Desalination
Desalination

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2008-09-14

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0309119235

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

There has been an exponential increase in desalination capacity both globally and nationally since 1960, fueled in part by growing concern for local water scarcity and made possible to a great extent by a major federal investment for desalination research and development. Traditional sources of supply are increasingly expensive, unavailable, or controversial, but desalination technology offers the potential to substantially reduce water scarcity by converting the almost inexhaustible supply of seawater and the apparently vast quantities of brackish groundwater into new sources of freshwater. Desalination assesses the state of the art in relevant desalination technologies, and factors such as cost and implementation challenges. It also describes reasonable long-term goals for advancing desalination technology, posits recommendations for action and research, estimates the funding necessary to support the proposed research agenda, and identifies appropriate roles for governmental and nongovernmental entities.

Adaptation to Climate Change: A Spatial Challenge
Adaptation to Climate Change: A Spatial Challenge

Author: Rob Roggema

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-03-12

Total Pages: 375

ISBN-13: 1402093594

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

As it becomes clear that climate change is not easily within the boundaries of the 1990’s, society needs to be prepared and needs to anticipate future changes due to the uncertain changes in climate. So far, extensive research has been carried out on several issues including the coastal defence or shifting ecozones. However, the role spatial design and planning can play in adapting to climate change has not yet been focused on. This book illuminates the way adaptation to climate change is tackled in water management, ecology, coastal defence, the urban environment and energy. The question posed is how each sector can anticipate climate change by creating spatial designs and plans. The main message of this book is that spatial design and planning are a very useful tool in adapting to climate change. It offers an integral view on the issue, it is capable in dealing with uncertainties and it opens the way to creative and anticipative solutions. Dealing with adaptation to climate change requires a shift in mindset; from a technical rational way of thinking towards an integral proactive one. A new era in spatial design and planning looms on the horizon.

Basics of Foundation Design
Basics of Foundation Design

Author: Bengt Fellenius

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2017-03-17

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 1365824004

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The "Red Book" presents a background to conventional foundation analysis and design. The text is not intended to replace the much more comprehensive 'standard' textbooks, but rather to support and augment these in a few important areas, supplying methods applicable to practical cases handled daily by practising engineers and providing the basic soil mechanics background to those methods. It concentrates on the static design for stationary foundation conditions. Although the topic is far from exhaustively treated, it does intend to present most of the basic material needed for a practising engineer involved in routine geotechnical design, as well as provide the tools for an engineering student to approach and solve common geotechnical design problems.

Construction Stakeholder Management
Construction Stakeholder Management

Author: Ezekiel Chinyio

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2009-10-22

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9781444315356

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book captures best practice in construction stakeholdermanagement using a range of international case studies. Itdemonstrates stakeholder mapping, presents the power/interestmatrix and analyses a model for the timely engagement ofstakeholders. The increased use of partnering and other relational forms ofcontracting have underlined the need for project participants towork together and also to be aware of all those who can affect orbe affected by a project and its associated developments.Stakeholder management enables them to see this wider picture andprovides guidance for managing the diverse views and interests thatcan manifest in the course of a project’s life. All construction projects have the potential for conflicts ofinterest that can result in costly and damaging legal proceedings.This new book advocates an alternative to dispute resolution thatis proactive, practical and global in its application.Construction Stakeholder Management is therefore anessential text for advanced students, lecturers, researchers andpractitioners in the built environment.

Saving Louisiana?
Saving Louisiana?

Author: Bill Streever

Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9781617033384

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

"From the Mississippi River's Old River Control Structure to the pipeline canals of the Gulf's oil fields to the capitol in Baton Rouge, Saving Louisiana? follows scientists, conservationists, and politicians, as they persistently ask the same question: Can Louisiana's coastline be saved? For some experts, technical uncertainty impedes progress. For others, bureaucracy and special interests block what they see as the right path. Still others believe that the real challenge lies in determining what society really wants, so that ecosystem restoration becomes a balance of dollars against choices. Saving Louisiana? builds a story of doubt and discord that captures the technical and human drama of ecosystem restoration and management"--Publisher website (March 23, 2009).

The Synthetic Age
The Synthetic Age

Author: Christopher J. Preston

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2019-02-19

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 0262537095

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Imagining a future in which humans fundamentally reshape the natural world using nanotechnology, synthetic biology, de-extinction, and climate engineering. We have all heard that there are no longer any places left on Earth untouched by humans. The significance of this goes beyond statistics documenting melting glaciers and shrinking species counts. It signals a new geological epoch. In The Synthetic Age, Christopher Preston argues that what is most startling about this coming epoch is not only how much impact humans have had but, more important, how much deliberate shaping they will start to do. Emerging technologies promise to give us the power to take over some of Nature's most basic operations. It is not just that we are exiting the Holocene and entering the Anthropocene; it is that we are leaving behind the time in which planetary change is just the unintended consequence of unbridled industrialism. A world designed by engineers and technicians means the birth of the planet's first Synthetic Age. Preston describes a range of technologies that will reconfigure Earth's very metabolism: nanotechnologies that can restructure natural forms of matter; “molecular manufacturing” that offers unlimited repurposing; synthetic biology's potential to build, not just read, a genome; “biological mini-machines” that can outdesign evolution; the relocation and resurrection of species; and climate engineering attempts to manage solar radiation by synthesizing a volcanic haze, cool surface temperatures by increasing the brightness of clouds, and remove carbon from the atmosphere with artificial trees that capture carbon from the breeze. What does it mean when humans shift from being caretakers of the Earth to being shapers of it? And in whom should we trust to decide the contours of our synthetic future? These questions are too important to be left to the engineers.