This book reviews the concept, contemporary research efforts and the implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM). The IWRM concept was established as an international guiding water management paradigm in the early 1990ies and has become a vital approach to solving the problems associated with the topic of water. The book summarizes fourteen comprehensive IWRM research projects with worldwide coverage and analyses their motivations, settings, approaches and implementation of results. Aiming to be an up-to-date interdisciplinary scientific reference, this book provides a comprehensive theoretical and empirical analysis of contemporary IWRM research, examples of science based implementations and a synthesis of the lessons learnt. It concludes with some major future challenges, the solving of which will further strengthen the IWRM concept.
Selenium: Geobotany, Biochemistry, Toxicity, and Nutrition focuses on the properties, characteristics, reactions, applications, chemistry, and transformations of selenium. The book first offers information on the geological distribution of selenium, including the formation of seleniferous soils, chemical forms of selenium in soils, selenium in water, selenium on the sea floor and in sea water, and geobotany. The text then takes a look at selenium indicator in plants and accumulation of selenium by plants. Discussions focus on selenium accumulations in indicator plants; selenium accumulation in farm crops and native grasses; factors that influence selenium accumulation in plants; and identification of indicators by germination tests. The manuscript elaborates on selenium poisoning in animals and prevention and control of selenium poisoning. Acute selenium poisoning, chronic selenium poisoning by inorganic selenium, and recognition of poisonous range plants are also discussed. The text also examines selenium in nutrition and the chemistry of selenium. The publication is a valuable source of data for readers interested in the study of selenium.
This open access book describes the serious threat of invasive species to native ecosystems. Invasive species have caused and will continue to cause enormous ecological and economic damage with ever increasing world trade. This multi-disciplinary book, written by over 100 national experts, presents the latest research on a wide range of natural science and social science fields that explore the ecology, impacts, and practical tools for management of invasive species. It covers species of all taxonomic groups from insects and pathogens, to plants, vertebrates, and aquatic organisms that impact a diversity of habitats in forests, rangelands and grasslands of the United States. It is well-illustrated, provides summaries of the most important invasive species and issues impacting all regions of the country, and includes a comprehensive primary reference list for each topic. This scientific synthesis provides the cultural, economic, scientific and social context for addressing environmental challenges posed by invasive species and will be a valuable resource for scholars, policy makers, natural resource managers and practitioners.
This thorough and informative volume presents a set of detailed, globally applicable techniques for seagrass research.The book provides methods for all aspects of seagrass science from basic plant collection to statistical approaches and investigations of plant-animal interaction. The emphasis is on methods that are applicable in both developing and developed countries. The importance of seagrasses in coastal and near shore environments, and ultimately their contribution to the productivity of the world's oceans, has become increasingly recognised over the last 40 years.Seagrasses provide food for sea turtles, nearly 100 fish species, waterfowl and for the marine mammals the manatee and dugong. Seagrasses also support complex food webs by virtue of their physical structure and primary production and are well known for their role as breeding grounds and nurseries for important crustacean, finfish and shell fish populations. Seagrasses are the basis of an important detrital food chain. The plants filter nutrients and contaminants from the water, stabilise sediments and act as dampeners to wave action. Seagrasses rank with coral reefs and mangroves as some of the world's most productive coastal habitat and strong linkages among these habitats make the loss of seagrasses a contributing factor in the degradation of the world's oceans.Contributors from around the world provide up-to-date methods for comparable collection of ecological information from both temperate and tropical seagrass ecosystems.