This book provides recent environmental, ecological and hydrodynamic information for the major estuaries and the coastal marine systems of the Western Indian Ocean Region. It covers various functions and values of the region’s estuarine ecosystems and their respective habitats, including the land/ocean interactions that define and impact ecosystem services. The Western Indian Ocean region covered by this volume consists of the continental coastal states of Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania and the island states of Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Comoros.
Coasts and Estuaries: The Future provides valuable information on how we can protect and maintain natural ecological structures while also allowing estuaries to deliver services that produce societal goods and benefits. These issues are addressed through chapters detailing case studies from estuaries and coastal waters worldwide, presenting a full range of natural variability and human pressures. Following this, a series of chapters written by scientific leaders worldwide synthesizes the problems and offers solutions for specific issues graded within the framework of the socio-economic-environmental mosaic. These include fisheries, climate change, coastal megacities, evolving human-nature interactions, remediation measures, and integrated coastal management. The problems faced by half of the world living near coasts are truly a worldwide challenge as well as an opportunity for scientists to study commonalities and differences and provide solutions. This book is centered around the proposed DAPSI(W)R(M) framework, where drivers of basic human needs requires activities that each produce pressures. The pressures are mechanisms of state change on the natural system and Impacts on societal welfare (including well-being). These problems then require responses, which are the solutions relating to governance, socio-economic and cultural measures (Scharin et al 2016). Covers estuaries and coastal seas worldwide, integrating their commonality, differences and solutions for sustainability Includes global case studies from leading worldwide contributors, with accompanying boxes highlighting a synopsis about a particular estuary and coastal sea, making all information easy to find Presents full color images to aid the reader in a better understanding of details of each case study Provides a multi-disciplinary approach, linking biology, physics, climate and social sciences
World Seas: An Environmental Evaluation, Second Edition, Volume Two: The Indian Ocean to the Pacific provides a comprehensive review of the environmental condition of the seas from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Each chapter is written by experts in the field who provide historical overviews in environmental terms, current environmental status, major problems arising from human use, informed comments on major trends, problems and successes, and recommendations for the future. The book is an invaluable worldwide reference source for students and researchers who are concerned with marine environmental science, fisheries, oceanography and engineering and coastal zone development. Covers regional issues that help countries find solutions to environmental decline that may have already developed elsewhere Provides scientific reviews of regional issues, thus empowering managers and policymakers to make progress in under-resourced countries and regions Includes comprehensive maps and updated statistics in each region covered
Coastal Wetlands, Second Edition: An Integrated and Ecosystem Approach provides an understanding of the functioning of coastal ecosystems and the ecological services that they provide. As coastal wetlands are under a great deal of pressure from the dual forces of rising sea levels and the intervention of human populations, both along the estuary and in the river catchment, this book covers important issues, such as the destruction or degradation of wetlands from land reclamation and infrastructures, impacts from the discharge of pollutants, changes in river flows and sediment supplies, land clearing, and dam operations. Covers climate change and its influence on coastal wetland form and function Provides a fully updated and expanded resource, including new chapters on modeling, management and the impact of climate change Contains full-color figures of wetlands and estuaries in different parts of the world
Mangroves serve as one of the nature-based solutions for coastal communities. We are now almost at the tipping point where we can restore mangroves ecologically to mitigate climate change and enhance other important ecosystem services under the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Mangrove Ecosystem Restoration focuses on mangrove ecosystem restoration, the ecosystem services mangroves provide, and how to manage and conserve mangroves. The three sections include eight chapters that cover such topics as evaluating mangrove degradation, forest recovery through seedling recruitment, natural regeneration of mangroves, advanced molecular biology for restoring mangroves, and more.
This report indicates that climate change will significantly affect the availability and trade of fish products, especially for those countries most dependent on the sector, and calls for effective adaptation and mitigation actions encompassing food production.
The freshwater eels, the Anguillids, have increasingly become the focus of attention for fisheries managers, scientists, researchers, policy makers, conservation bodies and other stakeholders. These species can be seen as a bellwether for issues affecting aquatic ecosystems – their steep decline and the management initiatives to try and reverse this trend, touch on subjects as diverse as disconnected waterways, loss of habitat, novel parasites, pollution, over-fishing and climate change. There are some 16 species of the Anguilla genus and all exhibit similar lifestyles, growing in waters often far-removed from their marine spawning grounds. These enigmatic, contradictory and confounding species share similar challenges and pressures wherever they are found. This book was generated from the 1st UK International Eel Science Symposium which was held at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in June 2017. Hosted by the Institute of Fisheries Management (IFM), the ZSL, and the Environment Agency (EA), the Symposium was heralded as a success, with over 180 delegates in attendance. Many of the world’s top eel specialists attended or gave presentations across a diverse range of subjects. This was one of the Symposium’s, and now the book’s great strengths – its diversity of subjects and authors. Many countries are represented within the book, from across Europe and as far afield as New Zealand, South Africa, Vanuatu, French Polynesia, Japan, Canada and the USA. The EA and IFM have collaborated to produce this landmark book which includes a mix of cultural, scientific and management information which will be invaluable to anyone with a professional or personal interest in these mysterious fish, including ichthyologists, fisheries scientists and managers, aquaculture personnel, environmental biologists and ecologists, marine and freshwater biologists, vertebrate zoologists, animal behaviourists and students studying in all these areas. Libraries in all universities and research establishments where these subjects are studied and taught should have copies on their shelves. 5m Books
The Regional State of Coast Report for the western Indian Ocean (WIO) is the first comprehensive regional synthesis to provide insights into the enormous economic potential around the WIO, the consequential demand for marine ecosystem goods and services to match the increasing human population, the pace and scale of environmental changes taking place in the region and the opportunities to avoid serious degradation in one of the world's unique and highly biodiverse oceans.
Tropical cyclones in Southern Africa, also known as hurricanes or typhoons in other regions of the world, is a hot subject for academic research. This focus has been magnified by the need to consider tropical cyclones in the context of other global development agendas, that includes the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its inseparable 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Paris Agreement, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and Habitat III’s New Urban Agenda. The ambitious SDGs challenge global and community leaders to make sure development addresses the nexus among poverty, inequality and employment creation, as well as care for the earth and its natural resources and biodiversity. The SDGs further present an agenda to eradicate hunger, bring quality education and sustain water and sanitation. The infrastructure development, human settlements, sustainable consumption and production, climate change, biodiversity and the ocean (blue) economy agendas are also pitched. Lastly, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development encourages partnerships on delivering various programmes and projects at all spatial levels. However, as tropical cyclones continue to make multiple landfalls and ravage Southern Africa and other parts of the world, the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is threatened. To this end, this book addresses this gap by documenting the implications of tropical cyclones, drawing examples and case studies from recent tropical cyclones such as cyclone Idai and cyclone Kenneth that resulted in catastrophic impacts in 2019. The book comes as part of a series with three volumes. The other volumes include “Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol. 1: Interfacing the Catastrophic Impact of Cyclone Idai with SDGs in Zimbabwe” and “Cyclones in Southern Africa Vol 2: Foundational and Fundamental Topics”. Given the foregoing, the book is suitable as a read for several professionals and disciplines such as tourism and hospitality studies, economics, sustainable development, development studies, environmental sciences, arts, geography, life sciences, politics, planning and public health.
This study aims at improving the hydrological process understanding of the semi-arid and transboundary Incomati river basin to enable better water management. Comprehensive statistical and trend analysis of rainfall and streamflow were conducted, and the Indicators of Hydrological Alteration tool was deployed to describe the streamflow regime and trends over time. Land use and land cover change, particularly the conversion of natural vegetation into forest plantation, the expansion of irrigated agriculture and the flow regulation due to dam operation were identified as critical drivers of flow regime alteration. Hydrograph separation using long-term hydrochemical data at seasonal scale, and hydrochemical and isotope data at event scale were performed to quantify runoff components. A novel methodology to calibrate recursive digital filters using routinely collected water quality data was developed and tested in the catchment. This method allows for estimation of daily baseflow from readily available daily streamflow data. Dominant runoff generation zones were mapped using the Height Above Nearest Drainage approach. The hydrological model STREAM was then employed, informed by the runoff generation zones mapping and the process understanding gained in the catchment, as well as remote sensing data. The study provides the basis for better operational water management in the catchment.
