Boreal Peatland Ecosystems
This volume adopts an ecosystems approach to understanding the world's boreal peatlands. It focuses on biogeochemical patterns and processes, production, decomposition, and peat accumulation, and provides additional information on animal and fungal diversity. A recurring theme is the legacy of boreal peatlands as impressive accumulators of carbon as peat over millennia. This carbon legacy is under threat from a wide diversity of disturbances, including wildfire, ongoing climate change, the changing chemistry of atmospheric deposition, and continuing resource exploitation. The volume is of inte.
Boreal Forest and Climate Change
There are several crucial feedbacks from forests to the climate system. The mechanisms for those feedbacks are elaborated in the book: they involve changes in the carbon cycle, albedo, N2O emissions and the production of aerosols. Much of this work is new and the feedback relationships have not yet been incorporated into models of the climate system. The book will be an important introduction for students and climate modellers alike, providing conceptual tools and ideas that are broadly applicable to terrestrial systems.
Biology and Ecology of Norway Spruce
This book presents a concise and comprehensive review of the biology, ecology, and management of Norway spruce. It integrates classic and contemporary literature (more than 2000 works cited in the text), highlighting basic research and forestry practices in central and eastern Europe. The topics include anatomy and morphology, physiology and nutrition, reproductive biology and genetics, and ecology. In addition, it examines mycorrhiza, diseases and pests as well as silviculture and wood products. In the light of increasing threats to forest health from air pollution, climate change, and insects and disease, it provides an essential information source to those concerned with the ecology, conservation, and management of the species
Biological Invasions
This new volume on Biological Invasions deals with both plants and animals. It differs from previous books on the subject by extending from the level of individual species to an ecosystem and global level. Topics of highest societal relevance, such as the impact of genetically modified organisms, are interlinked with more conventional ecological aspects, including biodiversity. The combination of these approaches is new and makes compelling reading for researchers and environmentalists. The book’s 22 chapters cover a huge range of subjects relevant to the field. These include pathways of biological invasions (e.g. ballast water, waterways), traits of successful invaders (e.g. chemical weapons, empty niches), and patterns of invasion and invasibility, such as man-induced predisposition by fire, land use and eutrophication, and the role of climate change.
Biogeochemical cycles in globalization and sustainable development
This valuable study of environmental subsystems functioning under various climatic and anthropogenic conditions provides a unique insight into the social context of global changes in biogeochemical cycles and demonstrates current understanding of globalization and sustainable development.
Biodiversity and health in the face of climate change
This book identifies and discusses biodiversity’s contribution to physical, mental and spiritual health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the book identifies the implications of this relationship for nature conservation, public health, landscape architecture and urban planning – and considers the opportunities of nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation. This transdisciplinary book will attract a wide audience interested in biodiversity, ecology, resource management, public health, psychology, urban planning, and landscape architecture. The emphasis is on multiple human health benefits from biodiversity - in particular with respect to the increasing challenge of climate change.
Beyond the limits to growth : New ideas for sustainability from Japan
This book offers an optimistic view of the future and provides a road map for societies to get there. Drawing upon extensive research and many years as a thought leader in environmental and sustainability issues in Japan and internationally, Hiroshi Komiyama analyzes the most pressing challenges to the attainment of sustainability of economically advanced nations and argues forcefully for Japan to lead them out of the present dilemma through active promotion of creative consumer and societal demand. He shows how an active industry–government–academic partnership can provide the environment needed to promote such new creative demand and illustrates its potential through presentation of a Platinum Society Network that was launched on a regional basis in Japan in 2010 to facilitate the solution of common issues through the exchange of information and ideas.
Beyond Kyoto : A new global climate certificate system : Continuing Kyoto commitsments or a global ´Cap and Trade´ scheme for a sustainable climate policy?
This book shows how humankind can ‘prevent dangerous interference with the c- mate system’ without dangerous interference with the global economic system. In the two underlying studies on behalf of the Ministry of Environment and Transport of i the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg, the results have been elaborated through scientific evaluation of different climate protection systems and intensive developmental work on an efficient climate protection system. The results will be presented in nine chapters according to the following nine basic R&D steps: 1. Quantifying the ‘ultimate climate objective’ of the world community in order ‘to prevent dangerous interference with the climate system,’ thus achieving climate sustainability; 2. Development of a comprehensive standard system for evaluating the prospect of success for different climate protection systems; 3. Based on this scientific standard system, evaluation of the current Kyoto system and of the most important proposals for ‘incremental regime evolution’ of the Kyoto system. Unfortunately, it must be noted that these systems are incapable of achi- ing climate sustainability; 4. Evaluating three proposals for ‘structural regime change’ of the Kyoto system. Following this objective evaluation process and numeric comparison of the diff- ent proposals, 5. Description of the eight basic elements of GCCS and its in-depth ‘critical asse- ment;’ 6.
Atlas of global change risk of population and economic systems
Iillustrates the spatial distribution of the global change risk of population and economic systems with the maps of environment, global climate change, global population and economic systems, and global change risk. The risks of global change are mapped at 0.25 degree grid unit. The risk results and their contribution rates of the world at national level are unprecedentedly derived and ranked. The book can be a good reference for researchers and students in the field of global climate change and natural disaster risk management, as well as risk managers and enterpriser to understand the global change risk of population and economic systems.
Assessment of climate change over the Indian Region : A report of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), Government of India
Discusses the impact of human-induced global climate change on the Indian subcontinent and regional monsoon, the adjoining Indian Ocean and the Himalayas. It also examines the regional climate change projections based on the climate models used by the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) and national climate change modeling studies using the IITM Earth System Model (ESM) and CORDEX South Asia datasets
Assessment of climate change for the Baltic Sea Basin
Offers an up-to-date overview of the latest scientific findings in regional climate research on the Baltic Sea basin. This includes climate changes in the recent past, climate projections up until 2100 using the most sophisticated regional climate models available, and an assessment of climate change impacts on terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems.
Assessing Recent Soil Erosion Rates through the Use of Beryllium-7 (Be-7)
This book is the first comprehensive guideline for the beryllium-7 (Be-7) technique that can be applied to evaluate short-term patterns and budgets of soil redistribution in agricultural landscapes. While covering the fundamental and basic concepts of the approach, this book distinguishes itself from other publications by offering step-by-step instructions on how to use this isotopic technique effectively. It covers experimental design considerations and clear instruction is given on data processing. As accurate laboratory measurement is crucial to ensure successful use of Be-7 to investigate soil erosion, a full chapter is devoted to its specific determination by gamma spectrometry.
Assessing Climate Change : Temperatures, Solar Radiation, and Heat Balance
The chapters of the book attempt to answer a number of essential questions in relation to global warming and climate change. He begins by showing how the earth’s climate has varied in the past, discussing ice ages, the Holocene period since the end of the last ice age, particularly during the past 1000 years. He investigates the reliability of "proxies" for historical temperatures and assesses the hockey stick version of global temperatures for the past millennium. To do this effectively he looks carefully at how well near surface temperatures of land and ocean on earth have been monitored during the past 100 years or more, and looks at the utility and significance of a single global average temperature
Asian-Pacific coasts and their management : States of environment
The Asia-Pacific region is home to the world’s largest region of coral reefs and mangroves. It accommodates two-thirds of the world’s human population and its economic activities have the highest growth rate in the world. Ongoing degradation of the environment, resulting from coastal development, deforestation, desertification and over-harvesting, are becoming a matter of great concern, as floods and droughts occur as a result of this degradation. Threats of global environmental change, such as climate change and sea-level rise, will exacerbate such problems. Therefore, appropriate policies and measures are needed for coastal management, to address both the local and global trends. This book gives an overview of the state-of-the-art understanding on the drivers, state, and responses to coastal environmental changes in the Asia-Pacific region. It provides excellent perspectives on current and anticipated environmental changes in the region’s coastal areas, to researchers, students, policy makers, coastal managers and other stakeholders.
Artificial intelligence techniques in hydrology and water resources management
The sustainable management of water cycles is crucial in the context of climate change and global warming. It involves managing global, regional, and local water cycles, as well as urban, agricultural, and industrial water cycles, to conserve water resources and their relationships with energy, food, microclimates, biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and anthropogenic activities. Hydrological modeling is indispensable for achieving this goal, as it is essential for water resources management and the mitigation of natural disasters. In recent decades, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in hydrology and water resources management has led to notable advances. In the face of hydro-geo-meteorological uncertainty, AI approaches have proven to be powerful tools for accurately modeling complex, nonlinear hydrological processes and effectively utilizing various digital and imaging data sources, such as ground gauges, remote sensing tools, and in situ Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
Arid Dune Ecosystems: The Nizzana Sands in the Negev Desert
Sand dune dynamics plays a key role in many arid deserts. This volume provides a synthesis of a specific sand dune ecosystem, the Nizzana site in the Negev Desert. Describing its climate and geophysical/geochemical properties of soils, geological history, flora and fauna, and past/present land-use patterns, it elucidates ecological and geomorphological processes and their interrelations, based on long-term monitoring, in situ experiments and satellite imagery. Particular attention is drawn to the impact of the topsoil biological crust in controlling water availability at local/regional scales. The interdisciplinary approach adopted in this case study offers a good example of a highly complex and dynamic system, which could easily be applied to other sandy ecosystems.
Arctic-Subarctic Ocean Fluxes : Defining the Role of the Northern Seas in Climate
The two-way oceanic exchanges that connect the Arctic and Atlantic oceans through subarctic seas are of fundamental importance to climate. Change may certainly be imposed on the Arctic Ocean from subarctic seas, including a changing poleward ocean heat flux that is central to determining the present state and future fate of the perennial sea-ice. And the signal of Arctic change is expected to have its major climatic impact by reaching south through subarctic seas, either side of Greenland, to modulate the Atlantic thermohaline ‘conveyor’. Developing the predictive skills of climate models is seen to be the most direct way of extending the ability of society to mitigate for or adapt to 'global change' and is the main justification for continuing an intense observational effort in these waters. As records have lengthened, they have shown that important aspects of oceanic exchange through subarctic seas are currently at a long-term extreme state, providing further motivation for their study.
Arctic Alpine ecosystems and people in a changing environment
This book addresses the significant environmental changes experienced by high latitude and high altitude ecosystems at the beginning of the 21st c- tury. Increased temperatures and precipitation, reduction in sea ice and glacier ice, the increased levels of UV-radiation and the long-range tra- ported contaminants in arctic and alpine regions are stress factors that challenge terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The large natural variation in the physical parameters of these extreme environments is a key factor in structuring the biodiversity and biotic productivity, and the effect of the new stress factors can be critical for the population structures and the - teraction between species. These changes may also have socio-economic effects if the changes affect the bio-production, which form the basis for the marine and terrestrial food chains. The book is uniquely multidisciplinary and provides examples of va- ous aspects of contemporary environmental change in arctic and alpine - gions. The 21 chapters of the book are organised under the fields of •Climate change and ecosystem response, •Long range transport of poll- ants and ecological impacts, and •UV radiation and biological effects, each also including aspects of the •Socio-economic effects of environmental change. The introductory chapter presents and explains the internal c- nection and integration of all chapters.
Aquaponics Food Production Systems : Combined Aquaculture and Hydroponic Production Technologies for the Future
This book, written by world experts in aquaponics and related technologies, provides the authoritative and comprehensive overview of the key aquaculture and hydroponic and other integrated systems, socio-economic and environmental aspects. Aquaponic systems, which combine aquaculture and vegetable food production offer alternative technology solutions for a world that is increasingly under stress through population growth, urbanisation, water shortages, land and soil degradation, environmental pollution, world hunger and climate change.
Antarctic ecosystems : Environmental contamination, climate change, and human impact
This volume provides an overview of climate change data, its effects on the structure and functioning of Antarctic ecosystems, and the occurrence and cycling of persistent contaminants. It discusses the unique physico-chemical characteristics of the Antarctic environment, ecophysiological adaptations of terrestrial and marine organisms, the transfer of contaminants in pelagic and neritic food chains and the possible consequences for animals at higher trophic levels.



















