A derivative of the Encyclopedia of Inland Waters, Lake Ecosystem Ecology examines the workings of the lake and reservoir ecosystems of our planet. Information and perspectives crucial to the understanding and management of current environmental problems are covered, such as eutrophication, acid rain and climate change. Because the articles are drawn from an encyclopedia, the articles are easily accessible to interested members of the public, such as conservationists and environmental decision makers. Includes an up-to-date summary of global aquatic ecosystems and issues Covers current environmental problems and management solutions Features full-color figures and tables to support the text and aid in understanding
A derivative of the Encyclopedia of Inland Waters, River Ecosystem Ecology reviews the function of rivers and streams as ecosystems as well as the varied activities and interactions that occur among their abiotic and biotic components. Because the articles are drawn from an encyclopedia, the articles are easily accessible to interested members of the public, such as conservationists and environmental decision makers. Includes an up-to-date summary of global aquatic ecosystems and issues Covers current environmental problems and management solutions Features full-color figures and tables to support the text and aid in understanding
The vast majority of the world's lakes are small in size and short lived in geological terms. Only 253 of the thousands of lakes on this planet have surface areas larger than 500 square kilometers. At first sight, this statistic would seem to indicate that large lakes are relatively unimportant on a global scale; in fact, however, large lakes contain the bulk of the liquid surface freshwater of the earth. Just Lake Baikal and the Laurentian Great Lakes alone contain more than 38% of the world's total liquid freshwater. Thus, the large lakes of the world accentuate an important feature of the earth's freshwater reserves-its extremely irregular distribution. The energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s made us aware of the fact that we live on a spaceship with finite, that is, exhaustible resources. On the other hand, the energy crisis led to an overemphasis on all the issues concerning energy supply and all the problems connected with producing new energy. The energy crisis also led us to ignore strong evidence suggesting that water of appropriate quality to be used as a resouce will be used up more quickly than energy will. Although in principle water is a "renewable resource," the world's water reserves are diminishing in two fashions, the effects of which are multiplicative: enhanced consumption and accelerated degradation of quality.
This concise yet comprehensive introduction to the biology of standing waters (lakes and ponds) combines traditional limnology with current ecological and evolutionary theory. 'The Biology of Lakes and Ponds', now in its second edition, should be a useful text for university tuition.
Lakes and reservoirs hold a great promise as a source of freshwater demand of which will grow with passage of time. Unfortunately, these ecosystems are being neglected and destroyed in rural as well as in urban areas. The main problem in their management involves responsible for water holding capacity. Innumerable lakes and reservoirs scattered all over the country need an urgent management plans for their protection, rehabilitation and conservation. By suitable remedial measures these water bodies can provide an ideal recreational site apart from other benefits like fish production, charging of groundwater table, conditioning of the climate etc. To achieve this, there is a need of a clear-cut lake and reservoir protection strategy as an integral component of natural water policy. In the present book on Ecology of Lakes and Reservoirs an attempt has been made to bring out the present status of lakes and reservoirs. It is includes the physical, chemical and biological aspects. The proposed book include 17 research articles of eminent scientists representing different lakes and reservoirs in India. Today environmental education is made compulsory at school and college levels. Even in recent years many graduate and postgraduate courses have ecology as an important subjects. As a result, there is a need for comprehensive book on Ecology of Lakes and Reservoirs . This gap has been filled by the book. The proposed book will be useful for the ecologists, fishery biologists, students, scientists and policy makers as a reference material. It will also reviews the progress made in the field in the past few decades. Contents Chapter 1: Studies on Macro-zoobenthos in Mir Alam Lake, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh by G Anitha, M S Kodarkar and S V A Chandrasekhar; Chapter 2: Ecology of Jawalgaon Reservoir in Solapur District, Maharashtra by V B Sakhare; Chapter 3: Ecology, Biodiversity and Management of Rabindar Sarovar in Kolkata, West Bengal by Manika Mukherji and N C Nandi; Chapter 4: Studies on Algae of Polluted Lakes of Jalgaon (Maharashtra): Role of Blue Green Algae by S N Nandan and S R Mahajan; Chapter 5: Limnological Studies on Kondakarla Lake Visakha District, Andhra Pradesh by S V A Chandrasekhar; Chapter 6: Cladocerans of Amaravathy Reservoir, Udumalpet, Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu, India by K Thirumathal; Chapter 7: Geoenvironmental and Microecological Characteristics of Lonar Lake, Maharashtra by Md Babar and P S Wakte; Chapter 8: Seasonal Variations in Certain Physico-chemical Characteristics of Rampur Reservoir of Guna District (MP) by Dushyant Kumar Sharma; Chapter 9: Physico-chemical Analysis of Water from Ekruk Reservoir (Maharashtra) for Potability by P K Joshi; Chapter 10: Water Quality of Talwade Reservoir of Nashik District, Maharashtra by Yogesh Shastri and P Y Bhogaonkar; Chapter 11: Contribution to the Distribution of Freshwater Copepods of Kanchipuram District of Tamil Nadu by K Renuga and R Ramanibai; Chapter 12: Ecology and Behaviour of Zooplanktons in Manjara Project Reservoir in Maharashtra by R J Chavan, A D Mohekar and C J Hiware; Chapter 13: Water Quality and Ecological Studies of Masoli Reservoir in Parbhani District, Maharashtra by S U Kadam, J M Gaikwad and Md Babar; Chapter 14: Physico-chemical Analysis of Bhategaon Reservoir in Parbhani District, Maharashtra by R P Mali, A T Kamble andLM Mudkhede; Chapter 15: Ichthyofauna of Reservoirs from Solapur District, Maharashtra by J S Mohite; Chapter 16: An Evaluation of Fisheries Potential of Masoli Reservoir in Parbhani District of Maharashtra by S P Chavan; Chapter 17: In situ Conservation Strategies for Urban Lakes: A Case Study of Thane City by Nagesh S Tekale.
This volume presents recent advances in the research on meromictic lakes and a state-of-the art overview of this area. After an introduction to the terminology and geographic distribution of meromictic lakes, three concise chapters describe their physical, chemical and biological features. The following eight chapters present case studies of more than a dozen meromictic lakes, showing the variety of physical and biochemical processes that promote meromixis. The result is a broad picture of the ecology and biochemistry of meromictic lakes in tropical and cold regions, in man-made pit lakes and euxinic marine lakes, and in freshwater as well as hypersaline lakes. In the final chapter the editors provide a synthesis of the topic and conclude that the study of meromictic lakes also offers new insights into the limnology of inland lakes. The book appeals to researchers in the fields of ecology, limnology, environmental physics and biophysics.
This volume, cataloging and analyzing the current science on the state of Lake Michigan, is an important part of Great Lakes recovering science. It carries forward the singular contribution that the binational Great Lakes scientific community has made not only to restoring the Great Lakes but also to the world's body of knowledge about large lake ecology, the long-range transport of pollutants, and the importance of habitat in ensuring ecosystem health.
Aldo Leopold, father of the "land ethic," once said, "The time has come for science to busy itself with the earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a sample of what we had to begin with." The concept he expressedâ€"restorationâ€"is defined in this comprehensive new volume that examines the prospects for repairing the damage society has done to the nation's aquatic resources: lakes, rivers and streams, and wetlands. Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems outlines a national strategy for aquatic restoration, with practical recommendations, and features case studies of aquatic restoration activities around the country. The committee examines: Key concepts and techniques used in restoration. Common factors in successful restoration efforts. Threats to the health of the nation's aquatic ecosystems. Approaches to evaluation before, during, and after a restoration project. The emerging specialties of restoration and landscape ecology.
Ecology of Shallow Lakes brings together current understanding of the mechanisms that drive the diametrically opposite states of water clarity, shown by the cover paintings, found in many shallow lakes and ponds. It gives an outline of the knowledge gained from field observations, experimental work, and restoration studies, linked by a solid theoretical framework. The book focuses on shallow lakes, but the lucid treatment of plankton dynamics, resuspension, light climate and the role of vegetation is relevant to a much wider range of aquatic systems. The models that are used remain simple and most analyses are graphical rather than algebraic. The text will therefore appeal to students, scientists and policy makers in the field of ecology, fisheries, pollution studies and water management, and also to theoreticans who will benefit from the many real-world examples of topics such as predation and competition theory, bifurcation analysis and catastrophe theory. Perhaps most importantly, the book is a remarkable example of how large field experiments and simple models can catalyze our insight into complex ecosystems. Marten Scheffer wrote this book while at the Institute of Inland Water Management and Waste Treatment, RIZA, Lelystad, The Netherlands. He is currently at the Department of Water Quality Management and Aquatic Ecology of the Wageningen Agricultural University. Reviews `Much rarer are textbooks that so succinctly sum up the state-of-the-art knowledge about a subject that they become instant `bibles'. This book is one of these. It is probably one of the best biological textbooks I have read. Scheffer masterfully pulls all this information together under one cover and presents a coherent account, which will serve as a benchmark for the subject. The reader will not gain any great insight into the breeding biology of pike from this book, nor learn much about dragonflies or newts. They will, however, come to understand the essential nature of shallow lakes or, as the author puts it, `how shallow lakes work'. Overall, this book will be of great interest to practical and theoretical ecologists, students and managers in all fields of biology. All freshwater ecologists should certainly read it.' Simon Harrison in Journal of Ecology, 86 `The book by Scheffer can be seen as a milestone in the recognition of shallow lakes as a research topic in its own right. Scheffer uses three approaches concurrently to unravel the functioning of shallow lakes: 1) statistical analysis of large datasets from a variety of lakes; 2) simple abstract models made up of a few non-linear ordinary differential equations, which he calls `mini-models'; and 3) logical reasoning based on a mixture of results from fieldwork, experiments and models. What is new is that Scheffer links mathematics very nicely with what one feels is a correct description of the functioning of a shallow lake. Employing logical reasoning, Scheffer combines all these sources of knowledge into a general, coherent picture of the functioning of a shallow lake.' Wolf Mooij in Aquatic Ecology, 32
