Atlas of Environmental Risks Facing China Under Climate Change


Book Description

This atlas provides the most comprehensive and accurate overview of environmental risks relating to climate change vulnerability and adaptation in China. It addresses the agricultural, ecosystem and heat wave health risk posed by climate change and presents the projected environmental risks in the 21st century under climate change and socioeconomic scenarios. The detailed and concise risk assessments are mapped in grid units, allowing easy environmental risk assessment for specific locations. The atlas contributes significantly to the knowledge base for climate change adaptation in China and is a valuable resource for students and professionals in the fields of geographic sciences and climate change.




Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change


Book Description

As climate has warmed over recent years, a new pattern of more frequent and more intense weather events has unfolded across the globe. Climate models simulate such changes in extreme events, and some of the reasons for the changes are well understood. Warming increases the likelihood of extremely hot days and nights, favors increased atmospheric moisture that may result in more frequent heavy rainfall and snowfall, and leads to evaporation that can exacerbate droughts. Even with evidence of these broad trends, scientists cautioned in the past that individual weather events couldn't be attributed to climate change. Now, with advances in understanding the climate science behind extreme events and the science of extreme event attribution, such blanket statements may not be accurate. The relatively young science of extreme event attribution seeks to tease out the influence of human-cause climate change from other factors, such as natural sources of variability like El Niño, as contributors to individual extreme events. Event attribution can answer questions about how much climate change influenced the probability or intensity of a specific type of weather event. As event attribution capabilities improve, they could help inform choices about assessing and managing risk, and in guiding climate adaptation strategies. This report examines the current state of science of extreme weather attribution, and identifies ways to move the science forward to improve attribution capabilities.




The Regional Impacts of Climate Change


Book Description

Cambridge, UK : Cambridge University Press, 1998.




Hindu Kush-Himalaya Watersheds Downhill: Landscape Ecology and Conservation Perspectives


Book Description

This book describes the myriad components of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya (HKH) region. The contributors elaborate on challenges, failures, and successes in efforts to conserve the HKH, its indigenous plants and animals, and the watershed that runs from the very roof of the planet via world-rivers to marine estuaries, supporting a human population of some two billion people. Readers will learn how the landforms, animal species and humans of this globally fascinating region are connected, and understand why runoff from snow and ice in the world’s tallest mountains is vital to inhabitants far downstream. The book comprises forty-five chapters organized in five parts. The first section, Landscapes, introduces the mountainous watersheds of the HKH, its weather systems, forests, and the 18 major rivers whose headwaters are here. The second part explores concepts, cultures, and religions, including ethnobiology and indigenous regimes, two thousand years of religious tradition, and the history of scientific and research expeditions. Part Three discusses policy, wildlife conservation management, habitat and biodiversity data, as well as the interaction of animals and humans. The fourth part examines the consequences of development and globalization, from hydrodams, to roads and railroads, to poaching and illegal wildlife trade. This section includes studies of animal species including river dolphins, woodpeckers and hornbills, langurs, snow leopards and more. The concluding section offers perspectives and templates for conservation, sustainability and stability in the HKH, including citizen-science projects and a future challenged by climate change, growing human population, and global conservation decay. A large assemblage of field and landscape photos, combined with eye-witness accounts, presents a 50-year local and wider perspective on the HKH. Also included are advanced digital topics: data sharing, open access, metadata, web portal databases, geographic information systems (GIS) software and machine learning, and data mining concepts all relevant to a modern scientific understanding and sustainable management of the Hindu Kush-Himalaya region. This work is written for scholars, landscape ecologists, naturalists and researchers alike, and it can be especially well-suited for those readers who want to learn in a more holistic fashion about the latest conservation issues.




China's Environmental Challenges


Book Description

China's huge environmental challenges are significant for us all. They affect not only the health and well-being of China but the very future of the planet. In the second edition of this acclaimed, trailblazing book, noted China specialist and environmentalist Judith Shapiro investigates China's struggle to achieve sustainable development against a backdrop of acute rural poverty and soaring middle class consumption. Using five core analytical concepts to explore the complexities of this struggle - the implications of globalization, the challenges of governance; contested national identity, the evolution of civil society, and problems of environmental justice and displacement of environmental harm - Shapiro poses a number of pressing questions: Can the Chinese people equitably achieve the higher living standards enjoyed in the developed world? Are China's environmental problems so severe that they may shake the government's stability, legitimacy and control? To what extent are China's environmental problems due to world-wide patterns of consumption? Does China's rise bode ill for the displacement of environmental harm to other parts of the world? And in a world of increasing limits on resources, how can we build a system in which people enjoy equal access to resources without taking them from successive generations, from the vulnerable, or from other species? China and the planet are at a pivotal moment; transformation to a more sustainable development model is still possible. But - as Shapiro persuasively argues - doing so will require humility, creativity, and a rejection of business as usual. The window of opportunity will not be open much longer.




Advances in Chemical Analysis Procedures (Part I)


Book Description

The availability (and the development) of innovative approaches to quantitative analyses and the data processing are often mandatory to deeply characterize a sample and to correctly highlight the analytical target. These objectives are carried out either by simply improving a single aspect of the analytical protocol or by developing a synergy of steps (from extraction to instrumental configuration to chemometric approaches) to obtain the maximum analytical information sought. Examples are innovative extraction protocols (also following the recent guidelines on green analytical chemistry) or new materials for the selective extraction of target compounds, multi-analytes screening methods, and "untargeted" approaches for food applications. In this text, the various articles are attributable to these elements, in particular, we start with a multi-analyte method for the determination of 10 different cannabinoids from Cannabis sativa L. by means of conventional techniques (Mandrioli and coworkers), to then see the application of techniques hyphenated "ultra-fast" by UPLC-MS for the authentication of food products (Xue and coworkers). The work of Song and coworkers on these applications in food products is also interesting, as it highlights how the collection process (and the timing of this passage) can affect the chemical profile and, consequently, the biological activity of Panax ginseng. Mocan and coworkers, applying an innovative extraction technique based on microwaves and applying well-known, robust, and easy-to-use instrumentation, have demonstrated how it is possible to discriminate between various species of Galium and how the chemical profiles obtained can support the biological activities observed. Similarly, but with the aim of developing new sample pretreatment procedures, Maggira and collaborators have developed graphene oxide-based materials for the selective extraction of sulfonamides in milk. Shen and coworkers apply a different type of approach, the "untargeted" one, for the geographical characterization of the Gentian Rigescens for which they combine chemometric techniques for the processing of raw chemical profile data. Wang and coworkers report a multiclass screening of drugs with high-resolution mass spectrometry through which they manage to obtain a high-scale, fast screening method for pesticides in fishery drugs based on ultrahigh-performance liquid chromatography tandem quadrupole-orbitrap high-resolution mass spectrometer.




Complex Networks & Their Applications IX


Book Description

This book highlights cutting-edge research in the field of network science, offering scientists, researchers, students and practitioners a unique update on the latest advances in theory and a multitude of applications. It presents the peer-reviewed proceedings of the IX International Conference on Complex Networks and their Applications (COMPLEX NETWORKS 2020). The carefully selected papers cover a wide range of theoretical topics such as network models and measures; community structure, network dynamics; diffusion, epidemics and spreading processes; resilience and control as well as all the main network applications, including social and political networks; networks in finance and economics; biological and neuroscience networks and technological networks.




Confronting Climate Uncertainty in Water Resources Planning and Project Design


Book Description

Confronting Climate Uncertainty in Water Resources Planning and Project Design describes an approach to facing two fundamental and unavoidable issues brought about by climate change uncertainty in water resources planning and project design. The first is a risk assessment problem. The second relates to risk management. This book provides background on the risks relevant in water systems planning, the different approaches to scenario definition in water system planning, and an introduction to the decision-scaling methodology upon which the decision tree is based. The decision tree is described as a scientifically defensible, repeatable, direct and clear method for demonstrating the robustness of a project to climate change. While applicable to all water resources projects, it allocates effort to projects in a way that is consistent with their potential sensitivity to climate risk. The process was designed to be hierarchical, with different stages or phases of analysis triggered based on the findings of the previous phase. An application example is provided followed by a descriptions of some of the tools available for decision making under uncertainty and methods available for climate risk management. The tool was designed for the World Bank but can be applicable in other scenarios where similar challenges arise.




Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries


Book Description

The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery catch data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world's foremost fisheries experts. Edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project, the Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. Each national report describes the current state of the country's fishery; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations.




Information Resources in Toxicology, Volume 1: Background, Resources, and Tools


Book Description

This new fifth edition of Information Resources in Toxicology offers a consolidated entry portal for the study, research, and practice of toxicology. Both volumes represents a unique, wide-ranging, curated, international, annotated bibliography, and directory of major resources in toxicology and allied fields such as environmental and occupational health, chemical safety, and risk assessment. The editors and authors are among the leaders of the profession sharing their cumulative wisdom in toxicology's subdisciplines. This edition keeps pace with the digital world in directing and linking readers to relevant websites and other online tools.Due to the increasing size of the hardcopy publication, the current edition has been divided into two volumes to make it easier to handle and consult. Volume 1: Background, Resources, and Tools, arranged in 5 parts, begins with chapters on the science of toxicology, its history, and informatics framework in Part 1. Part 2 continues with chapters organized by more specific subject such as cancer, clinical toxicology, genetic toxicology, etc. The categorization of chapters by resource format, for example, journals and newsletters, technical reports, organizations constitutes Part 3. Part 4 further considers toxicology's presence via the Internet, databases, and software tools. Among the miscellaneous topics in the concluding Part 5 are laws and regulations, professional education, grants and funding, and patents. Volume 2: The Global Arena offers contributed chapters focusing on the toxicology contributions of over 40 countries, followed by a glossary of toxicological terms and an appendix of popular quotations related to the field.The book, offered in both print and electronic formats, is carefully structured, indexed, and cross-referenced to enable users to easily find answers to their questions or serendipitously locate useful knowledge they were not originally aware they needed. Among the many timely topics receiving increased emphasis are disaster preparedness, nanotechnology, -omics, risk assessment, societal implications such as ethics and the precautionary principle, climate change, and children's environmental health. - Introductory chapters provide a backdrop to the science of toxicology, its history, the origin and status of toxicoinformatics, and starting points for identifying resources - Offers an extensive array of chapters organized by subject, each highlighting resources such as journals, databases,organizations, and review articles - Includes chapters with an emphasis on format such as government reports, general interest publications, blogs, and audiovisuals - Explores recent internet trends, web-based databases, and software tools in a section on the online environment - Concludes with a miscellany of special topics such as laws and regulations, chemical hazard communication resources, careers and professional education, K-12 resources, funding, poison control centers, and patents - Paired with Volume Two, which focuses on global resources, this set offers the most comprehensive compendium of print, digital, and organizational resources in the toxicological sciences with over 120 chapters contributions by experts and leaders in the field