning for wildfires and earthquakes, but not floods or storms. This book is for anyone grappling with the immense questions of how to prepare communities to flourish despite unprecedented climate impacts. It offers insights into new approaches to design, engineering, and planning, envisioning adaptive and resilient futures for coastal areas.
£32.41
Island Press Urban Raptors: Ecology and Conservation of Birds of Prey in Cities
The go-to single source of information on urban birds of preyUrban Raptors is the first book to offer a complete overview of urban ecosystems in the context of bird-of-prey ecology and conservation. This comprehensive volume examines the urban environment, explains why some species adapt to urban areas but others do not, and introduces modern research tools to help in the study of urban raptors. It delves into climate change adaptation, human-wildlife conflict, and the unique risks birds of prey face in urban areas before concluding with real-world wildlife management case studies and suggestions for future research and conservation efforts.Among researchers, urban green space planners, wildlife management agencies, birders, and informed citizens alike, Urban Raptors will foster a greater understanding of birds of prey and an increased willingness to accommodate them as important members, not intruders, of our cities.
£30.23
Island Press Energy for Sustainability, Second Edition: Foundations for Technology, Planning, and Policy
Despite a 2016-18 glut in fossil fuel markets and decade-low fuel prices, the global transformation to sustainable energy is happening. Our ongoing energy challenges and solutions are complex and multidimensional, involving science, technology, design, economics, finance, planning, policy, politics, and social movements. The most comprehensive book on this topic, Energy for Sustainability has been the go-to resource for courses. This new edition has been thoroughly revised and updated to inform and guide students and practitioners who will steer this transformation. Drawing on a combined 80 years of teaching experience, John Randolph and Gilbert Masters take a holistic and interdisciplinary approach. Energy for Sustainability can help techies and policymakers alike understand the mechanisms required to enable conversion to energy that is clean, affordable, and secure. Major revisions to this edition reflect the current changes in technology and energy use and focus on new analyses, data, and methods necessary to understand and actively participate in the transition to sustainable energy. The book begins with energy literacy, including patterns and trends, before covering the fundamentals of energy related to physics, engineering, and economics. The next parts explore energy technologies and opportunities in three important energy sectors: buildings, electricity, and transportation. The final section focuses on policy and planning, presenting the critical role of public policy and consumer and investor choice in transforming energy markets to greater sustainability. Throughout the book, methods for energy and economic analysis and design give readers a quantitative appreciation for and understanding of energy systems. The book uses case studies extensively to demonstrate current experience and illustrate possibilities. Students will gain an understanding of what it takes to achieve clean, affordable, sustainable energy. Supplemental materials will be available at www.islandpress.org.
£118.80
Island Press Beyond Mobility: Planning Cities for People and Places
Cities across the globe have been designed with a primary goal of moving people around quickly--and the costs are becoming ever more apparent. The consequences are measured in smoggy air basins, sprawling suburbs, unsafe pedestrian environments, and despite hundreds of billions of dollars in investments, a failure to stem traffic congestion. Every year our current transportation paradigm generates more than 1.25 million fatalities directly through traffic collisions. Worldwide, 3.2 million people died prematurely in 2010 because of air pollution, four times as many as a decade earlier. Instead of planning primarily for mobility, our cities should focus on the safety, health, and access of the people in them. Beyond Mobility is about prioritizing the needs and aspirations of people and the creation of great places. This is as important, if not more important, than expediting movement. A stronger focus on accessibility and place creates better communities, environments, and economies. Rethinking how projects are planned and designed in cities and suburbs needs to occur at multiple geographic scales, from micro-designs (such as parklets), corridors (such as road-diets), and city-regions (such as an urban growth boundary). It can involve both software (a shift in policy) and hardware (a physical transformation). Moving beyond mobility must also be socially inclusive, a significant challenge in light of the price increases that typically result from creating higher quality urban spaces. There are many examples of communities across the globe working to create a seamless fit between transit and surrounding land uses, retrofit car-oriented suburbs, reclaim surplus or dangerous roadways for other activities, and revitalize neglected urban spaces like abandoned railways in urban centers. The authors draw on experiences and data from a range of cities and countries around the globe in making the case for moving beyond mobility. Throughout the book, they provide an optimistic outlook about the potential to transform places for the better. Beyond Mobility celebrates the growing demand for a shift in global thinking around place and mobility in creating better communities, environments, and economies.
£34.00
Island Press Design for Good: A New Era of Architecture for Everyone
"That's what we do really: we do miracles," said Anne-Marie Nyiranshimiyimana, who learned masonry in helping to build the Butaro Hospital, a project designed for and with the people of Rwanda using local materials. This, and other projects designed with dignity, show the power of good design. Almost nothing influences the quality of our lives more than the design of our homes, our schools, our workplaces, and our public spaces. Yet, design is often taken for granted and people don't realize that they deserve better, or that better is even possible. In Design for Good, John Cary offers character-driven, real-world stories about projects around the globe that offer more--buildings that are designed and created with and for the people who will use them. The book reveals a new understanding of the ways that design shapes our lives and gives professionals and interested citizens the tools to seek out and demand designs that dignify. For too long, design has been seen as a luxury, the province of the rich, not the poor. That can no longer be acceptable to those of us in the design fields, nor to those affected by design that doesn't consider human aspects. From the Mulan Primary School in Guangdong, China to Kalamazoo College's Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, the examples in the book show what is possible when design is a collaborative, dignified, empathic process. Building on a powerful foreword by philanthropist Melinda Gates, Cary draws from his own experience as well as dozens of interviews to show not only that everyone deserves good design, but how it can be achieved. This isn't just another book for and about designers. It's a book about the lives we lead, inextricably shaped by the spaces and places we inhabit.
£30.00
Island Press Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries: A Critical Appraisal of Catches and Ecosystem Impacts
Until now, there has been only one source of data on global fishery catches: information reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations by member countries. An extensive, ten-year study conducted by The Sea Around Us Project of the University of British Columbia shows that this catch data is fundamentally misleading. Many countries underreport the amount of fish caught (some by as much as 500%), while others such as China significantly overreport their catches. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world's foremost fisheries experts, and edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project. The Atlas includes one-page reports on 272 nations or regions, plus fourteen topical global chapters. National reports describe the state of the country's fishery, by sector; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. While it has long been clear that the world's oceans are in trouble, the lack of reliable data on fishery catches has obscured the scale, and nuances, of the crisis. The atlas shows that, globally, catches have declined rapidly since the 19805, signalling an even more critical situation than previously understood. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries provides a comprehensive picture of our current predicament and steps that can be taken to ease it. For researchers, students, fishery managers, professionals in the fishing industry, and all others concerned with the status of the world's fisheries, the Atlas will be an indispensable resource.
£60.00
Island Press Energy Sprawl Solutions: Balancing Global Development and Conservation
Over the next several decades, as human populations grow and developing countries become more affluent, the demand for energy will soar. Parts of the energy sector are preparing to meet this demand by increasing renewable energy production, which is necessary to combat climate change. But many renewable energy sources have a large energy sprawl, the amount of land needed to produce energy, which can threaten biodiversity and conservation. Is it possible to meet this rise in energy demand, while still conserving natural places and species? In Energy Sprawl Solutions, scientists Joseph M. Kiesecker and David Naugle provide a roadmap for preserving biodiversity despite the threats of energy sprawl. Their strategy, development by design, brings together companies, communities, and governments to craft blueprints for sustainable land development. This commonsense approach identifies and preemptively sets aside land where biodiversity can thrive while consolidating development in areas with lower biodiversity value.This approach makes sense for energy industries and governments, which can confidently build sustainability into their energy futures. This contributed volume brings together experts in diverse fields such as biodiversity conservation, ecology, ecosystem services, wildlife, fisheries, planning, energy, economics, and finance. Early chapters set the context for global patterns of biodiversity risk from energy extraction and the challenges of achieving a green future while maintaining energy security. Middle chapters are devoted to case studies from countries around the world, each describing a different energy sector and the collaborative process involved in planning complex energy projects in a way that maximises biodiversity protection. Detailed maps and charts help orient readers to countries and energy sectors, providing proof for what is possible. With biodiversity declining rapidly because of an energy-hungry world, this book provides a needed guide for elected officials, industry representatives, NGOs and community groups who have a stake in sustainable energy-development planning.
£33.00
Island Press Human Ecology: How Nature and Culture Shape Our World
Humans have always been influenced by natural landscapes, and always will be, even as we create ever-larger cities and our developments fundamentally change the nature of the earth around us. In Human Ecology, noted city planner and landscape architect Frederick Steiner encourages us to consider how human cultures have been shaped by natural forces, and how we might use this understanding to contribute to a future where both nature and people thrive. Human ecology is the study of the interrelationships between humans and their environment, drawing on diverse fields from biology and geography to sociology, engineering, and architecture. Steiner admirably synthesizes these perspectives through the lens of landscape architecture, a discipline that requires its practitioners to consciously connect humans and their environments. After laying out eight principles for understanding human ecology, the book's chapters build from the smallest scale of connection, our homes, and expand to community scales, regions, nations, and, ultimately, examine global relationships between people and nature. In this age of climate change, a new approach to planning and design is required to envision a liveable future. Human Ecology provides architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and planners, and students in those fields, with timeless principles for new, creative thinking about how their work can shape a vibrant, resilient future for ourselves and our planet.
£23.71
Island Press Landscape Architecture Theory: An Ecological Approach
For decades, landscape architecture was driven solely by artistic sensibilities. But in these times of global change, the opportunity to reshape the World comes with a responsibility to consider how it can be resilient, fostering health and vitality for humans and nature. Landscape Architecture Theory re-examines the fundamentals of the field, offering a new approach to landscape design. Drawing on his extensive career in teaching and practice, Michael Murphy begins with an examination of influences on landscape architecture: social context, contemporary Mamas, and the practicalities of working as a professional landscape architect. He then delves into systems and procedural theory, while making connections to ecosystem factors, human factors, utility, aesthetics, and the design process. He concludes by showing how a strong theoretical understanding can be applied to practical, every-day decision making and design work to create more holistic, sustainable, and creative landscapes.Students will take away a foundational Understanding of the underpinnings of landscape architecture theory, as well as how it can be applied to heal-world designs; working professionals will find stimulating insights to infuse their projects with a greater sense of purpose.
£34.58
Island Press Restoring Neighborhood Streams: Planning, Design, and Construction
Thirty years ago, the best thinking on urban stream management prescribed cement as the solution to flooding and other problems of people and flowing water forced into close proximity. Urban streams were perceived as little more than flood control devices designed to hurry water through cities and neighborhoods with scant thought for aesthetics or ecological considerations. Stream restoration pioneers like hydrologist Ann Riley thought differently. She and other like-minded field scientists imagined that by restoring ecological function, and with careful management, streams and rivers could be a net benefit to cities, instead of a net liability. In the intervening decades, she has spearheaded numerous urban stream restoration projects and put to rest the long-held misconception that degraded urban streams are beyond help. What has been missing, however, is detailed guidance for restoration practitioners wanting to undertake similar urban stream restoration projects that worked with, rather than against, nature. This book presents the author’s thirty years of practical experience managing long-term stream and river restoration projects in heavily degraded urban environments. Riley provides a level of detail only a hands-on design practitioner would know, including insights on project design, institutional and social context of successful projects, and how to avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes. Early chapters clarify terminology and review strategies and techniques from historical schools of restoration thinking. But the heart of the book comprises the chapters containing nine case studies of long-term stream restoration projects in northern California. Although the stories are local, the principles, methods, and tools are universal, and can be applied in almost any city in the world.
£26.60
Island Press Prospects for Resilience: Insight from New York City's Jamaica Bay
Given the realities of climate change and sea level rise, coastal cities around the world are struggling with questions of resilience. Resilience, at its core, is about desirable states of the urban social-ecological system and understanding how to sustain those states in an uncertain and tumultuous future. How do physical conditions ecological processes, social objectives, human politics, and history shape the prospects for resilience? Most books set out "the answer." This book sets out a process of grappling with holistic resilience from multiple perspectives, drawing on the insights and experiences of more than fifty Scholars and practitioners working together to make Jamaica Bay in New York-City an example for the world. Prospects for Resilience establishes a framework for understanding resilience practice in urban watersheds. Using Jamaica Bay, the largest contiguous natural area in New York, home to millions of New Yorkers, and a hub of global air travel with John F.Kennedy International Airport, the authors demonstrate how various components of social ecological systems interact, ranging from climatic factors to plant populations to human demographics. They also highlight essential tools for creating resilient Watersheds, including monitoring and identifying system indicators; computer modelling; green infrastructure; and decision science methods. Finally, they look at the role and importance of a "boundary organisation" like the new Science and Resilience Institute at Jamaica Bay in coordinating and facilitating resilience work, and consider significant research questions and prospects for the future-of urban watersheds. Prospects for Resilience sets forth an essential foundation of information and advice for researchers, urban planners, students and others who need to create more resilient cities that work with, not against, nature.
£30.23
Island Press Global Street Design Guide: Global Designing Cities Initiative
Each year, 1.2 million people die from traffic fatalities, highlighting the need to design streets that offer safe and enticing travel choices for all people. Cities around the world are facing the same challenges as cities in the US, and many of these problems are rooted in outdated codes and standards. The Global Street Design Guide is a timely resource that sets a global baseline for designing streets and public spaces and redefines the role of streets in a rapidly urbanizing world. The guide will broaden how to measure the success of urban streets to include: access, safety, mobility for all users, environmental quality, economic benefit, public health, and overall quality of life. The first-ever worldwide standards for designing city streets and prioritising safety, pedestrians, public transport, and sustainable mobility are presented in the guide. Participating experts from global cities have helped to develop the principles that organise the guide. The Global Street Design Guide builds off the successful tools and tactics defined in NACTO's Urban Street Design Guide and Urban Bikeway Design Guide while addressing a variety of street typologies and design elements found in various contexts around the world. This innovative guide will inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and empower communities in realising the potential in their public space networks. It will help cities unlock the potential of streets as safe, accessible, and economically sustainable places.
£40.00
Island Press The Nature of Urban Design: A New York Perspective on Resilience
The global shift to an urban population comes with an uncomfortable corollary; People who live in cities as they are currently designed produce more greenhouse gasses than their non-urban counterparts, as a global average about three times more. But people in cities, particularly in coastal cities, are waking up to their vulnerability as well as to their responsibility. This newly acknowledged responsibility is reflected in current trends in urban design, .in newly conceived projects, plans and standards that try to make cities more resilient in the way they are designed, built and inhabited. To truly prosper, cities need to accommodate a growing number of citizens in dignity, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and still be worth living in. In this visually rich book Alexandros Washburn redefines urban design by looking at the process and products within the context of rapid urbanization and climate change. The Nature of Urban Design uses real-life examples, drawing heavily from the New York experience, to show how to design beautiful urban spaces that achieve multiple goals and objectives, such as greater resilience, livability and equity, while addressing the political and financial challenges that can accelerate or slow implementation. With examples ranging from the High Line to the post-Sandy recovery of Red Hook, Brooklyn, The Nature of Urban Design shows how a well designed, well-built city can be the most efficient, equitable, safest, and enriching place on earth. The Nature of Urban Design will inspire and inform anyone who cares about cities. It provides a framework for participating in the process of change. This includes people who want to become urban designers, particularly students and practitioners in the field of politics, finance and design who help to decide how a city will change.
£40.00
Island Press Roads Were Not Built for Cars: How cyclists were the first to push for good roads & became the pioneers of motoring
The coming of the railways in the 1830s killed off the stage-coach trade; almost all rural roads reverted to low-level local use. Cyclists were the first group in a generation to use roads and were the first to push for high-quality leadership for roads. They were also the first promoters of motoring; the first motoring journalists had first been cycling journalists; and there was a transfer of technology from cycling to motoring without which cars as we know them wouldn't exist! 64 car marques, including Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC, had bicycling beginnings. Roads Were Not Built for Cars is a history book, focussing on a time when cyclists had political clout, in Britain and especially in America. The book researches the Roads Improvement Association - a lobbying group created by the Cyclists' Touring Club in 1886 - and the Good Roads movement organised by the League of American Wheelmen in the same period.
£25.16
Island Press Spirit of Dialogue: Lessons from Faith Traditions in Transforming Conflict
We tend to approach conflict from the perspective of competing interests. A farmer's interest lies in preserving water for crops, while an environmentalist's interest is in using that same water for instream habitats. It's hard to see how these interests intersect. But what if there was a different way to understand each party's needs? Aaron T. Wolf has spent his career mediating such conflicts, both in the U.S. and around the world. He quickly learned that in negotiations, people are not automatons, programed to defend their positions, but are driven by a complicated set of dynamics--from how comfortable (or uncomfortable) the meeting room is to their deepest senses of self. What approach or system of understanding could possibly untangle all these complexities? Wolf's answer may be surprising to Westerners who are accustomed to separating religion from science, rationality from spirituality. Wolf draws lessons from a diversity of faith traditions to transform conflict. True listening, as practiced by Buddhist monks, as opposed to the "active listening" advocated by many mediators, can be the key to calming a colleague's anger. Alignment with an energy beyond oneself, what Christians would call grace, can change self-righteousness into community concern. Shifting the discussion from one about interests to one about common values--both farmers and environmentalists share the value of love of place--can be the starting point for real dialogue. As a scientist, Wolf engages religion not for the purpose of dogma but for the practical process of transformation. Whether atheist or fundamentalist, Muslim or Jewish, Quaker or Hindu, any reader involved in difficult dialogue will find concrete steps towards a meeting of souls.
£23.71
Island Press State of the World 2015: Confronting Hidden Threats to Sustainability
This is the newest edition of The Worldwatch Institute's respected State of the World series that highlights the ignored threats to sustainability. We think we understand environmental damage: pollution, water scarcity, a warming world. But these problems are just the tip of the iceberg. Food insecurity, financial assets drained of value by environmental damage, and a rapid rise in diseases of animal origin are among the underreported consequences of an unsustainable global system. In State of the World 2015, the flagship publication of The Worldwatch Institute, experts explore hidden threats to sustainability and how to address them. Eight key issues are addressed in depth, along with the central question of how we can develop resilience to these and other shocks. With the latest edition of State of The World, the authorities at Worldwatch bring to light challenges we can no longer afford to ignore.
£23.71
Island Press Planning for Community Resilience: A Handbook for Reducing Vulnerability to Disasters
This timely handbook brings together the fields of planning, disaster response, and hazards management to provide a field-tested process on how to make communities disaster-resilient. How can we plan and design stronger communities? Communities struck by natural disasters struggle to recover long after the first responders have left. Globally, the average annual number of natural disasters has more than doubled since 1980. These catastrophes are increasing in number as well as in magnitude, causing greater damage as we experience rising sea levels and other effects of climate change. Communities can reduce their vulnerability to disaster by becoming more resilient, to not only bounce back more readily from disasters but to grow stronger, more socially cohesive, and more environmentally responsible. To be truly resilient, disaster preparation and recovery must consider all populations in the community. By bringing together natural hazards planning and community planning to consider vulnerabilities, more resilient and equitable communities are achievable. In Planning for Community Resilience the authors describe an inclusive process for creating disaster-resilient communities. This handbook guides any community through the process of determining their level of hazard exposure, physical vulnerability, and social vulnerability with the goal of determining the best planning strategy. This will be an invaluable tool for professionals working to protect communities from disturbance.
£29.00
Island Press Foundations of Real Estate Development Financing: A Guide to Public-Private Partnerships
American's landscape is undergoing a profound transformation as demand grows for a different kind of American Dream - smaller homes on smaller lots, multifamily options, and walkable neighbourhoods. This trend presents a tremendous opportunity to reinvent our urban and suburban areas. But in a time of fiscal austerity, how do we finance redevelopment needs? In Foundations of Real Estate Development Finance: A Guide for Public-Private Partnerships, urban scholar Arthur C. Nelson argues that efficient redevelopment depends on the ability to leverage resources through partnerships. Public-private partnerships are increasingly important in reducing the complexity and lowering the risk of redevelopment projects. Although planners are in integral part of creating these partnerships, their training does generally not include real-estate financing, which presents challenges and imbalances in public-private partnership. This is the first primer on financing urban redevelopment written for practicing planners and public administrators. In easy-to-understand language, it will inform readers of the natural cycle of urban development, explain how to overcome barriers to efficient redevelopment, what it takes for the private sector to justify its redevelopment investments, and the role of public and non-profit sectors to leverage private sector redevelopment where the market does not generate sufficient rates of return. This is a must read for practicing planners and planning students, economic development officials, public administrators, and others who need to understand how to leverage public and non-profit resources to leverage private funds for redevelopment.
£28.05
Island Press Urban Street Design Guide
The NACTO Urban Street Design Guide shows how streets of every size can be reimagined and reoriented to prioritise safe driving and transit, cycling, walking, and public activity. Unlike older, more conservative engineering manuals, this design guide emphasises the core principle that urban streets are public places and have a larger role to play in communities than solely being conduits for traffic. The well-illustrated guide offers blueprints of street design from multiple perspectives, from the bird's eye view to granular details. Case studies show how to implement best practices, as well as provide guidance for customizing design applications to a city's unique needs. Urban Street Design Guide outlines five goals and tenets of world-class street design: Streets are public spaces - streets play a much larger role in the public life of cities and communities than just thoroughfares for traffic; Great streets are great for business - well-designed streets generate higher revenues for businesses and higher values for homeowners; Design for safety - traffic engineers can and should design streets where people walking, parking, shopping, cycling, working, and driving can cross paths safely; and, Streets can be changed - transportation engineers can work flexibly within the building envelope of a street, and many city streets were created in a different era and need to be reconfigured to meet new needs. Elaborating on these fundamental principles, the guide offers substantive direction for cities seeking to improve street design to create more inclusive, multi-modal urban environments. It is an exceptional resource for redesigning streets to serve the needs of 21st century cities, whose residents and visitors demand a variety of transportation options, safer streets, and vibrant community life.
£37.00
Island Press Good Urbanism: Six Steps to Creating Prosperous Places
We all have a natural nesting instinct - we know what makes a good place. And a consensus has developed among urban planners and designers about the essential components of healthy, prosperous communities. So why aren't these ideals being put into practice? In "Good Urbanism", Ellin identifies the obstacles to creating thriving environments, and presents a six-step process to overcome them: prospect, polish, propose, prototype, promote, present. Ellin illustrates the process with ten exemplary projects, from Envision Utah to Open Space Seattle. For planners, urban designers, community developers, and students of these fields, Ellin's innovative approach offers an inspired, yet concrete path to building good places.
£29.00
Island Press Next Generation Infrastructure: Principles for Post-Industrial Public Works
The 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis-St. Paul quickly became symbolic of the debilitated interstate highway system, and of what many critics see as America's disinvestment in its infrastructure. The extreme vulnerability of single-purpose, ageing infrastructure was highlighted once again when Hurricane Sandy churned its way across the northeast United States. Inundating New York City's vital arteries, floodwaters overwhelmed tunnels and sewers; closed bridges; shut down mass transit; curtailed gas supplies; and destroyed streets, buildings, and whole neighbourhoods. Next Generation Infrastructure takes a critical but ultimately hopeful look at how our infrastructure networks can be made more efficient, less environmentally damaging, and more resilient. Brown argues that, if we're to chart a course for global sustainability, we must begin to design, regulate, and finance infrastructure that decouples carbon-intensive and ecologically harmful technologies from critical infrastructure systems, namely the essential systems for contemporary society: water, wastewater, power, solid waste, transportation, and communication. The book highlights hopeful examples from around the world, ranging from the Mount Poso cogeneration plant in California to urban rainwater harvesting in Seoul, South Korea, to the multi-purpose Marina Barrage project in Singapore. Brown encourages us to envision infrastructure within a larger economic, environmental, and social context, and to share resources across systems, reducing costs and extending benefits. This is a must read for professionals and students interested in a more resilient urban future including urban designers, architects, urban planners, urban policymakers, landscape architects, and engineers.
£30.23
Island Press The Global Farms Race: Land Grabs, Agricultural Investment, and the Scramble for Food Security
We have entered a new phase of the global food crisis. Wealthy countries that import much of their food, along with private investors, are racing to buy or lease huge swaths of farmland abroad. "The Global Farms Race" is the first book to examine this burgeoning trend in all its complexity, considering the implications for investors, host countries, and the world as a whole. The debate over large-scale land acquisition is typically polarised, with critics lambasting it as a form of "neocolonialism," and proponents lauding it as a cure-all for global agriculture. "The Global Farms Race" instead offers diverse perspectives, featuring contributions from agricultural investment consultants, farmers' organisations, international NGOs, and academics. This critical resource addresses historical context, environmental impacts, and social effects, and covers all the major geographic areas of investment.
£25.16
Island Press Transport Beyond Oil: Policy Choices for a Multimodal Future
Seventy percent of the oil America uses each year goes to transportation. In "Transport Beyond Oil", leading experts show how to slash that statistic and reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The authors demonstrate that smarter development and land use decisions, paired with better transportation systems, can dramatically lower energy consumption. John Renne calculates how oil can be saved through a future with more transit-oriented development. Petra Todorovitch examines the promise of high speed rail. Peter Newman envisions 100 per cent oil-free cities through the development of electric-transit, renewable natural gas, and other sustainable energy sources. Additional topics include funding transit, freight transport, and non-motorised transportation systems. Each chapter provides policy prescriptions and their measurable results. "Transport Beyond Oil" delivers practical solutions, based on quantitative data. This fact-based approach offers a new vision of travel that is both transformational and achievable.
£37.00
Island Press Where Our Food Comes From: Retracing Nikolay Vavilov's Quest to End Famine
The future of our food depends on tiny seeds in orchards and fields the world over. In 1943, one of the first to recognize this fact, the great botanist Nikolay Vavilov, lay dying of starvation in a Soviet prison. But in the years before Stalin jailed him as a scapegoat for the country’s famines, Vavilov had traveled over five continents, collecting hundreds of thousands of seeds in an effort to outline the ancient centers of agricultural diversity and guard against widespread hunger. Now, another remarkable scientist—and vivid storyteller—has retraced his footsteps. In Where Our Food Comes From, Gary Paul Nabhan weaves together Vavilov’s extraordinary story with his own expeditions to Earth’s richest agricultural landscapes and the cultures that tend them. Retracing Vavilov’s path from Mexico and the Colombian Amazon to the glaciers of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, he draws a vibrant portrait of changes that have occurred since Vavilov’s time and why they matter.
£20.79
Island Press Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: A Review of the United States Disaster Assistance Framework
As individuals, groups, communities, and organizations routinely struggle to recover from disasters, they are beset by a duplication of efforts, poor interorganizational coordination, the development and implementation of policies that are not shaped by local needs, and the spread of misinformation. Yet investment in pre-event planning for post-disaster recovery remains low. Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery blends what we know about disaster recovery from the research literature with an analysis of existing practice to uncover problems and recommend solutions. It is intended for hazard scholars, practitioners, and others who have not assimilated or acted upon the existing body of knowledge, or who are unexpectedly drawn into the recovery process following a disaster.
£37.48
Island Press The Agile City: Building Well-being and Wealth in an Era of Climate Change
Journalist and urban analyst James Russell argues that we'll slow global warming more quickly - and blunt its effects - by retrofitting cities, suburbs, and towns. "The Agile City" shows that change undertaken at the building and community level can reach carbon-reduction goals rapidly. Adapting buildings (39 per cent of greenhouse gas emission) and communities (slashing the 33 per cent of transportation-related emissions) offers numerous other benefits that tax gimmicks and massive alternative-energy investments can't match. "The Agile City" highlights tactics that create multiplier effects, which means that ecologically driven change can shore up economic opportunity, can make more productive workplaces, and can help revive neglected communities. Being able to look at multiple effects and multiple benefits of political choices and private investments is essential to assuring wealth and well-being in the future. Green, Russell writes, grows the future.
£20.06
Island Press Repeat Photography: Methods and Applications in the Natural Sciences
First developed in the 1880s, repeat photography remains an important and cost-effective technique for scientists working to track and study landscape change. This volume explores the technical and geographic scope of this important technique. "Repeat Photography" demonstrates the wide range of potential applications, examines new techniques for acquiring data from repeat photography, and clearly shows that repeat photography remains a valuable, and cost-effective means of monitoring change in both developed and developing regions. Over 100 sets of photographs serve as examples. Recent concerns about climate change and its effects on natural landscapes, combined with ongoing concerns about land-use practices, make this state-of-the-art review a timely contribution to the literature.
£131.40
Island Press Ecology and Religion
From the "Psalms" in the Bible to the sacred rivers in Hinduism, the natural world has been integral to the world's religions. John Grim and Mary Tucker argue that today's growing environmental challenges make the relationship ever more vital. In this concise primer, they illustrate religion's role in sustaining people and the planet. The authors explore the history of religious traditions and the environment, illustrating how religious teachings and practices both promoted and at times subverted sustainability. Subsequent chapters examine the emergence of religious ecology, as views of nature changed in religious traditions and the ecological sciences. Yet the authors argue that religion and ecology are not the province of institutions or disciplines alone. They describe four fundamental aspects of religious life: orienting, grounding, nurturing, and transforming. Readers then see how these phenomena are experienced in a Native American religion, Orthodox Christianity, Confucianism, and Hinduism. Ultimately, Grim and Tucker argue that the engagement of religious communities is necessary if humanity is to sustain itself and the planet. They recount exemplary stories of groups and individuals who are inspired by their religion to work towards a healthy community of life.
£25.00
Island Press Principles of Ecological Landscape Design
Today, there is a growing demand for designed landscapes - from public parks to back gardens - to be not only beautiful and functional, but also sustainable. With "Principles of Ecological Landscape Design", Travis Beck gives professionals and students the first book to translate the science of ecology into design practice. This groundbreaking work explains key ecological concepts and their application to the design and management of sustainable landscapes. It covers topics from biogeography and plant selection to global change. Beck draws on real world cases where professionals have put ecological principles to use in the built landscape. For constructed landscapes to perform as we need them to, we must get their underlying ecology right. "Principles of Ecological Landscape Design" provides the tools to do just that.
£31.00
Island Press A Guide to Planning for Community Character
This follow-up volume A Guide to Planning for Community Character addresses actual designs in the three general classes of communities set forth in Kendig's framework-urban, sub-urban, and rural. The practical approaches of this volume are intended to allow designers to succeed in designing communities "with the character that citizens actually want." Kendig also provides a guide for incorporating community character into the comprehensive plan for a community. In addition, this book shows how to use community character in planning and zoning as a way of making communities more sustainable. All examples in the volume are designed to meet real-world challenges. They show how to design a community so that the desired character is actually achieved in the built result. The book also provides useful tools for analyzing or measuring relevant design features.
£31.00
Island Press The Conservation Program Handbook: A Guide for Local Government Land Acquisition
Between 1994 and 2008, American voters approved almost $32 billion for local land conservation. However, there was at that time no resource available to guide officials as they implemented the voters' mandates. "The Conservation Program Handbook" was written in response to numerous requests to The Trust for Public Land for guidance from community leaders who wanted to know how to effectively conserve their iconic landscapes. "The Conservation Program Handbook" is a manual that provides all of the information - on a broad spectrum of topics - that conservation professionals are likely to require. It compiles and distills advice from professionals involved in successful conservation efforts across the country, including a list of 'best practices' for the most critical issues conservationists can expect to face.
£28.05
Island Press Livestock in a Changing Landscape, Volume 2: Experiences and Regional Perspectives
The rapidly changing nature of animal production systems, especially increasing intensification and globalization, is playing out in complex ways around the world. "Livestock in a Changing Landscape" offers a comprehensive examination of these important and far-reaching trends. The books are an outgrowth of a collaborative effort involving international nongovernmental organizations including the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), the Swiss College of Agriculture (SHL) at Bern University of Applied Sciences, the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD), and the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE). The volumes present new, sustainable approaches to the challenges created by fundamental shifts in livestock management and production, and represent an essential resource for policymakers, industry managers, and academics involved with this issue.
£41.00
Island Press Seven Rules for Sustainable Communities: Design Strategies for the Post Carbon World
Questions of how to green the North American economy, create a green energy and transportation infrastructure, and halt the deadly increase in greenhouse gas buildup dominate our daily news. Related questions of how the design of cities can impact these challenges dominate the thoughts of urban planners and designers across the U.S. and Canada. With admirable clarity, Patrick Condon discusses transportation, housing equity, job distribution, economic development, and ecological systems issues and synthesizes his knowledge and research into a simple-to-understand set of urban design rules that can, if followed, help save the planet.
£25.16
Island Press A Pivotal Moment: Population, Justice, and the Environmental Challenge
With contributions by leading demographers, environmentalists, and reproductive health advocates, "A Pivotal Moment" offers a new perspective on the complex connection between population dynamics and environmental quality. It presents the latest research on the relationship between population growth and climate change, ecosystem health, and other environmental issues. It surveys the new demographic landscape - in which population growth rates have fallen, but human numbers continue to increase. It looks back at the lessons of the last half century while looking forward to population policies that are sustainable and just. "A Pivotal Moment" embraces the concept of 'population justice', which holds that inequality is a root cause of both rapid population growth and environmental degradation. By addressing inequality - both gender and economic - we can reduce growth rates and build a sustainable future.
£34.00
Island Press The Case for a Carbon Tax: Getting Past Our Hang-ups to Effective Climate Policy
There's a simple, straightforward way to cut carbon emissions - and we're rejecting it because of irrational political fears. That's the central argument of "The Case for a Carbon Tax", a clear-eyed, sophisticated analysis of climate change policy. Shi-Ling Hsu weighs the merits of the four major approaches to curbing CO2: cap-and-trade; command and control regulation; government subsidies of alternative energy; and, carbon taxes. He does not claim that a tax is the perfect or only solution - but that unlike the alternatives, it can be implemented immediately and paired effectively with other approaches. Hsu deftly explores the social and political factors that prevent us from embracing this commonsense approach. And he shows why we must get past our hang-ups if we are to avert a global crisis.
£52.00
Island Press Making Nature Whole: A History of Ecological Restoration
"Making Nature Whole" is a seminal volume that presents an in-depth history of the field of ecological restoration as it has developed over the last three decades. The authors draw from both published and unpublished sources, including archival materials and oral histories from early practitioners, to explore the development of the field and its importance to environmental management as well as to the larger environmental movement and our understanding of the world. Considering antecedents as varied as monastic gardens, the Scientific Revolution, and the emerging nature-awareness of nineteenth-century 'Romantics and Transcendentalists', Jordan and Lubick offer unique insight into the field's philosophical and theoretical underpinnings. They examine specifically the more recent history, including the story of those who first attempted to recreate natural ecosystems early in the twentieth century, as well as those who over the past few decades have realised the value of this approach not only as a critical element in conservation but also as a context for negotiating the ever-changing relationship between humans and the natural environment. "Making Nature Whole" is a landmark contribution, providing context and history regarding a distinctive form of land management and giving readers a fascinating overview of the development of the field. It is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding where ecological restoration came from or where it might be going.
£29.00
Island Press Aldo Leopold's Odyssey: Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac
Aldo Leopold's Odyssey illuminates the great conservationist's lifelong quest for answers to a fundamental question: how can people live prosperously on the land and keep it healthy, too? Leopold's journey took him from Iowa to Yale to the Southwest to Wisconsin, with stops along the way to probe the causes of land settlement failures, contribute to the emerging science of ecology, compose his best known work, "A Sand County Almanac", and craft a new vision for land use. More than a biography, this insightful work is a guide to one person's intellectual growth and to our ongoing struggle to live in concert with the natural world.
£35.31
Island Press Conservation for a New Generation: Redefining Natural Resources Management
Effective conservation requires building strong collaborative relationships. In hundreds of watersheds and communities across the United States, conservation is being reinvented and invigorated by collaborative efforts between federal, state, and local governments working with non-governmental organizations and private landowners, and fueled by economic incentives, to promote both healthy natural communities and healthy human communities."Conservation for a New Generation" captures those efforts with chapters that explain the new landscape of conservation along with case studies that illustrate these new approaches. The book brings together leading voices in the field of environmental conservation - Lynne Sherrod, Curt Meine, Daniel Kemmis, Luther Propst, Jodi Hilty, Peter Forbes, and many others - to offer fourteen chapters and twelve case studies that demonstrate the benefits of government agencies partnering with diverse stakeholders; explore how natural resources management is evolving; discuss emerging practices for conservation, including conservation planning, ecological restoration, valuing ecosystem services, and using economic incentives; and, promote cooperation on natural resources issues that have in the past been divisive.Throughout, contributors focus on the fundamental truth that unites human and land communities: as one prospers, so does the other; as one declines, so too will the other. The book illustrates how natural resources management that emphasizes building strong relationships results in outcomes that are beneficial to both people and land.
£25.16
Island Press Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea
What's the connection between a plate of king prawns at your local restaurant and murdered fishermen in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America's Gulf coast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard of these salt-water forests, but for those who depend on their riches, mangroves are indispensable. They are natural storm barriers, home to innumerable exotic creatures - from crab-eating vipers to man-eating tigers - and provide food and livelihoods to millions of coastal dwellers. Now they are being destroyed to make way for shellfish farming and other coastal development. For those who stand in the way of these industries, the consequences can be deadly. In "Let Them Eat Shrimp", Kennedy Warne takes readers into the muddy battle zone that is the mangrove forest. A tangle of snaking roots and twisted trunks, mangroves are often dismissed as foul wastelands. In fact, they are supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal communities from New Zealand to South America to Florida. Generations have built their lives around mangroves and consider these swamps sacred. To shellfish farmers and land developers, mangroves simply represent a good investment. The tidal land on which they stand often has no title, so with a nod and wink from a compliant official, it can be turned from a public resource to a private possession. The forests are bulldozed; their traditional users dispossessed. The true price of shellfish farming and other coastal development has gone largely unheralded in the media. A longtime journalist, Warne now captures the insatiability of these industries and the magic of the mangroves.
£22.00
Island Press The Green Building Revolution
The "green building revolution" is happening right now. This book is its chronicle and its manifesto. Written by industry insider Jerry Yudelson, "The Green Building Revolution" introduces readers to the basics of green building and to the projects and people that are advancing this movement. With interviews and case studies, it does more than simply report on the revolution; it shows readers why and how to start thinking about designing, building, and operating high-performance, environmentally aware (LEED-certified) buildings on conventional budgets.Evolving quietly for more than a decade, the green building movement has found its voice. Its principles of human-centered, environmentally sensitive development have reached a critical mass of architects, engineers, builders, developers, professionals in government, and consumers. Green buildings are showing us how we can have healthier indoor environments that use far less energy and water than conventional buildings do. The federal government, eighteen states, and nearly fifty US cities already require new public buildings to meet "green" standards. According to Yudelson, this is just the beginning." The Green Building Revolution" describes the many "revolutions" that are taking place today: in commercial buildings, schools, universities, public buildings, health care institutions, housing, property management, and neighborhood design. In a clear, highly readable style, Yudelson outlines the broader "journey to sustainability" influenced by the green building revolution and provides a solid business case for accelerating this trend.Illustrated with more than 50 photos, tables, and charts, and filled with timely information, "The Green Building Revolution" is the definitive description of a major movement that's poised to transform our world.
£23.71
Island Press Renewable Resource Policy: The Legal-Institutional Foundations
Renewable Resource Policy is a comprehensive volume covering the history, laws, and important national policies that affect renewable resource management. The author traces the history of renewable natural resource policy and management in the United States, describes the major federal agencies and their functions, and examines the evolution of the primary resource policy areas.The book provides valuable insight into the often neglected legal, administrative, and bureaucratic aspect of natural resource management. It is a definitive and essential source of information covering all facets of renewable resource policy that brings together a remarkable range of information in a coherent, integrated form.
£60.00
Island Press Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans
This title articulates a valuable new approach to managing marine ecosystems. Conventional management approaches cannot meet the challenges faced by ocean and coastal ecosystems today. Consequently, national and international bodies have called for a shift toward more comprehensive ecosystem-based marine management. Synthesizing a vast amount of current knowledge, "Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans" is a comprehensive guide to utilizing this promising new approach. At its core, ecosystem-based management (EBM) is about acknowledging connections. Instead of focusing on the impacts of single activities on the delivery of individual ecosystem services, EBM focuses on the array of services that we receive from marine systems, the interactive and cumulative effects of multiple human activities on these coupled ecological and social systems, and the importance of working towards common goals across sectors. "Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans" provides a conceptual framework for students and professionals who want to understand and utilize this powerful approach. And it employs case studies that draw on the experiences of EBM practitioners to demonstrate how EBM principles can be applied to real-world problems. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding the factors that contribute to social and ecological resilience - the extent to which a system can maintain its structure, function, and identity in the face of disturbance. Utilizing the resilience framework, professionals can better predict how systems will respond to a variety of disturbances, as well as to a range of management alternatives. "Ecosystem-Based Management for the Oceans" presents the latest science of resilience, while it provides tools for the design and implementation of responsive EBM solutions.
£37.00
Island Press Biodiversity Planning and Design: Sustainable Practices
How do you measure biodiversity, and why should landscape architects and planners care? What are the essential issues, the clearest terminology, and the most effective methods for biodiversity planning and design? How can they play a role in biodiversity conservation in a manner compatible with other goals? These are critical questions that Jack Ahern answers in this timely and useful book. Real-world case studies showcase biodiversity protection and restoration projects, both large and small, across the U.S.: the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, Washington; the Crosswinds Marsh Wetlands Mitigation Project in Wayne County, Michigan; the Florida Statewide Greenway System; and the Fort Devens Stormwater Project in Ayer, Massachusetts. Ahern shows how an interdisciplinary approach led by planners and designers with conservation biologists, restoration ecologists, and natural and social scientists can yield successful results and sustainable practices. Minimizing habitat loss and degradation - the principal causes of biodiversity decline - are at the heart of the planning and design processes and provide landscape architects and planners a chance to achieve their professional goals while taking a leading role in the environmental community.
£36.00
Island Press Restoring Natural Capital: Science, Business, and Practice
Restoring Natural Capital brings together economists and ecologists, theoreticians, practitioners, policy makers, and scientists from the developed and developing worlds to consider the costs and benefits of repairing ecosystem goods and services in natural and socio-ecological systems. It examines the business and practice of restoring natural capital, and seeks to establish common ground between economists and ecologists with respect to the restoration of degraded ecosystems and landscapes and the still broader task of restoring natural capital.
£45.00