Encyclopedia of Environmental Science Vol 3
- New Delhi Discovery Publishing House Pvt. Ltd. 2014
- 268
The purpose of this book is a straightforward one to present a fair reflection of approaches currently employed to address environmental issues and to provide the reader with a working knowledge of the science that underpins them and to understand the essential facts and deeper cultural connections of topics and issues related to the scientific study of the environment and its impacts on humanity. Human biological and cultural origins are, of course, deeply tied to the environment. But just as earth's environment shaped humanity, human activity (anthropogenic activity) now leaves an unmistakable stamp upon the natural world. Encyclopedia of environmental Science places special emphasis on exploring the impacts of human habitation and economic activity on the environment. This book also reflects the scientific consensus regarding global climate that it is real and an urgent global problem and offers topics developed to explaining both the science and the social challenges. We wrote this book to convey these exciting scientific insights to a readership including undergraduate, postgraduate environmental studies majors and environmental conservation professionals that is not intimately familiar with environment as a scientific discipline. Our hope is that readers will come to appreciate the intricate ways that humans are connected to their environment and how their interactions can after the sustainability of the very ecosystems of which they are a part to their environment and how their interactions can alter the sustainability of the very ecosystems of which they are a part and from which they derive vital services. We do not consider ourselves to be environmentalists, which we define as someone who advocates particular ways of solving problmes. As a scientist who studies the workings of envirom=nmental systems. We feel it is our duty to present the science as clearly and as objectively as possible and in ways that illuminatye the consequences of different actions so that each reader can make informeed decisions about how he or she chooses to the consequences of different actions so that each readers the very humbling understanding that the consequences of our decisions today will be felt by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. These are the timescales at the least on which environmental functions operate and on which we need to anticipate our impacts.
Contents Adaptation Adaptive Radiation Agricultural Ecology Amphibians Angiosperms Anthropology Archaecology and Sustainable Development Atolls Agro Forestry Bacteria Barrier Islands Beaches Birds Bony Fishes Botany Brophytes Carivora Chordates(Nonvertebrate) Climatology Coevolution Cmmunities Community Compostion Conservation Biology Confinental Shelf Clear Cutting Closed Ecology Experiments Corporate Green Movement Deep-Sea Hydrotherma Vent Faunas Deposition Draining of Wetlands Dryland Farming Dryland Farming Management Techniques Denitrification Ecological Niches Economics Embryology Erosion Ethics of Conservation Ethnology Evolution Evolutionary Biodiversity Evolutionary Genetics Edaphology Food Webs and Food Pyramids Fungi Fungi Nutrition and Cell Reproduction Fear of Fungi Fungi and Others Fertigation Filtration Fluorescence Spectroscopy Fluorescence Spectra Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectoscopy Gelogical Time Scale Geology , Geomorphology , and Geography Gymnosperms Habitat Tracking Herbivory Homo Sapiens Human Evolution Hydrocarbons Indigenous Conservation Interior Wetlands International Trade and Biodiversity Intertidal Zone Lagoons Lichens Linguistic Diversity Lysimety Meteorology Microbiology Moutains Maps and Atlases Natural Selection Nitrogen Cycle Nutrient/Energy Cycling Oceanic Trenches Organic and Locally Grown Foods Paleontology Phylogeny Plate Tectonics Pollination Positive Interactions Preservation of Habitats Preservation of Species Primates Recycling Waste Materials Snowball Earth Speciation Sucession and Sucession like Processes Sucession in Particular Systematics Species Reintroduction Programme Superfund Sites Surveying Sea Level Rise Topsoil Formation Tourism, Ecotoutrism and Biodiversity Tropical Rain Forests The Importance of Rain Forests The Future of Tropical Rain Forests Urbanization Valuing Biodiversity Viruses Viruses' Role in Disease War and Conflict- Related Environmental Destruction Xenathrans