Biogeochemical Cycles in Globalization and Sustainable Development


Book Description

This book presents a new approach to the study of global environmental changes that have unfavorable implications for people and other living systems. The book benefits from the accumulation of knowledge from different sciences. Basic global problems of the nature-society system dynamics are considered. The book aims to develop a universal information technology to estimate the state of environmental subsystems functioning under various climatic and anthropogenic conditions.




Globalisation and Sustainable Development


Book Description

This interdisciplinary book parameterizes the global ecodynamic process. The discussion considers basic global problems of the Nature-Society-System (NSS) dynamics and reviews key problems of ensuring its sustainable development. The book includes an analysis of trends in changing ecological systems and estimates characteristics of current global ecodynamics. The authors propose a new approach to NSS numerical modelling and demonstrate the results of modelling the dynamics of this system's characteristics.




Encyclopedia of Environmental Change


Book Description

Accessibly written by a team of international authors, the Encyclopedia of Environmental Change provides a gateway to the complex facts, concepts, techniques, methodology and philosophy of environmental change. This three-volume set illustrates and examines topics within this dynamic and rapidly changing interdisciplinary field. The encyclopedia includes all of the following aspects of environmental change: Diverse evidence of environmental change, including climate change and changes on land and in the oceans Underlying natural and anthropogenic causes and mechanisms Wide-ranging local, regional and global impacts from the polar regions to the tropics Responses of geo-ecosystems and human-environmental systems in the face of past, present and future environmental change Approaches, methodologies and techniques used for reconstructing, dating, monitoring, modelling, projecting and predicting change Social, economic and political dimensions of environmental issues, environmental conservation and management and environmental policy Over 4,000 entries explore the following key themes and more: Conservation Demographic change Environmental management Environmental policy Environmental security Food security Glaciation Green Revolution Human impact on environment Industrialization Landuse change Military impacts on environment Mining and mining impacts Nuclear energy Pollution Renewable resources Solar energy Sustainability Tourism Trade Water resources Water security Wildlife conservation The comprehensive coverage of terminology includes layers of entries ranging from one-line definitions to short essays, making this an invaluable companion for any student of physical geography, environmental geography or environmental sciences.




Microwave Remote Sensing Tools in Environmental Science


Book Description

This book gives new insight to the study of the global environmental changes using the ecoinformatics and microwave remote sensing tools together with the adaptive-evolutionary technology of geoinformation monitoring. The main advantage of this book consists in the accumulation of the interdisciplinary scientific knowledge for the parameterization of the global biogeochemical cycles and other environmental processes in the context of globalization and sustainable development. In this regard, the crucial global problems of the dynamics of the climate-nature-society system have been considered and the key problems of ensuring its sustainable development have been addressed. An analysis of the present trend in changing ecological systems has been discussed, including different types of forest ecosystems and ocean aquatories. The emphasis has been given to the accomplishment of the global geoinformation monitoring, which could provide a reliable control of the environmental processes development with reliable prognostic estimates of the consequences of human activities. A new approach to the numerical modelling of the climate-nature-society system has been presented and demonstrative results have been given about the modelling of the dynamics of this system‟s characteristics, in cases of realization of some scenarios of the anthropogenic impacts to the biogeochemical cycles, the land ecosystems and oceans. Methods and algorithms for the big data manipulation and processing in the remote sensing environmental monitoring systems have been described.




New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science


Book Description

This book provides new insights on the study of global environmental changes using the ecoinformatics tools and the adaptive-evolutionary technology of geoinformation monitoring. The main advantage of this book is that it gathers and presents extensive interdisciplinary expertise in the parameterization of global biogeochemical cycles and other environmental processes in the context of globalization and sustainable development. In this regard, the crucial global problems concerning the dynamics of the nature-society system are considered and the key problems of ensuring the system’s sustainable development are studied. A new approach to the numerical modeling of the nature-society system is proposed and results are provided on modeling the dynamics of the system’s characteristics with regard to scenarios of anthropogenic impacts on biogeochemical cycles, land ecosystems and oceans. The main purpose of this book is to develop a universal guide to information-modeling technologies for assessing the function of environmental subsystems under various climatic and anthropogenic conditions.




The Green Marble


Book Description

Humans have difficulty thinking at the global scale. Yet as we come to understand our planet as a single, interconnected, complex system and encounter compelling evidence of human impact on Earth’s climate and biosphere, the need for a truly global effort is increasingly urgent. In this concise and accessible text, David P. Turner presents an overview of global environmental change and a synthesis of research and ideas from the rapidly evolving fields of earth system science and sustainability science that is suitable for anyone interested in humanity’s current predicaments and what we can do about them. The Green Marble examines Earth’s past, contemporary human disruption, and the prospects for global environmental governance. Turner emphasizes the functioning of the biosphere—the totality of life on Earth—including its influence on geologic history, its sensitivity to human impacts, and its possible role in ameliorating climate change. Relying on models of the earth system that synthesize vast amounts of monitoring information and recent research on biophysical processes, The Green Marble describes a range of scenarios for our planetary home, exploring the effects of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and factors such as economic globalization. Turner juxtaposes cutting-edge ideas from both the geosciences and the social sciences to illustrate how humanity has arrived upon its current dangerous trajectory, and how we might pull back from the brink of civilization-challenging environmental change. Growing out of the author’s popular course on global environmental change, The Green Marble is accessible to non-science majors and provides a framework for understanding the complex relationship of humanity to the global environment.




Theory And Practice Of Computation - Proceedings Of Workshop On Computation: Theory And Practice Wctp2013


Book Description

This is the proceedings of the Third Workshop on Computing: Theory and Practice, WCTP 2013 devoted to theoretical and practical approaches to computation. This workshop was organized by four top universities in Japan and the Philippines: Tokyo Institute of Technology, Osaka University, University of the Philippines — Diliman, and De La Salle University. The proceedings provides a comprehensive view of the current development of fundamental research in formal method, programming language and programming development environment, bioinformatics, empathic and intelligent systems, and computing gaming in Japan and the Philippines.




Globalization and Sustainability - Ecological, Social and Cultural Perspectives


Book Description

This book, Globalization and Sustainability - Ecological, Social and Cultural Perspectives, gives an interesting overview of the frontiers of scientific research in this practically important and scientifically interesting applied ecological research area. It offers chapters about ecological, economic, cultural, and sociological aspects of this area from theoretical and practical viewpoints. I am sure that this book will be very useful for everybody—researchers, teachers, students, or others interested in the field—who would like to get some insight into this part of the complex phenomena of global sustainability.




Harnessing net primary productivity data for monitoring sustainable development of agriculture


Book Description

This study was undertaken to assess the utility of remotely sensed net primary productivity (NPP) data to measure agricultural sustainability by applying a new methodology that captures spatial variability and trends in total NPP and in NPP removed at harvest. The sustainable intensification of agriculture is widely promoted as a means for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and transitioning toward a more productive, sustainable, and inclusive agriculture, particularity in fragile environments. Yet critics claim that the 17 SDGs and 169 targets are immeasurable and unmanageable. We propose adoption of satellite-estimated, time-series NPP data to monitor agricultural intensification and sustainability, as it is one indicator potentially valuable across several SDGs. To illustrate, we present a unique monitoring framework and a novel indicator, the agricultural appropriation of net primary productivity (AANPP) and analyze spatial trends in NPP and AANPP across the continent of Africa. AANPP focuses on the proportion of total crop NPP removed at harvest. We estimate AANPP by overlaying remotely sensed satellite imagery with rasterized crop production data at 10-by-10-kilometer spatial resolution; we explore variation in NPP and AANPP in terms of food and ecological security. The spatial distribution of NPP and AANPP illustrates the dominance of cropping systems as spatial drivers of NPP across many regions in West and East Africa, as well as in the fertile river valleys across North Africa and the Sahel, where access to irrigation and other technological inputs are inflating AANPP relative to NPP. A comparison of 2000 and 2005 datasets showed increasing AANPP in African countries south of the Sahara—particularly in Mozambique, Angola, and Zambia—whereas NPP either held stable or decreased considerably. This pattern was especially evident subnationally in Ethiopia. Such trends highlight increasing vulnerability of populations to food and ecological insecurity. When combined with other indicators and time-series data, the significance of NPP and the capacity of spatially explicit datasets have far-reaching implications for monitoring the progress of sustainable development in a post-2015 world.




Constructive Processing of Microwave and Optical Data for Hydrogeochemical Applications


Book Description

This book presents results of the combined use of microwave remote sensing, optical tools, and ecoinformatics methods under solution-applied tasks at both regional and global scales. Ecoinformatics methods are used to assess links between global climate change and the level of ocean pollution, with specific focus on the Arctic Ocean, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the South-China Sea. The theoretical and applied aspects of instrumental tools are considered in this book as a basis for the monitoring of water quality in various watersheds, with particular attention to microwave remote sensing monitoring data to determine the ecotoxicological status of hydro-ecosystems affected by climate change. The book develops new information technologies that provide solutions for hydrochemical tasks using algorithms and models based on computer technologies for big data processing. This will help to synthesize effective computer-based systems for the solution of problems arising due to anthropogenic impacts on hydrological processes and objects at various spatial scales. This book is intended for specialists in the fields of environmental monitoring, climate change, human-nature interactions, and geopolitics. The book will be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying these fields of science as well.