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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

  • Advances in Control Systems

    Theory and Applications
    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 7
    • C. T. Leondes
    • English
    Advances in Control Systems: Theory and Applications, Volume 7 provides information pertinent to the significant progress in the field of control and systems theory and applications. This book covers the important general area of computational problems in random and deterministic dynamic systems. Organized into six chapters, this volume begins with an overview of the controllability of a stochastic system. This text then presents a survey and status of methods for nonlinear minimal variance filtering. Other chapters consider some possible pitfalls and develop practical approximate nonlinear filters. This book discusses as well the area of computational problems and techniques for optimal nonlinear control problems. Computer simulation results are also included in order to show a number of the key results. The final chapter deals with the development of algorithms for the determination of the optimal control of distributed parameter systems, which pervades many areas of engineering endeavor. This book is a valuable resource for mathematicians and engineers.
  • Human Physiology in Extreme Environments

    • 1st Edition
    • Hanns-Christian Gunga
    • English
    Human Physiology in Extreme Environments is the one publication that offers how human biology and physiology is affected by extreme environments while highlighting technological innovations that allow us to adapt and regulate environments. Covering a broad range of extreme environments, including high altitude, underwater, tropical climates, and desert and arctic climates as well as space travel, this book will include case studies for practical application. Graduate students, medical students and researchers will find Human Physiology in Extreme Environments an interesting, informative and useful resource for human physiology, environmental physiology and medical studies.
  • Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society

    • 1st Edition
    • Andrew E. Collins + 4 more
    • English
    Hazards, Risks, and Disasters in Society provides analyses of environmentally related catastrophes within society in historical, political and economic contexts. Personal and corporate culture mediates how people may become more vulnerable or resilient to hazard exposure. Societies that strengthen themselves, or are strengthened, mitigate decline and resultant further exposure to what are largely human induced risks of environmental, social and economic degradation. This book outlines why it is important to explore in more depth the relationships between environmental hazards, risk and disasters in society. It presents challenges presented by mainstream and non-mainstream approaches to the human side of disaster studies. By hazard categories this book includes critical processes and outcomes that significantly disrupt human wellbeing over brief or long time-frames. Whilst hazards, risks and disasters impact society, individuals, groups, institutions and organisations offset the effects by becoming strong, healthy, resilient, caring and creative. Innovations can arise from social organisation in times of crisis. This volume includes much of use to practitioners and policy makers needing to address both prevention and response activities. Notably, as people better engage prevalent hazards and risks they exercise a process that has become known as disaster risk reduction (DRR). In a context of climatic risks this is also indicative of climate change adaptation (CCA). Ultimately it represents the quest for development of sustainable environmental and societal futures. Throughout the book cases studies are derived from the world of hazards risks and disasters in society.
  • Economic Growth and Sustainability

    Systems Thinking for a Complex World
    • 1st Edition
    • Karen L. Higgins
    • English
    How to sustain our world for future generations has perplexed us for centuries. We have reached a crossroads: we may choose the rocky path of responsibility or continue on the paved road of excess that promises hardship for our progeny. Independent efforts to resolve isolated issues are inadequate. Different from these efforts and from other books on the topic, this book uses systems thinking to understand the dominant forces that are shaping our hope for sustainability. It first describes a mental model - the bubble that holds our beliefs - that emerges from preponderant world views and explains current global trends. The model emphasizes economic growth and drives behavior toward short-term and self-motivated outcomes that thwart sustainability. The book then weaves statistical trends into a system diagram and shows how the economic, environmental, and societal contributors of sustainability interact. From this holistic perspective, it finds leverage points where actions can be most effective and combines eight areas of intervention into an integrated plan. By emphasizing both individual and collective actions, it addresses the conundrum of how to blend human nature with sustainability. Finally, it identifies primary three lessons we can learn by applying systems thinking to sustainability. Its metaphor-rich and accessible style makes the complex topic approachable and allows the reader to appreciate the intricate balance required to sustain life on Earth.
  • Climate Change Biology

    • 2nd Edition
    • Lee Hannah
    • English
    Climate Change Biology, 2e examines the evolving discipline of human-induced climate change and the resulting shifts in the distributions of species and the timing of biological events. The text focuses on understanding the impacts of human-induced climate change by drawing on multiple lines of evidence, including paleoecology, modeling, and current observation. This revised and updated second edition emphasizes impacts of human adaptation to climate change on nature and greater emphasis on natural processes and cycles and specific elements. With four new chapters, an increased emphasis on tools for critical thinking, and a new glossary and acronym appendix, Climate Change Biology, 2e is the ideal overview of this field.
  • Geoethics

    Ethical Challenges and Case Studies in Earth Sciences
    • 1st Edition
    • Max Wyss + 1 more
    • English
    Edited by two experts in the area, Geoethics: Ethical Challenges and Case Studies in Earth Sciences addresses a range of topics surrounding the concept of ethics in geoscience, making it an important reference for any Earth scientist with a growing concern for sustainable development and social responsibility. This book will provide the reader with some obvious and some hidden information you need for understanding where experts have not served the public, what more could have been done to reach and serve the public and the ethical issues surrounding the Earth Sciences, from a global perspective.
  • Coastal and Marine Hazards, Risks, and Disasters

    • 1st Edition
    • John F. Shroder + 2 more
    • English
    Sea and Ocean Hazards, Risks and Disasters provides a scientific approach to those hazards and disasters related to the Earth's coasts and oceans. This is the first book to integrate scientific, social, and economic issues related to disasters such as hazard identification, risk analysis, and planning, relevant hazard process mechanics, discussions of preparedness, response, and recovery, and the economics of loss and remediation. Throughout the book cases studies are presented of historically relevant hazards and disasters as well as the many recent catastrophes.
  • Learning from the Impacts of Superstorm Sandy

    • 1st Edition
    • J. Bret Bennington + 1 more
    • English
    Learning from the Impacts of Superstorm Sandy summarizes first results from studies of Superstorm Sandy, including: tide gauge measurements of storm surge, stable isotope variation in precipitation, analysis of the effect of beach nourishment among other factors on structural damage, and comparison with past storms through sediment analysis. This book gives a multi-dimensional treatment of scientific results of studies of Superstorm Sandy, and it is a valuable reference for oceanographers, coastal geologists, climatologists, dynamic meteorologists, paleotempostologists... sedimentary geologists, geomorphologists and emergency managers who need to better understand the storm and its effects in order to be prepared for similar events in the future.
  • Volcanic Hazards, Risks and Disasters

    • 1st Edition
    • Paolo Papale + 1 more
    • English
    Volcanic Hazards, Risks, and Disasters provides you with the latest scientific developments in volcano and volcanic research, including causality, impacts, preparedness, risk analysis, planning, response, recovery, and the economics of loss and remediation. It takes a geoscientific approach to the topic while integrating the social and economic issues related to volcanoes and volcanic hazards and disasters. Throughout the book case studies are presented of historically relevant volcanic and seismic hazards and disasters as well as recent catastrophes, such as Chile’s Puyehue volcano eruption in June 2011.
  • Hydro-Meteorological Hazards, Risks, and Disasters

    • 1st Edition
    • Paolo Paron
    • English
    Hydro-Meteorological Hazards, Risks, and Disasters provides an integrated look at major atmospheric disasters that have had and continue to have major implications for many of the world’s people, such as floods and droughts. . This volume takes a geoscientific approach to the topic, while also covering current thinking about some directly relevant social scientific issues that can affect lives and property. Hydro-Meteorological Hazards, Risks, and Disasters also contains new insights about how climate change affects hazardous processes. For the first time, information on the many diverse topics relevant to professionals is aggregated into one volume.