Download or read book The West without Water written by B. Lynn Ingram and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The West without Water documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty millennia, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources. Looking at the region’s current water crisis from the perspective of its climate history, the authors ask the central question of what is "normal" climate for the West, and whether the relatively benign climate of the past century will continue into the future. The West without Water merges climate and paleoclimate research from a wide variety of sources as it introduces readers to key discoveries in cracking the secrets of the region’s climatic past. It demonstrates that extended droughts and catastrophic floods have plagued the West with regularity over the past two millennia and recounts the most disastrous flood in the history of California and the West, which occurred in 1861–62. The authors show that, while the West may have temporarily buffered itself from such harsh climatic swings by creating artificial environments and human landscapes, our modern civilization may be ill-prepared for the future climate changes that are predicted to beset the region. They warn that it is time to face the realities of the past and prepare for a future in which fresh water may be less reliable.
Download or read book Atmospheric Rivers written by F. Martin Ralph and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-10 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the standard reference based on roughly 20 years of research on atmospheric rivers, emphasizing progress made on key research and applications questions and remaining knowledge gaps. The book presents the history of atmospheric-rivers research, the current state of scientific knowledge, tools, and policy-relevant (science-informed) problems that lend themselves to real-world application of the research—and how the topic fits into larger national and global contexts. This book is written by a global team of authors who have conducted and published the majority of critical research on atmospheric rivers over the past years. The book is intended to benefit practitioners in the fields of meteorology, hydrology and related disciplines, including students as well as senior researchers.
Download or read book The West Without Water written by B. Lynn Ingram and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Documents the tumultuous climate of the American West over twenty thousand years, with tales of past droughts and deluges and predictions about the impacts of future climate change on water resources."--Back cover.
Download or read book Our Warming Planet Topics In Climate Dynamics written by Cynthia Rosenzweig and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2018-01-18 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The processes and consequences of climate change are extremely heterogeneous, encompassing many different fields of study. Dr David Rind in his career at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and as a professor at Columbia University has had the opportunity to explore many of these subjects with colleagues from these diverse disciplines. It was therefore natural for the Lectures in Climate Change series to begin with his colleagues contributing lectures on their specific areas of expertise.This first volume, entitled Our Warming Planet: Topics in Climate Dynamics, encompasses topics such as natural and anthropogenic climate forcing, climate modeling, radiation, clouds, atmospheric dynamics/storms, hydrology, clouds, the cryosphere, paleoclimate, sea level rise, agriculture, atmospheric chemistry, and climate change education. Included with this publication are downloadable PowerPoint slides of each lecture for students and teachers around the world to be better able to understand various aspects of climate change.The lectures on climate change processes and consequences provide snapshots of the cutting-edge work being done to understand what may well be the greatest challenge of our time, in a form suitable for classroom presentation.
Download or read book Cadillac Desert written by Marc Reisner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1993-06-01 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “I’ve been thinking a lot about Cadillac Desert in the past few weeks, as the rain fell and fell and kept falling over California, much of which, despite the pouring heavens, seems likely to remain in the grip of a severe drought. Reisner anticipated this moment. He worried that the West’s success with irrigation could be a mirage — that it took water for granted and didn’t appreciate the precariousness of our capacity to control it.” – Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times, January 20,2023 "The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in the competition to transform the West. Based on more than a decade of research, Cadillac Desert is a stunning expose and a dramatic, intriguing history of the creation of an Eden--an Eden that may only be a mirage. This edition includes a new postscript by Lawrie Mott, a former staff scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, that updates Western water issues over the last two decades, including the long-term impact of climate change and how the region can prepare for the future.
Download or read book Drought Water Law and the Origins of California s Central Valley Project written by Tim Stroshane and published by University of Nevada Press. This book was released on 2016-10-27 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an account of how water rights were designed as a key part of the state’s largest public water system, the Central Valley Project. Along sixty miles of the San Joaquin River, from Gustine to Mendota, four corporate entities called “exchange contractors” retain paramount water rights to the river. Their rights descend from the days of the Miller & Lux Cattle Company, which amassed an empire of land and water from the 1850s through the 1920s and protected these assets through business deals and prolific litigation. Miller & Lux’s dominance of the river relied on what many in the San Joaquin Valley regarded as wasteful irrigation practices and unreasonable water usage. Economic and political power in California’s present water system was born of this monopoly on water control. Stroshane tells how drought and legal conflict shaped statewide economic development and how the grand bargain of a San Joaquin River water exchange was struck from this monopoly legacy, setting the stage for future water wars. His analysis will appeal to readers interested in environmental studies and public policy.
Download or read book Drought in the West written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Water and Power Resources and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Notes on the Severe Heat and Drought Over the Middle West During the Summer of 1913 written by P. C. Day and published by . This book was released on 1913 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Adapting to Drought written by Michael Mortimore and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1989-03-30 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book embodies the results of thirteen years of research in drought-prone rural areas in the semi-arid zone of northern Nigeria. It describes the patterns of adaptive behaviour observed among Hausa, Ful'be and Manga communities in response to recurrent drought in the 1970s and 1980s. The question of desertification is explored in an area where the visible evidence of moving sand dunes is dramatic blame are examined in relation to the field evidence. A critique is offered of deterministic theories and authoritarian solutions. Professor Mortimore demonstrates a parallel between the observable resilience of semi-arid ecosystems and the adaptive strategies of the human communities that inhabit them and suggests policy directions for strengthening that resilience.
Download or read book Solar Terrestrial Influences on Weather and Climate written by Billy McCormac and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book contains most of the invited papers and contributions pre sented at the Symposium/Workshop on Solar-Terrestrial Influences on Weather and Climate which was held at The Ohio State University on 24-28 July 1978. The authors and publisher have made a special effort for rapid publi cation. The length of the individual papers in this book were delib erately limited by the editors. Direct financial support for the Symposium/Workshop was provided by NASA. Palo Alto Billy M. McCormac Columbus Thomas A. Seliga January 1979 xiii SYMPOSIUH/WORKSHOP CONCLUSIONS Billy M. McCormac Department 52-l0/B202 Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratory 3251 Hanover Street Palo Alto, CA 94304 USA Thomas A. Seliga Atmospheric Sciences Program The Ohio State University 2015 Neil Avenue Columbus, OH 43210 USA A. INTRODUCTION The Symposium/Workshop on Solar-Terrestrial Influences on Weather and Climate was held at The Ohio State University on 24-28 July 1978. Its purpose was to provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of recent research results and ideas regarding the question whether variations in solar outputs affect terrestrial weather and cli mate and, if so, to what extent and through what mechanisms. The Sym posium focused on the results of previous studies and consisted of both invited and contributed papers. The Workshop, on the other hand, built upon these deliberations to develop ideas and directions for future research. Over one hundred persons from eight countries attended the Symposium/ Workshop.
Download or read book Drought Management in a Changing West written by DIANE Publishing Company and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1995-10 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This conference was organized in response to concerns about western water & natural resources mgmt. & the region's apparent growing vulnerability to extended periods of water shortage. Includes papers presented during plenary sessions, preconf. workshop summaries, a summary report from the working group sessions, & a plan of action for drought mgmt. in the West. Covers: ecological & environmental concerns; river basin mgmt.; energy; fish & wildlife mgmt.; mitigation; planning & policy; urban water supplies, virtual drought models, etc.
Download or read book Virga Bone written by Craig Childs and published by Torrey House Press. This book was released on 2019-10-01 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "It's impossible to imagine another writer in America who is better than Craig Childs at elegizing the fearsome and confounding appeal of our most austere landscapes." —KEVIN FEDARKO, author of The Emerald Mile From the author of The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World comes a deeply felt essay collection focusing upon a vivid series of desert icons—a sheet of virga over Monument Valley, white seashells in dry desert sand, boulders impossibly balanced. Craig Childs delves into the primacy of the land and the profound nature of the more–than–human. CRAIG CHILDS is the author of more than a dozen books on nature, adventure, and science, including The Secret Knowledge of Water and Atlas of a Lost World. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Outside. Recipient of the Ellen Meloy Desert Writers Award and the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, he lives in Colorado.
Download or read book Drought in the West written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Water and Power Resources and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Improving the Federal Response to Western Drought written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 35 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: All drought operations and planning in the West rely heavily on water information and forecasts provided by federal agencies. The federal government should preserve and enhance existing hydrologic and meteorologic data networks hit by budget cuts and modernize the technology used for forecasting. This may require rebalancing budget allocations for research, observation, and forecasting. This report begins with a spotlight on the current western drought followed by a road map of the various federal roles that touch on western water management and identifies a series of modest, pragmatic federal actions that can help western states prepare for droughts and better manage emergencies when they occur.
Download or read book Bird on Fire written by Andrew Ross and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Phoenix, Arizona is one of America's fastest growing metropolitan regions. It is also its least sustainable one, sprawling over a thousand square miles, with a population of four and a half million, minimal rainfall, scorching heat, and an insatiable appetite for unrestrained growth and unrestricted property rights. In Bird on Fire, eminent social and cultural analyst Andrew Ross focuses on the prospects for sustainability in Phoenix--a city in the bull's eye of global warming--and also the obstacles that stand in the way. Most authors writing on sustainable cities look at places that have excellent public transit systems and relatively high density, such as Portland, Seattle, or New York. But Ross contends that if we can't change the game in fast-growing, low-density cities like Phoenix, the whole movement has a major problem. Drawing on interviews with 200 influential residents--from state legislators, urban planners, developers, and green business advocates to civil rights champions, energy lobbyists, solar entrepreneurs, and community activists--Ross argues that if Phoenix is ever to become sustainable, it will occur more through political and social change than through technological fixes. Ross explains how Arizona's increasingly xenophobic immigration laws, science-denying legislature, and growth-at-all-costs business ethic have perpetuated social injustice and environmental degradation. But he also highlights the positive changes happening in Phoenix, in particular the Gila River Indian Community's successful struggle to win back its water rights, potentially shifting resources away from new housing developments to producing healthy local food for the people of the Phoenix Basin. Ross argues that this victory may serve as a new model for how green democracy can work, redressing the claims of those who have been aggrieved in a way that creates long-term benefits for all. Bird on Fire offers a compelling take on one of the pressing issues of our time--finding pathways to sustainability at a time when governments are dismally failing in their responsibility to address climate change.
Download or read book Rangeland Systems written by David D. Briske and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-04-12 with total page 664 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. This book provides an unprecedented synthesis of the current status of scientific and management knowledge regarding global rangelands and the major challenges that confront them. It has been organized around three major themes. The first summarizes the conceptual advances that have occurred in the rangeland profession. The second addresses the implications of these conceptual advances to management and policy. The third assesses several major challenges confronting global rangelands in the 21st century. This book will compliment applied range management textbooks by describing the conceptual foundation on which the rangeland profession is based. It has been written to be accessible to a broad audience, including ecosystem managers, educators, students and policy makers. The content is founded on the collective experience, knowledge and commitment of 80 authors who have worked in rangelands throughout the world. Their collective contributions indicate that a more comprehensive framework is necessary to address the complex challenges confronting global rangelands. Rangelands represent adaptive social-ecological systems, in which societal values, organizations and capacities are of equal importance to, and interact with, those of ecological processes. A more comprehensive framework for rangeland systems may enable management agencies, and educational, research and policy making organizations to more effectively assess complex problems and develop appropriate solutions.
Download or read book Managing California s Water written by Ellen Hanak and published by Public Policy Instit. of CA. This book was released on 2011 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
