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Elsevier

Books in Environmental sciences

The Environmental Sciences titles present critical research and insights into the complex interactions within natural ecosystems, climate systems, and human impacts on the environment. Covering areas such as biodiversity, sustainability, climate change, and resource management, these titles support scientific discovery and practical solutions for addressing today’s most pressing environmental challenges. This collection is essential for researchers, policymakers, and students dedicated to advancing environmental understanding and stewardship

  • Cleanup of Chemical and Explosive Munitions

    Location, Identification and Environmental Remediation
    • 2nd Edition
    • Richard Albright
    • English
    Unexploded military ordnance and toxic chemicals, some dating back to the two World Wars, are a global concern, especially when former military bases are redeveloped for housing or other civilian uses. Internationally, there are the added challenges of cleanup of battlegrounds and minefields. Experts estimate that the United States alone could spend between $50–250 billion to clean up these sites, many of which are in areas of high population density, where the demand for land for development is high. This book is unique in providing detailed guidance for cleaning up military ordnance sites – listing explosives, chemical warfare materials and breakdown products which can contaminate soil and groundwater and the tests needed to detect them, as well as cleanup techniques. Also included are remote sensing techniques, geophysical techniques, safety issues, the particular challenges of chemical weapons, etc. The author illustrates these techniques with case studies, including former battlegrounds in Europe and Asia, storage and waste disposal sites in Russia and former Soviet territories, and an extended study of the remediation of the large and complex Spring Valley site in the District of Columbia,. The second edition has been fully revised and updated, and also includes new and expanded sections on: geophysical techniques for discovering buried ordnance underwater sites and remediation techniques use of robotics, including remotely operated vehicles compliance and regulatory issues guidance documents from US Department of Defense and other sources The focus on test procedures, environmental remediation techniques, and learning from past case studies, makes Albright’s book the most comprehensive and practical guide on the market for a topic of international importance.

  • An Interactive History of the Clean Air Act

    Scientific and Policy Perspectives
    • 1st Edition
    • Jonathan M Davidson + 1 more
    • English
    The Clean Air Act of 1970 set out for the United States a basic, yet ambitious, objective to reduce pollution to levels that protect health and welfare. The Act set out state and federal regulations to limit emissions and the Environmental Protection Agency was established to help enforce the regulations. The Act has since had several amendments, notably in 1977 and 1990, and has successfully helped to increase air quality. This book reviews the history of the Clean Air Act of 1970 including the political, business, and scientific elements that went into establishing the Act, emphasizing the importance that scientific evidence played in shaping policy. The analysis then extends to examine the effects of the Act over the past forty years including the Environmental Protection Agency’s evolving role and the role of states and industry in shaping and implementing policy. Finally, the book offers best practices to guide allocation of respective government and industry roles to guide sustainable development. The history and analysis of the Clean Air Act presented in this book illustrates the centrality of scientific analysis and technological capacity in driving environmental policy development. It would be useful for policy makers, environmental scientists, and anyone interested in gaining a clearer understand of the interaction of science and policy.

  • Epigenetic Principles of Evolution

    • 1st Edition
    • Nelson R Cabej
    • English
    This is the first and only book, so far, to deal with the causal basis of evolution from an epigenetic view. By revealing the epigenetic "user" of the "genetic toolkit", this book demonstrates the primacy of epigenetic mechanisms and epigenetic information in generating evolutionary novelties. The author convincingly supports his theory with a host of examples from the most varied fields of biology, by emphasizing changes in developmental pathways as the basic source of evolutionary change in metazoans.

  • Seafloor Geomorphology as Benthic Habitat

    GeoHAB Atlas of Seafloor Geomorphic Features and Benthic Habitats
    • 1st Edition
    • Peter Harris + 1 more
    • English
    The conservation of marine benthic biodiversity is a recognised goal of a number of national and international programs such as the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). In order to attain this goal, information is needed about the distribution of life in the ocean so that spatial conservation measures such as marine protected areas (MPAs) can be designed to maximise protection within boundaries of acceptable dimensions. Ideally, a map would be produced that showed the distribution of benthic biodiversity to enable the efficient design of MPAs. The dilemma is that such maps do not exist for most areas and it is not possible at present to predict the spatial distribution of all marine life using the sparse biological information currently available. Knowledge of the geomorphology and biogeography of the seafloor has improved markedly over the past 10 years. Using multibeam sonar, the benthic ecology of submarine features such as fjords, sand banks, coral reefs, seamounts, canyons, mud volcanoes and spreading ridges has been revealed in unprecedented detail. This book provides a synthesis of seabed geomorphology and benthic habitats based on the most recent, up-to-date information. Introductory chapters explain the drivers that underpin the need for benthic habitat maps, including threats to ocean health, the habitat mapping approach based on principles of biogeography and benthic ecology and seabed (geomorphic) classification schemes. Case studies from around the world are then presented. They represent a range of seabed features where detailed bathymetric maps have been combined with seabed video and sampling to yield an integrated picture of the benthic communities that are associated with different types of benthic habitat. The final chapter examines critical knowledge gaps and future directions for benthic habitat mapping research.

  • Environmental Microbiology

    • 2nd Edition
    • Ian Pepper + 3 more
    • English
    For microbiology and environmental microbiology courses, this leading textbook builds on the academic success of the previous edition by including a comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of environmental microbiology as a discipline that has grown in scope and interest in recent years. From environmental science and microbial ecology to topics in molecular genetics, this edition relates environmental microbiology to the work of a variety of life science, ecology, and environmental science investigators. The authors and editors have taken the care to highlight links between environmental microbiology and topics important to our changing world such as bioterrorism and national security with sections on practical issues such as bioremediation, waterborne pathogens, microbial risk assessment, and environmental biotechnology.

  • Offshore Safety Management

    Implementing a SEMS Program
    • 1st Edition
    • Ian Sutton
    • English
    2010 was a defining year for the offshore oil and gas industry in the United States. On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) floating drilling rig suffered a catastrophic explosion and fire. Eleven men died in the explosion — 17 others were injured. The fire, which burned for a day and a half, eventually sent the entire rig to the bottom of the sea. The extent of the spill was enormous, and the environmental damage is still being evaluated. Following DWH the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulations and Enforcement (BOEMRE) issued many new regulations. One of them is the Safety and Environmental System (SEMS) rule, which is based on the American Petroleum Institute’s SEMP recommended practice. Companies have to be in full compliance with its extensive requirements by November 15, 2011.

  • Principles of Environmental Science and Technology

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 14
    • English

  • Bayesian Population Analysis using WinBUGS

    A Hierarchical Perspective
    • 1st Edition
    • Marc Kéry + 1 more
    • English
    Bayesian statistics has exploded into biology and its sub-disciplines, such as ecology, over the past decade. The free software program WinBUGS, and its open-source sister OpenBugs, is currently the only flexible and general-purpose program available with which the average ecologist can conduct standard and non-standard Bayesian statistics.

  • The Role of Body Size in Multispecies Systems

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 45
    • English
    The general theme is being based around the ongoing European Science Foundation SIZEMIC Research Network, which has been running for several years. The network has focused on the role of body size in ecosystems and embraces a wide remit that spans all ecosystem types and a range of disciplines, from theoretical to applied ecology.

  • Field Worker Exposure During Pesticide Application

    • 1st Edition
    • Volume 7
    • E.A.H. van Heemstra-Lequin + 1 more
    • English

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