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Books in Environmental sciences

The Environmental Sciences titles present critical research and insights into the complex interactions within natural ecosystems, climate systems, and human impacts on the environment. Covering areas such as biodiversity, sustainability, climate change, and resource management, these titles support scientific discovery and practical solutions for addressing today’s most pressing environmental challenges. This collection is essential for researchers, policymakers, and students dedicated to advancing environmental understanding and stewardship

  • Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits

    • 1st Edition
    • Kenneth Pye
    • English
    Aeolian Dust and Dust Deposits explores the entrainment, dispersion, and deposition of aeolian dust and dust deposits, with emphasis on transport and deposition of dust derived by deflation of surface sediments and soils. Topics covered range from the mechanisms of fine-particle formation to dust sources, sinks, and rates of deposition. Dust-transporting wind systems are also discussed, along with the grain size, mineralogy, and chemical composition of aeolian dust. Comprised of nine chapters, this book begins with an overview of the general nature and significance of windborne dust as well as the importance of aeolian dust and loess. The next chapter deals with the mechanisms underlying the formation of fine particles, including glacial grinding, frost and salt weathering, and fluvial comminution. The reader is then introduced to dust entrainment, transport, and deposition, together with dust sources, sinks, and rates of deposition. Subsequent chapters focus on the implications of dust deflation, transport, and deposition; dust deposition in the oceans; and loess distribution and the thickness and morphology of loess deposits. This monograph is written primarily for research workers and advanced students in sedimentology, geomorphology, and Quaternary studies, but is also likely to be of value to soil scientists, meteorologists, planetary geologists, engineers, and others concerned with environmental management.
  • Animal Vigilance

    Monitoring Predators and Competitors
    • 1st Edition
    • Guy Beauchamp
    • English
    Animal Vigilance builds on the author’s previous publication with Academic Press (Social Predation: How Group Living Benefits Predators and Prey) by developing several other themes including the development and mechanisms underlying vigilance, as well as developing more fully the evolution and function of vigilance. Animal vigilance has been at the forefront of research on animal behavior for many years, but no comprehensive review of this topic has existed. Students of animal behavior have focused on many aspects of animal vigilance, from models of its adaptive value to empirical research in the laboratory and in the field. The vast literature on vigilance is widely dispersed with often little contact between models and empirical work and between researchers focusing on different taxa such as birds and mammals. Animal Vigilance fills this gap in the available material.
  • Principles and Dynamics of the Critical Zone

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 19
    • English
    Principles and Dynamics of the Critical Zone is an invaluable resource for undergraduate and graduate courses and an essential tool for researchers developing cutting-edge proposals. It provides a process-based description of the Critical Zone, a place that The National Research Council (2001) defines as the "heterogeneous, near surface environment in which complex interactions involving rock, soil, water, air, and living organisms regulate the natural habitat and determine the availability of life-sustaining resources." This text provides a summary of Critical Zone research and outcomes from the NSF funded Critical Zone Observatories, providing a process-based description of the Critical Zone in a wide range of environments with a specific focus on the important linkages that exist amongst the processes in each zone. This book will be useful to all scientists and students conducting research on the Critical Zone within and outside the Critical Zone Observatory Network, as well as scientists and students in the geosciences – atmosphere, geomorphology, geology and pedology.
  • Environmental Factors in Neurodevelopmental and Neurodegenerative Disorders

    • 1st Edition
    • Michael Aschner + 1 more
    • English
    Environmental Factors in Neurodevelopmental and Neurodegenerative Disorders presents a state-of-the-art review of the effects of environmental contaminants on the development and degeneration of the human nervous system, brought together by world-leading experts in the field. Part One describes the adverse effects that the environment can have on neurological development, and how these effects may exhibit. Specific contaminants and their possible consequences of exposure are addressed (lead, methylmercury, alcohol), as well as specific disorders and the environmental factors associated with them, such as the effect of diet on attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders. Part Two tackles neurodegenerative disorders, specifically addressing their potential neurotoxic origins, and discussing the increasing interest in the effects that early exposure may have in later life. Environmental Factors in Neurodevelopmental and Neurodegenerative Disorders is an invaluable reference for those professionals working in the fields of toxicology, environmental health and neuroscience.
  • Sustainable Catalytic Processes

    • 1st Edition
    • Basudeb Saha + 2 more
    • English
    The development of catalysts is the most sophisticated art in chemical sciences. It can be read like a story book when the critical scientific contents are presented in a chronological manner with short and simple sentences. This book will meets these criteria. To address the sustainability issues of existing chemical manufacturing processes or producing new chemicals, researchers are developing alternate catalysts to eliminate toxic chemicals use and by-products formation. Sustainable Catalytic Processes presents critical discussions of the progress of such catalytic development. This book of contemporary research results in sustainable catalysis area will benefit scientists in both industries and academia, and students to learn recent catalysts/process development.
  • Systems Biology in Toxicology and Environmental Health

    • 1st Edition
    • Rebecca Fry
    • English
    Systems Biology in Toxicology and Environmental Health uses a systems biological perspective to detail the most recent findings that link environmental exposures to human disease, providing an overview of molecular pathways that are essential for cellular survival after exposure to environmental toxicants, recent findings on gene-environment interactions influencing environmental agent-induced diseases, and the development of computational methods to predict susceptibility to environmental agents. Introductory chapters on molecular and cellular biology, toxicology and computational biology are included as well as an assessment of systems-based tools used to evaluate environmental health risks. Further topics include research on environmental toxicants relevant to human health and disease, various high-throughput technologies and computational methods, along with descriptions of the biological pathways associated with disease and the developmental origins of disease as they relate to environmental contaminants. Systems Biology in Toxicology and Environmental Health is an essential reference for undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers looking for an introduction in the use of systems biology approaches to assess environmental exposures and their impacts on human health.
  • The Ecological Importance of Mixed-Severity Fires

    Nature's Phoenix
    • 1st Edition
    • Dominick A. DellaSala + 1 more
    • English
    The Ecological Importance of High-Severity Fires, presents information on the current paradigm shift in the way people think about wildfire and ecosystems. While much of the current forest management in fire-adapted ecosystems, especially forests, is focused on fire prevention and suppression, little has been reported on the ecological role of fire, and nothing has been presented on the importance of high-severity fire with regards to the maintenance of native biodiversity and fire-dependent ecosystems and species. This text fills that void, providing a comprehensive reference for documenting and synthesizing fire's ecological role.
  • Understanding Complex Ecosystem Dynamics

    A Systems and Engineering Perspective
    • 1st Edition
    • William S. Yackinous
    • English
    Understanding Complex Ecosystem Dynamics: A Systems and Engineering Perspective takes a fresh, interdisciplinary perspective on complex system dynamics, beginning with a discussion of relevant systems and engineering skills and practices, including an explanation of the systems approach and its major elements. From this perspective, the author formulates an ecosystem dynamics functionality-based framework to guide ecological investigations. Next, because complex system theory (across many subject matter areas) is crucial to the work of this book, relevant network theory, nonlinear dynamics theory, cellular automata theory, and roughness (fractal) theory is covered in some detail. This material serves as an important resource as the book proceeds. In the context of all of the foregoing discussion and investigation, a view of the characteristics of ecological network dynamics is constructed. This view, in turn, is the basis for the central hypothesis of the book, i.e., ecological networks are ever-changing networks with propagation dynamics that are punctuated, local-to-global, and perhaps most importantly fractal. To analyze and fully test this hypothesis, an innovative ecological network dynamics model is defined, designed, and developed. The modeling approach, which seeks to emulate features of real-world ecological networks, does not make a priori assumptions about ecological network dynamics, but rather lets the dynamics develop as the model simulation runs. Model analysis results corroborate the central hypothesis. Additional important insights and principles are suggested by the model analysis results and by the other supporting investigations of this book – and can serve as a basis for going-forward complex system dynamics research, not only for ecological systems but for complex systems in general.
  • Novel Materials for Carbon Dioxide Mitigation Technology

    • 1st Edition
    • Bryan Morreale + 1 more
    • English
    Materials for Carbon Dioxide Mitigation Technology offers expert insight and experience from recognized authorities in advanced material development in carbon mitigation technology and constitutes a comprehensive guide to the selection and design of a wide range of solvent/sorbent/cata... used by scientists globally. It appeals to chemical scientists, material scientists and engineers, energy researchers, and environmental scientists from academia, industry, and government in their research directed toward greener, more efficient carbon mitigation processes.
  • Coastal Ocean Observing Systems

    • 1st Edition
    • Yonggang Liu + 2 more
    • English
    Coastal Ocean Observing Systems provides state-of-the-art scientific and technological knowledge in coastal ocean observing systems, along with guidance on establishing, restructuring, and improving similar systems. The book is intended to help oceanographers understand, identify, and recognize how oceanographic research feeds into the various designs of ocean observing systems. In addition, readers will learn how ocean observing systems are defined and how each system operates in relation to its geographical, environmental, and political region. The book provides further insights into all of these problem areas, offering lessons learned and results from the types of research sponsored and utilized by ocean observing systems and the types of research design and experiments conducted by professionals specializing in ocean research and affiliated with observing systems.