Environmental Risks
Environmental Risks

Author: Florin-Constantin Mihai

Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand

Published: 2018-10-10

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 1789842239

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Environmental risks are a multi- and interdisciplinary topic with a great interest in current society. This book examines the issues of natural hazards (e.g., typhoons, landslides, wildfires), anthropogenic activities (construction of artificial dams, the operation of nuclear power plants), and their potential risks to the environment and/or quality of life at various scales, from local to regional and even at a global level. The book intends to discuss concepts, methods, and techniques to address environmental risks and vulnerabilities, revealing the complex interactions between nature and human communities and activities. Policies and practices for disaster risk management should be based on the best state-of-the-art methods and techniques, integration between natural and/or social approaches, interdisciplinary research, and multilevel cooperation.

Ecological Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens
Ecological Responses to the 1980 Eruption of Mount St. Helens

Author: Virginia H. Dale

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2006-01-16

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0387281509

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens caused tragic loss of life and property, but also created a unique opportunity to study a huge disturbance of natural systems and their subsequent responses. This book synthesizes 25 years of ecological research into of volcanic activity, and shows what actually happens when a volcano erupts, what the immediate and long-term dangers are, and how life reasserts itself in the environment.

Forest Pattern and Ecological Process
Forest Pattern and Ecological Process

Author: David Lindenmayer

Publisher: CSIRO PUBLISHING

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0643096604

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Forest Pattern and Ecological Process is a major synthesis of 25 years of intensive research about the montane ash forests of Victoria, which support the world's tallest flowering plants and several of Australia's most high profile threatened and/or endangered species. It draws together major insights based on over 170 published scientific papers and books, offering a previously unrecognised set of perspectives of how forests function. The book combines key strands of research on wildfires, biodiversity conservation, logging, conservation management, climate change and basic forest ecology and management. It is divided into seven sections: introduction and background; forest cover and the composition of the forest; the structure of the forest; animal occurrence; disturbance regimes; forest management; and overview and future directions. Illustrated with more than 200 photographs and line drawings, Forest Pattern and Ecological Process is an essential reference for forest researchers, resource managers, conservation and wildlife biologists, ornithologists and mammalogists, and policy makers, as well as general readers with interests in wildlife and forests. Features: * The extent of synthesis at a range of key levels * The depth of new perspectives on forest processes and ecological patterns in one of the world's truly great forests - the montane ash forests * The breadth of past and very current research that is both pure and applied * The range of key topics and how they are inter-twined - wildfires, biodiversity conservation, logging, conservation management, climate change and basic forest ecology and management

Plant Reproductive Ecology : Patterns and Strategies
Plant Reproductive Ecology : Patterns and Strategies

Author: Jon and Lesley Lovett-Doust Professor of Biology the University of Windsor

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1988-07-07

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 0198021925

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This collection of reviews by leading investigators examines plant reproduction and sexuality within a framework of evolutionary ecology, providing an up-to-date account of the field. The contributors discuss conceptual issues, showing the importance of sex allocation, sexual selection and inclusive fitness, and the dimensions of paternity and maternity in plants. The evolution, maintenance, and loss of self-incompatibility in plants, the nature of 'sex choice' in plants, and sex dimorphism are all explored in detail. Specific forms of biotic interactions shaping the evolution of plant reproductive strategy are discussed, and a taxonomically based review of the reproductive ecology of non-angiosperm plant groups, such as bryophytes, ferns, and algae, is presented. Together these studies focus on the complexities of plant life cycles and the distinctive reproductive biologies of these organisms, while showing the similarities between nonflowering plants and the more thoroughly documented flowering species.

Pattern and Process in a Forested Ecosystem
Pattern and Process in a Forested Ecosystem

Author: F.Herbert Bormann

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1461262321

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The advent of ecosystem ecology has created great difficulties for ecologists primarily trained as biologists, since inevitably as the field grew, it absorbed components of other disciplines relatively foreign to most ecologists yet vital to the understanding of the structure and function of ecosystems. From the point of view of the biological ecologist struggling to understand the enormous complexity of the biological functions within an ecosystem, the added necessity of integrating biology with geochemis try, hydrology, micrometeorology, geomorphology, pedology, and applied sciences (like silviculture and land use management) often has appeared as an impossible requirement. Ecologists have frequently responded by limiting their perspective to biology with the result that the modeling of species interactions is sometimes considered as modeling ecosystems, or modeling the living fraction of the ecosystems is considered as modeling whole ecosystems. Such of course is not the case, since understanding the structure and function of ecosystems requires sound understanding of inanimate as well as animate processes and often neither can be under stood without the other. About 15 years ago, a view of ecology somewhat different from most then prevailing, coupled with a strong dose of naivete and a sense of exploration, lead us to believe that consideration of the inanimate side of ecosystem function rather than being just one more annoying complexity might provide exceptional advantages in the study of ecosystems. To examine this possibility, we took two steps which occurred more or less simultaneously.

Ecological responses to environment stresses
Ecological responses to environment stresses

Author: Jelte Rozema

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9400905998

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

September 1987, the Faculty Biology of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam commemorated the fact that Prof. Dr. Wilfried Hans Otto Ernst had been active as a scientist for 25 years. This period of 25 years of scientific research started at the Institut flir Angewandte Botanik (Institute of Applied Botany) of the University of Munster, FRG. In 1965 he completed his Ph. D. thesis, entitled "Untersuchungen der Schwermetallpflanzengesellschaften Mitteleuropas unter Einschluss der Alpen. " He was appointed full Professor at the Department of Ecology of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam in 1973. On the occasion of his 25th anniversary as a scientist, a promise was made, though in covert terms, which we could not redeem at that time. The promise held to offer Prof. Ernst a book, in which his former and present staffmembers, Ph. D. students and colle ages should write a review about their specialism concerning a central theme. Now, at the beginning of 1990 we consider the chapters of "Ecological Responses to Environmental Stresses" to be completed. The book reflects the wide range of research approaches that has been initiated and organized by Wilfried Ernst. The editors hope to have attained the primary aim of the production of the book of friends, that is to gather relevant papers of staff-members and colleagues of Wilfried Ernst. The title of the book "Ecological Responses to Environmental Stresses" covers the majority of the chapters included.

Riverine Ecosystem Management
Riverine Ecosystem Management

Author: Stefan Schmutz

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-05-08

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 3319732501

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This open access book surveys the frontier of scientific river research and provides examples to guide management towards a sustainable future of riverine ecosystems. Principal structures and functions of the biogeosphere of rivers are explained; key threats are identified, and effective solutions for restoration and mitigation are provided. Rivers are among the most threatened ecosystems of the world. They increasingly suffer from pollution, water abstraction, river channelisation and damming. Fundamental knowledge of ecosystem structure and function is necessary to understand how human acitivities interfere with natural processes and which interventions are feasible to rectify this. Modern water legislation strives for sustainable water resource management and protection of important habitats and species. However, decision makers would benefit from more profound understanding of ecosystem degradation processes and of innovative methodologies and tools for efficient mitigation and restoration. The book provides best-practice examples of sustainable river management from on-site studies, European-wide analyses and case studies from other parts of the world. This book will be of interest to researchers in the field of aquatic ecology, river system functioning, conservation and restoration, to postgraduate students, to institutions involved in water management, and to water related industries.

Water Policy in Australia
Water Policy in Australia

Author: Lin Crase

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2010-09-30

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1136525211

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In the last twenty years, policy makers in Australia have been forced to acknowledge that it is not possible to perpetually supply more water at a low cost. Consequently, the country has begun to focus on water resource management through legislative and institutional change attempting to allocate water in a more economically efficient and socially and environmentally acceptable manner. This book provides insight into the challenges of institutional change, as well as valuable lessons on the design of property rights for complex resources. Contributors from across disciplines address pertinent issues, such as irrigation in the Murray-Darling basin, one of Australia's largest drainage divisions; the progression from common law riparian rights to share-based entitlements that encourage sustainable water use; and the potential outcomes of the recent National Water Initiative, a wide-ranging strategy to improve water management and simultaneously maintain healthy groundwater and river systems.