Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment

Review of the Draft Fourth National Climate Assessment

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2018-06-18

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 0309471699

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Climate change poses many challenges that affect society and the natural world. With these challenges, however, come opportunities to respond. By taking steps to adapt to and mitigate climate change, the risks to society and the impacts of continued climate change can be lessened. The National Climate Assessment, coordinated by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, is a mandated report intended to inform response decisions. Required to be developed every four years, these reports provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date evaluation of climate change impacts available for the United States, making them a unique and important climate change document. The draft Fourth National Climate Assessment (NCA4) report reviewed here addresses a wide range of topics of high importance to the United States and society more broadly, extending from human health and community well-being, to the built environment, to businesses and economies, to ecosystems and natural resources. This report evaluates the draft NCA4 to determine if it meets the requirements of the federal mandate, whether it provides accurate information grounded in the scientific literature, and whether it effectively communicates climate science, impacts, and responses for general audiences including the public, decision makers, and other stakeholders.


Environmental Flow Assessment

Environmental Flow Assessment

Author: John G. Williams

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2019-03-26

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1119217393

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Provides critiques of current practices for environmental flow assessment and shows how they can be improved, using case studies. In Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications, four leading experts critique methods used to manage flows in regulated streams and rivers to balance environmental (instream) and out-of-stream uses of water. Intended for managers as well as practitioners, the book dissects the shortcomings of commonly used approaches, and offers practical advice for selecting and implementing better ones. The authors argue that methods for environmental flow assessment (EFA) can be defensible as well as practicable only if they squarely address uncertainty, and provide guidance for doing so. Introductory chapters describe the scientific and social reasons that EFA is hard, and provide a brief history. Because management of regulated streams starts with understanding freshwater ecosystems, Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications includes chapters on flow and organisms in streams. The following chapters assess standard and emerging methods, how they should be tested, and how they should (or should not) be applied. The book concludes with practical recommendations for implementing environmental flow assessment. Describes historical and recent trends in environmental flow assessment Directly addresses practical difficulties with applying a scientifically informed approach in contentious circumstances Serves as an effective introduction to the relevant literature, with many references to articles in related scientific fields Pays close attention to statistical issues such as sampling, estimation of statistical uncertainty, and model selection Includes recommendations for methods and approaches Examines how methods have been tested in the past and shows how they should be tested today and in the future Environmental Flow Assessment: Methods and Applications is an excellent book for biologists and specialists in allied fields such as engineering, ecology, fluvial geomorphology, environmental planning, landscape architecture, along with river managers and decision makers.


Climate Change and Water

Climate Change and Water

Author: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change / Working Group Technical Support Unit

Publisher:

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13: 9789291691234

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The Technical Paper addresses the issue of freshwater. Sealevel rise is dealt with only insofar as it can lead to impacts on freshwater in coastal areas and beyond. Climate, freshwater, biophysical and socio-economic systems are interconnected in complex ways. Hence, a change in any one of these can induce a change in any other. Freshwater-related issues are critical in determining key regional and sectoral vulnerabilities. Therefore, the relationship between climate change and freshwater resources is of primary concern to human society and also has implications for all living species. -- page vii.


Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Construction, Infrastructure, and Materials

Proceedings of the Second International Conference of Construction, Infrastructure, and Materials

Author: Han Ay Lie

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2022-02-01

Total Pages: 621

ISBN-13: 9811679495

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This book comprises selected proceedings of the 2nd International Conference of Construction, Infrastructure, and Materials (ICCIM 2021) focusing on topics such as structural engineering, construction materials, geotechnical engineering, transportation system and engineering, construction management, water resources engineering, and infrastructure development. Its content will be useful to researchers, educators, practitioners, and policymakers alike.


Current Practice in Fluvial Geomorphology

Current Practice in Fluvial Geomorphology

Author: Krishna Gopal Ghosh

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2020-01-08

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13: 1789845785

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Amid increasing interactions with other disciplines and technical advances for detecting, monitoring, and modeling fluvial landscape origin, dynamics, and diversity, a number of scientific works have come out and nested in globally recognized edited books. This book is an attempt in this regard, where a few precise regular research works from diverse disciplinary expertise from around the globe are compiled as chapters. In this collective effort, the application of geoinformatics, field data on natural rivers, instrumentation, use of analytic tools, scientific techniques, numerical models, case studies, illustrations, etc. in understanding formative processes and appraising fluvial landscapes will hopefully provide insight into the current practice of fluvial geomorphology and may guide fruitful and coherent scientific enquiry into the field.


Assessment of the Performance of Engineered Waste Containment Barriers

Assessment of the Performance of Engineered Waste Containment Barriers

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2007-08-22

Total Pages: 134

ISBN-13: 0309134064

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President Carter's 1980 declaration of a state of emergency at Love Canal, New York, recognized that residents' health had been affected by nearby chemical waste sites. The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, enacted in 1976, ushered in a new era of waste management disposal designed to protect the public from harm. It required that modern waste containment systems use "engineered" barriers designed to isolate hazardous and toxic wastes and prevent them from seeping into the environment. These containment systems are now employed at thousands of waste sites around the United States, and their effectiveness must be continually monitored. Assessment of the Performance of Engineered Waste Containment Barriers assesses the performance of waste containment barriers to date. Existing data suggest that waste containment systems with liners and covers, when constructed and maintained in accordance with current regulations, are performing well thus far. However, they have not been in existence long enough to assess long-term (postclosure) performance, which may extend for hundreds of years. The book makes recommendations on how to improve future assessments and increase confidence in predictions of barrier system performance which will be of interest to policy makers, environmental interest groups, industrial waste producers, and industrial waste management industry.


Scour- and Erosion-Related Issues

Scour- and Erosion-Related Issues

Author: Chirla N.V. Satyanarayana Reddy

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-09-13

Total Pages: 125

ISBN-13: 9811647836

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This book comprises chapters on scour and erosion related issues. It is an outcome of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE) Technical Committee 213 Workshop on Scour and Erosion that was held on December 16, 2020. The ISSMGE TC213 Workshop was attended by 368 participants from 12 different countries worldwide. The contents of this book reflect recent advances in the mechanics and countermeasures of scour and erosion, including coastal protection, erosion control, etc. Covering practical issues of geotechnical engineering with academic and research inputs, this volume will be a useful reference for academia and industry alike.


Developing an Impact-Based Combined Drought Index for Monitoring Crop Yield Anomalies in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Developing an Impact-Based Combined Drought Index for Monitoring Crop Yield Anomalies in the Upper Blue Nile Basin, Ethiopia

Author: Yared A. Bayissa

Publisher: CRC Press

Published: 2018-10-26

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 0429679769

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Having a robust drought monitoring system for Ethiopia is crucial to mitigate the adverse impacts of droughts. Yet, such monitoring system still lacks in Ethiopia, and in the Upper Blue Nile (UBN) basin in particular. Several drought indices exist to monitor drought, however, these indices are unable, individually, to provide concise information on the occurrence of meteorological, agricultural and hydrological droughts. A combined drought index (CDI) using several meteorological, agricultural and hydrological drought indices can indicate the occurrence of all drought types, and can provide information that facilitates the drought management decision-making process. This thesis proposes an impact-based combined drought index (CDI) and a regression prediction model of crop yield anomalies for the UBN basin. The impact-based CDI is defined as a drought index that optimally combines the information embedded in other drought indices for monitoring a certain impact of drought, i.e. crop yield for the UBN. The developed CDI and the regression model have shown to be effective in indicating historic drought events in UBN basin. The impact-based CDI could potentially be used in the future development of drought monitoring in the UBN basin and support decision making in order to mitigate adverse drought impacts.