Download or read book Integrating Hydrology Ecosystem Dynamics and Biogeochemistry in Complex Landscapes written by J. D. Tenhunen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1999-08-03 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades, the biosphere has become increasingly stressed, often beyond the point where the internal structure and function of ecosystems are sustained. We have experienced an intensified “exploration” of natural system resources to support agricultural and forest production, to provide water for human consumption, to supply the needs of industrial processes, and to provide, in addition, attractive, diverse landscapes for recreation and tourism. Exceeding thresholds via anthropogenic disturbance that results in degradation of ecosystems is dangerous, since the system-level effects and feedbacks (e.g., soil erosion, famine, polluted drinking water, etc.) are highly undesirable. Finding appropriate compromises in resource use that satisfy existing competitive interests and result in sound environmental management, especially in densely populated regions, requires an improved understanding of the trade-offs that accompany changes in “exploitation” or altered resource allocation at regional and landscape scales. Progress on landscape-level understanding of coupled water, carbon, and nitrogen budgets is limited by a lack of commitment to a rigorous development and application of synthetic techniques (e.g., strongly linked remote sensing studies, geographic information system applications, computer simulation modeling, and ecosystem experimentation) more than by basic site-level measurement alone. Possible research approaches that will contribute to new use of ecosystem knowledge in a landscape and regional context were considered by this Dahlem Workshop. The importance of conducting improved landscape and regional assessment of ecosystem function as input to global scale efforts of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme is a major theme of this book.
Download or read book Ecosystem Approaches to Landscape Management in Central Europe written by J.D. Tenhunen and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2001-01-25 with total page 698 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The challenges in ecosystem science encompass a broadening and strengthening of interdisciplinary ties, the transfer of knowledge of the ecosystem across scales, and the inclusion of anthropogenic impacts and human behavior into ecosystem, landscape, and regional models. The volume addresses these points within the context of studies in major ecosystem types viewed as the building blocks of central European landscapes. The research is evaluated to increase the understanding of the processes in order to unite ecosystem science with resource management. The comparison embraces coastal lowland forests, associated wetlands and lakes, agricultural land use, and montane and alpine forests. Techniques for upscaling focus on process modelling at stand and landscape scales and the use of remote sensing for landscape-level model parameterization and testing. The case studies demonstrate ways for ecosystem scientists, managers, and social scientists to cooperate.
Download or read book Scaling and Uncertainty Analysis in Ecology written by Jianguo Wu and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-07-02 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book of its kind – explicitly considering uncertainty and error analysis as an integral part of scaling. The book draws together a series of important case studies to provide a comprehensive review and synthesis of the most recent concepts, theories and methods in scaling and uncertainty analysis. It includes case studies illustrating how scaling and uncertainty analysis are being conducted in ecology and environmental science.
Download or read book Key Topics in Landscape Ecology written by Jianguo Wu and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-03-29 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Landscape ecology is a relatively new area of study, which aims to understand the pattern of interaction of biological and cultural communities within a landscape. This book brings together leading figures from the field to provide an up-to-date survey of recent advances, identify key research problems and suggest a future direction for development and expansion of knowledge. Providing in-depth reviews of the principles and methods for understanding landscape patterns and changes, the book illustrates concepts with examples of innovative applications from different parts of the world. Forming a current 'state-of-the-science' for the science of landscape ecology, this book forms an essential reference for graduate students, academics, professionals and practitioners in ecology, environmental science, natural resource management, and landscape planning and design.
Download or read book Dryland Ecohydrology written by Paolo D'Odorico and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-01-09 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ecohydrology emerges as a new field of research aiming at furthering our understanding of the earth system through the study of the interactions between the water cycle and vegetation. By combining the analysis of biotic and abiotic components of terrestrial ecosystems, this volume provides a synthesis of material on arid and semiarid landscapes, which is currently spread in a number of books and journal articles. The focus on water-limited ecosystems is motivated by their high sensitivity to daily, seasonal, and decadal perturbations in water availability, and by the ecologic, climatic, and economic significance of most of the drylands around the world. Conceived as a tool for scientists working in the area of the earth and environmental sciences, this book presents the basic principles of eco-hydrology as well as a broad spectrum of topics and advances in this research field. The chapters collected in this book have been contributed by authors with different expertise, who work in several arid areas around the World. They describe the various interactions among the biological and physical dynamics in dryland ecosystems, starting from basic processes in the soil-vegetation-climate system, to landscape-scale hydrologic and geomorphic processes, ecohydrologic controls on soil nutrient dynamics, and multiscale analyses of disturbances and patterns.
Download or read book Landscape Ecology in Agroecosystems Management written by Lech Ryszkowski and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2001-12-27 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Successful management of agricultural landscapes depends on the recognition of the relationships between the processes and the structures that maintain the system. The rapidly growing science of Landscape Ecology quantifies the ways these ecosystems interact and establishes a link between the activities in one region and repercussions in another. A
Download or read book Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling written by Roger A Pielke Sr and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 743 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 3rd edition of Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling is a fully revised resource for researchers and practitioners in the growing field of meteorological modeling at the mesoscale. Pielke has enhanced the new edition by quantifying model capability (uncertainty) by a detailed evaluation of the assumptions of parameterization and error propagation. Mesoscale models are applied in a wide variety of studies, including weather prediction, regional and local climate assessments, and air pollution investigations. - Broad expansion of the concepts of parameterization and parameterization methodology - Addition of new modeling approaches, including modeling summaries and summaries of data sets - All-new section on dynamic downscaling
Download or read book Urban Climates written by T. R. Oke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-14 with total page 549 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Urban Climates is the first full synthesis of modern scientific and applied research on urban climates. The book begins with an outline of what constitutes an urban ecosystem. It develops a comprehensive terminology for the subject using scale and surface classification as key constructs. It explains the physical principles governing the creation of distinct urban climates, such as airflow around buildings, the heat island, precipitation modification and air pollution, and it then illustrates how this knowledge can be applied to moderate the undesirable consequences of urban development and help create more sustainable and resilient cities. With urban climate science now a fully-fledged field, this timely book fulfills the need to bring together the disparate parts of climate research on cities into a coherent framework. It is an ideal resource for students and researchers in fields such as climatology, urban hydrology, air quality, environmental engineering and urban design.
Download or read book Integrated Land Use and Environmental Models written by Subhrajit Guhathakurta and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-06-29 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the result of an invited symposium titled "Integrated Land-Use and Environmental Models: A Survey of Current Applications and Research" that was held in October 2000 at Arizona State University. The idea for the symposium arose from a belief held by many academics that we are at the watershed of a new generation of models that are more dynamic, more pragmatic, more interdiscipli nary, and more amenable to collaborative decision making. Several academics and professionals engaged in urban research had long realized that domain-specific knowledge was inadequate for understanding and managing urban growth. While interdisciplinary approaches have become critical in most social research, one general area of knowledge that stands out as having the most wide-ranging impact on current urban modeling efforts is the field comprised of environmental sciences and ecology. The symposium offered a forum for academics and professionals engaged in urban and ecological modeling to exchange ideas and experiences, specifically in areas that overlapped urban and environmental issues. The contri butions to this volume highlight the progress made in the various efforts to build integrated urban and environmental models. More importantly, each chapter shows how ideas have diffused across disciplinary boundaries to create better policy-relevant models. In addition, this book outlines some promising areas of research that could make important contributions to the field of urban and envi ronmental modeling. Integrated thinking about urban and environmental issues has been fundamental to the concept of sustainability.
Download or read book Mechanistic Relationships Between Development and Learning written by Thomas J. Carew and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1998-06-29 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the turn of the century, the pioneering neuroscientist Ramon y Cajal articulated the hypothesis that growth processes involved in the development of the central nervous system may persist into adulthood, where they might be retained to mediate the formation and maintenance of memory. Over the decades since Cajal s seminal suggestion, extensive experimental attention has been directed at elucidating the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying both neuronal development and learning and memory. Many exciting technical and conceptual advances have been made on each front. Thus, as we approach the end of this century, the field is now poised to assess the status of Cajal s provocative hypothesis directly. This volume reflects a highly interdisciplinary dialog among experts in the fields of development and learning and memory, who came together not only to assess the validity of the general hypotheses that development and learning might share mechanistic features, but also to identify issues, preparations, and paradigms that would allow for a rigorous evaluation of ways to advance the hypothesis, on the one hand, and determine its fundamental limitations, on the other. Towards this end, the volume is organized into four levels of analysis: behavioral, systems, cellular, and molecular. At each level, neuroscientists from the general fields of development and learning engage in lively exchange of ideas which serve to highlight the similarities and differences of both the concepts and the experimental approaches used in their diverse fields. The result of this endeavor is a collection of seminal chapters and summary reports that provide a novel synthesis of important advances in two exciting areas of modern neuroscience. Goal of this Dahlem Workshop: to evaluate the validity of the general thesis that mechanisms utilized in the development of the nervous system are reutilized in the adult to mediate formation and maintenance of memory.
Download or read book Mesoscale Meteorological Modeling written by Roger A. Pielke and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This second edition provides an update of the field of mesoscale atmospheric modeling. The topic of mesoscale modeling is developed from basic concepts in atmospheric physics. New numerical and analytical tools are introduced. Problem sets are provided to test the comprehension of the material introduced in the text.
Download or read book Living in a Dynamic Tropical Forest Landscape written by Nigel Stork and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-01-26 with total page 652 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together a wealth of scientific findings andecological knowledge to survey what we have learned about the“Wet Tropics” rainforests of North Queensland,Australia. This interdisciplinary text is the first book to providesuch a holistic view of any tropical forest environment, includingthe social and economic dimensions. The most thorough assessment of a tropical forest landscape todate Explores significant scientific breakthroughs in areasincluding conservation genetics, vegetation modeling, agroforestryand revegetation techniques, biodiversity assessment and modeling,impacts of climate change, and the integration of science innatural resource management Research achieved, in part, due to the Cooperative ResearchCentre for Tropical Rainforest Ecology and Management (theRainforest CRC) Written by a number of distinguished internationalexperts contains chapter summaries and section commentaries
Download or read book Ecology Planning and Management of Urban Forests written by Margaret M. Carreiro and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-31 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trees and vegetation in cities aren’t just there to make the place look pretty. They have an important ecological function. This book contains studies and perspectives on urban forests from a broad array of basic and applied scientific disciplines including ecosystem ecology, biogeochemistry, landscape ecology, plant community ecology, geography, and social science. The book includes contributions from experts around the world, allowing the reader to evaluate methods and management that are appropriate for particular geographic, environmental, and socio-political contexts.
Download or read book Ecology of Hierarchical Landscapes written by Jiquan Chen and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The idea for this book grew out of: (1) the realisation that development of the theory of landscape ecology has now reached the point where rigorous field work is required to validate models, test assumptions and ideas of scaling theory, and refine our understanding of landscape features and their delineation; (2) the relative scarcity of compilations that have examined the role of field research or interdisciplinary management applications in advancing the science of landscape ecology; and (3) the increasing amount of information coming out of the Chequamegon Integrated Field Project (CIFP) on relevant topics. This book synthesises the experiences and lessons learned from the CIFP project and other relevant landscape studies in an attempt to demonstrate the utility of field studies and emerging technology to the advancement of the science. This book is organised to synthesise and update knowledge on research topics mentioned previously, with an emphasis on ecological consequences (i.e., implications for ecological function) of the approach to and understanding of these topics across levels of the ecological hierarchy.
Download or read book Complexity and Ecosystem Management written by Marco Janssen and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The quality of ecosystems is affected by the actions of different stakeholders who use them in a variety of ways. In order to understand this complex relationship between humans and nature, it is vital to understand the complexity of the interacting agents. The authors in this book attempt to do this by applying multi-agent systems to the problems of ecosystem management. The multi-agent approach to ecosystem management is a relatively new and rapidly developing field which takes a formal computational approach towards the interaction of humans with their environment. The authors highlight some of the promising new methodologies which are emerging in the field from disciplines such as computer science and computational social science. They move on to address a number of important topics including diffusion processes, common-pool resources, land use change and the participatory use of models, in an attempt to solve contemporary management issues. They clearly demonstrate the potential utility of multi-agent systems in the context of theoretical problems and practical case studies.
Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Biogeography written by Andrew Millington and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2011-09-22 with total page 626 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A superb resource for understanding the diversity of the modern discipline of biogeography, and its history and future, especially within geography departments. I expect to refer to it often. - Professor Sally Horn, University of Tennessee "As you browse through this fine book you will be struck by the diverse topics that biogeographers investigate and the many research methods they use.... Biogeography is interdisciplinary, and a commonly-voiced concern is that one biogeographer may not readily understand another′s research findings. A handbook like this is important for synthesising, situating, explaining and evaluating a large literature, and pointing the reader to informative publications." - Geographical Research "A valuable contribution in both a research and teaching context. If you are biologically trained, it provides an extensive look into the geographical tradition of biogeography, covering some topics that may be less familiar to those with an evolution/ecology background. Alternatively, if you are a geography student, researcher, or lecturer, it will provide a useful reference and will be invaluable to the non-biogeographer who suddenly has the teaching of an introductory biogeography course thrust upon them." - Adam C. Algar, Frontiers of Biogeography The SAGE Handbook of Biogeography is a manual for scoping the past, present and future of biogeography that enable readers to consider, where relevant, how similar biogeographical issues are tackled by researchers in different ′schools′. In line with the concept of all SAGE Handbooks, this is a retrospective and prospective overview of biogeography that will: Consider the main areas of biogeography researched by geographers Detail a global perspective by incorporating the work of different schools of biogeographers Ecplore the divergent evolution of biogeography as a discipline and consider how this diversity can be harnessed Examine the interdisciplinary debates that biogeographers are contributing to within geography and the biological sciences. Aimed at an international audience of research students, academics, researchers and practitioners in biogeography, the text will attract interest from environmental scientists, ecologists, biologists and geographers alike.
Download or read book Terrestrial Global Productivity written by Jacques Roy and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 600 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trophic levels.
