Product Description
Over recent years there has been an increasing awareness of therisks of locating hazardous industries near heavily populated,environmentally sensitive areas. This new awareness demands a novelapproach to safety planning for hazardous industries; one that looksat the problem from the point of view of integrated regional riskassessment which, besides the risks arising from natural events,should also include the risks arising from the processing plants,storage and the transportation of dangerous goods. Volume I of Integrated Regional Risk Assessment highlightsthe main procedures for the assessment of risks to health andenvironmental impacts from continuous emissions of pollutants intoair, water and soil under normal operating conditions.Volume II deals with the assessment of consequences ofaccidental releases, helping to answer such questions as:-What can go wrong?-What are the effects andconsequences?-How often will it happen?The mainprocedural steps are supported by relevant, internationally recognisedmethods of risk assessment. The book also reviews criteria andguidelines for the implementation of risk assessment and management atdifferent stages. Audience: Students, engineers, and scientists in charge ofdeveloping new methodologies for hazard analysis and risk assessment;practitioners of environmental protection; local and governmentalauthorities charged with implementing environmental risk impactprocedures and guidelines. ... Read more

Product Description
The twin categories of the state and nature collectively embody some of the most fundamental reference points around which our lives and thinking are organized. Despite their combined significance, however, the complex relationships that exist between modern states and nature remain under-theorized and are relatively unexplored.Through a detailed study of different sites, moments, and framing strategies The Nature of the State challenges the ways in which geographers and social scientists approach the study of state-nature relations.The authors analyse different instances of state-nature interaction from all over the world, considering the geo-politics of resource conflicts, the operation of natural history museums, the organizational practices of environmental departments and ministries, the regulation of genetic science, and contemporary forms of state intervention within issues of climate change. Introducing original research into the different institutional, spatial, and temporal strategies used by states to frame the natural world this book provides a critical overview of the latest political and ecological theories and addresses a wide range of pressing socio-environmental debates. ... Read more

Product Description
This landmark study forms part of the series UNU Studies on CriticalEnvironmental Regions. The Basin of Mexico exemplifies an endangered environment well on itsway to criticality. At the helm of this dangerous course is Mexico City, that massive megalopolis inwhich dramatic concentrations of all kinds have coalesced to render an already precariousenvironment supremely capable of "biting back" and posing an immediate and long-term threat tohuman use, health, and well-being. The extraordinary pace of environmental changes is alreadydepleting natural resources in the region and beyond and may be overwhelming local environmentalsinks as well as institutional and societal capacities to cope.

An ever-increasing propensity to inhibit ongoing environmental degradation by enlistingimported resources and awaiting technological fixes may well have the effect of increasing overallrisk. At the same time, however, the prospect of reversing the trajectory toward criticality is notaltogether out of the question and may well be in progress in specific areas. Ezcurra and hiscolleagues rightly view the region as a laboratory engaged in testing many of the processes under wayin the less-developed regions of the world. The outcome of this experiment may signal the fate ofother mega-cities across the globe. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good Book
The book is great description on the environmental problems and how theyrelate to sustainability of the Mexican Basin. ... Read more

Product Description
Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 2009.

Historians from Thucydides to William McNeill have pointed to the connections between disease and civil society. Political scientists have investigated the relationship of public health to governance, introducing the concept of health security. In Contagion and Chaos, Andrew Price-Smith offers the most comprehensive examination yet of disease through the lens of national security. Extending the analysis presented in his earlier book The Health of Nations, Price-Smith argues that epidemic disease represents a direct threat to the power of a state, eroding prosperity and destabilizing both its internal politics and its relationships with other states. He contends that the danger of an infectious pathogen to national security depends on lethality, transmissability, fear, and economic damage. Moreover, warfare and ecological change contribute to the spread of disease and act as "disease amplifiers."

Price-Smith presents a series of case studies to illustrate his argument: the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918-19 (about which he advances the controversial claim that the epidemic contributed to the defeat of Germany and Austria); HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa (he contrasts the worst-case scenario of Zimbabwe with the more stable Botswana); bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also known as Mad Cow Disease); and the SARS contagion of 2002-03. Emerging infectious disease continues to present a threat to national and international security, Price-Smith argues, and globalization and ecological change only accelerate the danger. ... Read more

Product Description

Urban Ecology is a rapidly growing field of academic and practical significance. Urban ecologists have published several conference proceedings and regularly contribute to the ecological, architectural, planning, and geography literature. However, important papers in the field that set the foundation for the discipline and illustrate modern approaches from a variety of perspectives and regions of the world have not been collected in a single, accessible book. Foundations of Urban Ecology does this by reprinting important European and American publications, filling gaps in the published literature with a few, targeted original works, and translating key works originally published in German. This edited volume will provide students and professionals with a rich background in all facets of urban ecology.

The editors emphasize the drivers, patterns, processes and effects of human settlement. The papers they synthesize provide readers with a broad understanding of the local and global aspects of settlement through traditional natural and social science lenses. This interdisciplinary vision gives the reader a comprehensive view of the urban ecosystem by introducing drivers, patterns, processes and effects of human settlements and the relationships between humans and other animals, plants, ecosystem processes, and abiotic conditions. The reader learns how human institutions, health, and preferences influence, and are influenced by, the others members of their shared urban ecosystem.

Product Description
This book focuses on two basic concepts: security and desertification in the Mediterranean Region and their linkages. The book is divided into six special topical areas dealing with Linking Environmental Condition to Security; Assessing Regional Conditions; Assessing Land Use Change Relative to Human-induced and Natural Cause; Opportunities for Regional Cooperation and Information Sharing; Soil and Vegetation Monitoring; and Development of Regional Desertification Indicators and Forecasting Techniques. This book provides a multi-lateral forum for cooperation, information exchange, and dialogue among the environmental, development, foreign and security policy communities within the Mediterranean Region and thus may provide a precedent for further cooperation and partnership, including other more advanced conferences and publications, on assessing the condition of the entire region and the subsequent impacts and linkages to environmental security. ... Read more

Product Description
This true story is set in the Coachella Valley, the desert region best known for Palm Springs, California, a glamorous and sunny resort for the rich and famous, filled with emerald green golf courses, lakes, condominiums, and sunset-capped blue mountains. Yvonne Tevis here delineates the ongoing intense battle between developers and conservationists over how this precious land should be used. Basing her tale around the fight to save the habitat of an endangered species, the fringe-toed lizard, Tevis includes: interviews, maps, illustrations, notes, and a comprehensive bibliography, with valid arguments presented on both sides of the issue. A must read for all those concerned with protecting our environment. ... Read more

Product Description

This book is a collection of readings that explore environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean using natural science and social science methods. These papers demonstrate the value of interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and solve environmental problems. The essays are organized into five parts: conservation challenges; national policies, local communities, and rural development; market mechanisms for protecting public goods; public participation and environmental justice; and the effects of development policies on the environment.

Product Description
This is an important and informative work by one of the acknowledged leaders in the field. Its synthesis of the literature on pastoralist societies presents a clear discussion of their importance for African societies. It will be widely read and used by scholars and practitioners concerned with Africa's livestock keeping people. It draws on some of the most current literature on pastoralist societies in Africa - highlighting both the similarities and differences between them.Katherine Homewood is Professor of Anthropology at University College, LondonNorth America: Ohio U Press; South Africa: Unisa Press ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, published by Air and Waste Management Association on April 1, 2002. The length of the article is 5960 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Modeling and spatially distributing forest net primary production at the regional scale. (Technical Paper).
Author: Robert A. Mickler
Publication: Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 2002
Publisher: Air and Waste Management Association
Page: 407(9)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Canada and the World Backgrounder, published by Taylor Publishing Consultants Ltd. on October 1, 1995. The length of the article is 1343 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Loggers versus tree-huggers. (Canadian environmentalists have clashed with the timber industry over such issues as clear-cutting forests)(Sustainable Development - Forestry)
Author: Rupert T. Taylor
Publication: Canada and the World Backgrounder (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 1995
Publisher: Taylor Publishing Consultants Ltd.
Volume: v61Issue: n2Page: p18(4)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Endangered Species Update, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1959 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Rethinking regional habitat conservation plan monitoring programs: an innovative approach in San Diego, California.
Author: Keith A. Greer
Publication: Endangered Species Update (Newsletter)
Date: July 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 23Issue: 3Page: 91(5)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This comprehensive 2nd edition provides an up-to-date introduction to the nature of ecological degradation in a world of dramatic environmental changes. ... Read more

Product Description
Cultural landscapes are usually understood within physical geography as ones transformed by human action. Advances in palaeocological reconstruction techniques have increased our powers to discern the earliest human impacts. This stimulating new book attempts to bridge the gap between the sciences and the humanities by reviewing the most important methodological and conceptual tools that help environmental scientists understand cultural landscapes. ... Read more

Product Description
'Collectively, this is a superb and comprehensive volume.' Geology Magazine ' ... a landmark study, which will undoubtedly be a valuable reference and source of information for many years to come.' Geophysics ' ... an impressive and highly laudable undertaking by geographers to 'put it all together', that is, to establish a theoretical framework for assessing the environmental changes wrought by modern societies in the past three centuries, and to document these changes in detail. As such, the tome will serve as an indispensable reference and resource on global change. It will be used by all scholars, teachers and students concerned with the increasingly pressing issue of the environment and its management - or mismanagement - by humans everywhere on our planet.' Nature ... Read more

Product Description
The first comprehensive survey of Chinese environmental history, this book crystallizes a new field of scholarship that studies the creation of distinct environments as a result of the interaction of human social systems with the natural world.Pioneering essays explore new methodologies of historical environmental research, comparisons of China with the West and Japan, and the impact of the early modern ecological transformation on the spread of disease.An indispensable book for those trying to understand the foundations of modern China or the origins of many of contemporary China's most daunting challenges. ... Read more

Product Description
Remarkable photographs celebrate the wild placesand the exquisite animals of the country called“the roofof the world.”Here is the most comprehensive photography todate of a little-known and seldom-visited landwhose area equals western Europe. The beauty and diversity of Tibet is staggering: from MountEverest to the world’s deepest gorge, fromtropical jungles to arctic-like tundra, fromtrees twenty feet in diameter to vast herds andsolitary specimens of some of the least-knownanimals on the planet. Certain photographs, such as those of a newborn Tibetan antelope or theelusive red ghoral, are among the first evertaken of these subjects.The book bringsAmerican, Tibetan, and Chinese scholarship tobear on the natural history of Tibet, and italso describes an extraordinary conservationaccomplishment that has gone virtually unnoticed by the outside world. Where else has 40 percentof the land been set aside in nature preservesin twenty years? As a result of this effort, the animals and landscapes shown here will be savedfor future generations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Gorgeous photographs and great information on Tibetan wildlife
_Across the Tibetan Plateau_ by Robert L. Fleming Jr., Dorje Tsering, and Liu Wulin is a gorgeous coffee-table book containing excellent photographs, wonderful satellite maps of Tibet, and excellent information on the fauna, flora, climate, and geology of the region.

The introductory chapter is very brief, the authors basically making the point that Tibet is often portrayed as a "relentlessly cold plateau of no trees," a land of little other than "windblown yaks and picturesque nomads." They write that it is so much more, a land that includes ecological zones from arctic to subtropic.

Chapter one is titled "ferns & firs: the wet southeast." This land is often quite isolated and boasts a subtropical climate and at higher elevations, cold-temperate and mountain-tundra zones. Its chief native human inhabitants being the Monba or Loba people (who cultivate barley and hunt and gather forest products with the use of hunting dogs), the area isbotanically diverse, itsflora includes often huge cinnamon trees (reaching upwards of 60 feet in height) and over 200 species of rhododendron. Its fauna includes cobras, the red ghoral (a small "goat-antelope"), the giant flying squirrel, the takin ("its face a peculiar profile reminiscent of its closest relative, the musk ox"), and several species of pheasant.

The second chapter looks at the rain-shadow deserts of south central Tibet, which on satellite maps appear as "light tan terrain" to the north of the "white-mantled Great Himalayan Range." This land, the "historical heart" of Tibet, includes the traditional birthplace of the Tibetan people (according to legend the result of a union between an ogress and a monkey), the capital Lhasa, impressive avifauna (the Tibetan snow cock, golden eagles, and the Himalayan griffon), and the thankfully increasing blue sheep, the quintessential herbivore of the mountainous highlands of central Asia.

Chapter three focuses on the "far west," a land that while on maps appears to be dominated by twin lakes of Manasarowar and Rakshas Tal, is still a rain-shadow desert. In this part of Tibet one finds Mount Kailash, the world's most sacred peak, the bar-headed goose (a small but distinctive goose that nests on the shores of highland lakes throughout Central Asia, it has a physiology such that it can migrate even over the Himalayas), the kiang (or Tibetan wild ass, once quite common), and great herds of domestic yak, vital to the lives of highland pastoralists.

Chapter four, "wild yaks & turquoise lakes," looked at the north of Tibet, a land of vast, open vistas and many lakes, some freshwater, some alkaline (nearly five hundred lakes of at least one square kilometer in size exist here). Much of the area is technically tundra with permafrost, resulting in widespread boggy wetlands in the summer months (attracting nesting migratory shorebirds). This region is the last stronghold of the wild yak and the highly endangered Tibetan antelope, overhunted to produce shahtoosh, "the world's most expensive hair," woven into "shawls so fine that they can be pulled through a finger-size ring." Other notable animals include brown-headed gulls (which nest in the hundreds on the edges of lakes), the black-necked crane (once thought one of the rarest crane species, now known to number over 10,000), grizzly bears, and wolves (sightings of which are almost always of single animals or pairs, never packs).

Chapter five examined eastern Tibet, a land of "rumpled" terrain dissected by many river valleys.There was excellent information and many fine pictures of the area's terrace farming, white-lipped deer, partridges, many varieties of conifer, and the unfortunate indiscriminate logging plaguing the region.

The sixth chapter looked at river valleys in Tibet, major "biological highways." Five major Asian rivers rise in the region. This chapter included much discussion of conservation, climate, and many Tibetan bird species (such as the ruddy shelduck, "one of the most characteristic birds of Tibet" and the demoiselle crane, a "small, elegant crane").

Chapter seven looked the topography and seasons of Tibet. In this section there is much discussion of the geology that produced Tibet and the overall climate of the region, particularly as it affects Tibet's flora, fauna, and people. One learns for instance that winter can mean "quite different things in various parts of the land;" some areas, such as in the southeast, may see huge snowfalls while other areas have clear cold winters and in fact if larger than normal snow storms occur can see widespread starvation of livestock and wildlife (one such storm in 1998 led to the death of thousands of domestic animals and extreme hardship for those that depended upon them). There are also areas of immense beauty; for instance much of the sacred Chimpuk Valley is "smothered in rosebushes."

The final chapter looked at conservation. The situation seems a hopeful one; in fifteen years Tibet went from less than 1% of its animals and lands protected to by the end of 2003 over 40% of its land area under some form of protection. Though animals in Tibet have suffered in the 19th and 20th centuries from poaching there is a long tradition for the respect of living things. Even today there are many "holy hot spots" where even poachers avoid. The blue-eared pheasant for instance, now restricted entirely to southeastern Tibet, has been heavily hunted for food; in one valley however, they are common and visible, not shy, thanks to a centuries-old tradition of protection. The Changtang Nature Reserve in northern Tibet, created in 1995 (the third largest protected area on the planet after Greenland and Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter, covering some 115,000 square miles) has been of immense help in preserving the wild yak (which has tripled its numbers) and the Tibetan antelope (the number of poached antelope falling from 5,000 in 1995 to 500 in 2002). There is even a large wetland preserve right on the edge of downtown Lhasa. The authors sound a very hopeful note, showing the great strides in government policies, policing, and the training of the average person in presevering Tibet's diverse fauna and flora.

Tibetan Plateau
The pictures in the book were outstanding, and the text was well organized, allowing the reader to find the particular areas of interest. The description of the animals and plants was great, but there was not so much information on conservation activities. Perhaps there isn't too much of that going on. Lovely coffee table book. ... Read more

Product Description

For nearly two centuries, the creation myth for the United States imagined European settlers arriving on the shores of a vast, uncharted wilderness. Over the last two decades, however, a contrary vision has emerged, one which sees the country's roots not in a state of "pristine" nature but rather in a "human-modified landscape" over which native peoples exerted vast control.

Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape seeks a middle ground between those conflicting paradigms, offering a critical, research-based assessment of the role of Native Americans in modifying the landscapes of pre-European America. Contributors focus on the western United States and look at the question of fire regimes, the single human impact which could have altered the environment at a broad, landscape scale, and which could have been important in almost any part of the West. Each of the seven chapters is written by a different author about a different subregion of the West, evaluating the question of whether the fire regimes extant at the time of European contact were the product of natural factors or whether ignitions by Native Americans fundamentally changed those regimes.

An introductory essay offers context for the regional chapters, and a concluding section compares results from the various regions and highlights patterns both common to the West as a whole and distinctive for various parts of the western states. The final section also relates the findings to policy questions concerning the management of natural areas, particularly on federal lands, and of the "naturalness" of the pre-European western landscape. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Great Content Makes Up For Poor Binding
Pages are dropping out of this book as I read it, but I'm loving the back and forth of contrasting theories on the influence of native peoples on the landscapes of the western United States. It seems to me that the scholarship in this book is a bit slanted toward the idea that the influences of Native Americans on the western landscape (using fire) were limited and localized. I believe this is pretty close to the truth, but I suspect that others may disagree, as it appears to be a controversial topic that engages a desire on the part of many to advocate the dignity of aboriginal cultures, even to the point of envisioning those cultures as "civilizations". For others, the mere suggestion that hard evidence might be overshadowed by any cause--however noble--is offensive.

Excellant Overview of Anthropogenic Fire
Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape joins a sparse field of books that deal with native peoples (though the book mostly focuses on Native Americans) and their interactions with fire.

Great introduction to the subject which deals evenly with the subject avoiding speculating beyond their available evidence.

The book is well-written and easy to read.Highly recommended! ... Read more