Download or read book Lake Biwa Interactions between Nature and People written by Hiroya Kawanabe and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although, the first edition had a similar focus, more than five years have passed since its publication and the biological and social circumstances of the lake have drastically changed due to, for example, the further expansion of alien species, the decrease of indigenous species, the progress of integrated watershed management by the Union of the Kansai Government which was established in 2010, the legislation of the Conservation and Restoration Act of Lake Biwa in 2015 and more. The new edition will therefore feature updated and new information on the above and more topics as well as updated and revised data based on the latest research. Inventories of respective taxa, especially those of small animals, are also revised based on the latest studies. Furthermore, this volume covers the characteristics of the biota of this ancient lake, but at the same time, it will also approach it as a ‘culture ancient lake’. Other topics also include water pollution, lakeshore development, the effects of global warming in the past and present, the influence of people, and countermeasures by local and national governments. Moreover, the volume also provides a comprehensive view on the future of Lake Biwa and that of its residents. Miraculously enough, this ancient lake has kept its water quality clear even until today despite the fact of more than 1.4 million people living on its shores. Finally, the book also gives indispensable information to those engaged in improving and conserving water regimes of lakes and other water bodies all over the world and to those interested in the culture and history of Japan. Lake Biwa is not only one of the rarest ancient lakes of the world, but the people’s involvement with the lake also goes back a long way. This is shown in the diverse culture developed in this area and in the various archaeological finds that date back as early as the Jomon Period, nearly 10.000 years ago. Today Lake Biwa fulfills an important role as a water resource by providing domestic, commercial, industrial, and agricultural water for over 14 million residents living around the Lake Biwa-Yodo River drainage basin. This updated volume focuses on the geological and biological features of the lake as well as on the long-term interactions between the people and the lake.

Download or read book Lake Biwa Interactions between Nature and People written by Hiroya Kawanabe and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-05-24 with total page 744 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the long-term interactions between people and nature in and around Lake Biwa, one of the oldest lakes in the world. Accordingly, it not only covers the characteristics of the biota of this ancient lake, but also approaches it as a ‘cultural ancient lake.’ Furthermore, various problems affecting the lake, especially recent environmental changes that occurred before and after Japan’s rapid economic growth of the 1950s and 60s, are reviewed, including water pollution, lakeshore development and the reclamation of attached lakes, alien and invasive species, and problems related to the recent warming of the climate. Lastly, by analyzing data on these problems collected by the local government and residents of the lake basin, the book provides a comprehensive outlook on the future of Lake Biwa and people’s lifestyles. As such, it provides indispensable information for all people engaged in improving and conserving water regimes around the world, as well as people interested in the culture and history of Japan.

Download or read book Integrative Observations and Assessments written by Shin-ichi Nakano and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-06-04 with total page 429 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on new trends in monitoring biodiversity in the Asia-Pacific region, one of the most rapidly changing areas in the world. It provides reviews of the challenges in studying the spatial variability of biodiversity across various ecosystems. This book also describes newly developed concepts and methods for biodiversity observation including ubiquitous genotyping, systematic conservation, monitoring of the functions and services of ecosystems and biodiversity informatics. These contributions will lead to establishing integrative observations and assessments of biodiversity, essential for reporting the current status and for the effective conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. This work will interest biodiversity researchers not only in the Asia-Pacific region but also across the entire globe.

Download or read book A Short History of Transport in Japan from Ancient Times to the Present written by John Andrew Black and published by Open Book Publishers. This book was released on 2022-03-18 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Short History of Transport in Japan from Ancient Times to the Present is a unique study: the first by a Western scholar to place the long-term development of Japanese infrastructure alongside an analysis of its evolving political economy. Drawing from New Institutional Economics, Black offers a historically informed critique of contemporary planning using the example of Japan’s historical institutions, their particular biases, and the power they have exerted over national and local transport, to identify how reformed institutional arrangements might develop more sustainable and equitable transport services. With chapters addressing each major form of transport, Black examines the predominant role of institutions and individuals – from seventeenth-century shoguns to post-war planners – in transforming Japan’s maritime infrastructure, its roads and waterways, and its adoption of rail and air transport. Using a multidisciplinary, comparative, and chronological approach, the book consults a range of technical, cultural, and political sources to tease out these interactions between society and technology. This spirited new contribution to transport studies will attract readers interested in institutional power, the history of transport, and the development of future infrastructure, as well as those with a general interest in Japan.

Download or read book Biodiversity in Aquatic Systems and Environments written by Noboru Okuda and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-10-09 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the latest topics in ecological and evolutionary research on aquatic biodiversity from bacteria to fishes, with special reference to Lake Biwa, an ancient lake in western Japan. With a geological history of 4 million years, Lake Biwa is the third oldest lake in the world. It is considered a biodiversity hotspot, where 1,769 aquatic species including 61 endemics are recorded, providing a rare opportunity to study the evolutionary diversification of aquatic biota and its ecological consequences. The first chapter introduces the evolutionary history of biodiversity, especially of fish in this lake. In the second chapter, some examples of trophic polymorphism in fish are described. Fish are keystone predators in lake ecosystems, and they can be a major driver for altering biological communities through their top-down trophic cascading effects. An excellent laboratory experiment is presented, demonstrating that functional diversity of fish feeding morphology alters food web properties of plankton prey communities. The third chapter focuses on aquatic microbes, whose abundance and diversity may also be influenced by the diversity of fish through top-down trophic cascades. Aquatic microbes can have a strong impact on ecosystem functioning in lakes, and in this chapter, the latest molecular techniques used to examine genetic and functional diversity of microbial communities are introduced. The final chapter presents theoretical frameworks for predicting how biodiversity has the potential to control the incidence and intensity of human-induced regime shifts. While respecting the precious nature of biodiversity in lakes, it is essential to be aware that modern human activities have brought a crisis of biodiversity loss in lakes worldwide. Throughout this book, readers will learn why biodiversity must be conserved at all levels, from genes to ecosystems.

Download or read book Social Ecological Restoration in Paddy Dominated Landscapes written by Nisikawa Usio and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-01-20 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With a focus on environmentally friendly rice farming, this unique book integrates both ecosystem and human dimensions of ecological restoration to provide strategies to promote sustainable agriculture and rural development. Paddy fields have multiple functions beyond their role of producing rice: They serve as refuge habitats for a range of wildlife that once inhabited floodplain wetlands and contain a number of unique and threatened aquatic species. They also provide various ecosystem services for regional communities such as water retention, erosion control, flood control, fish culture, and educational opportunities. However, rice paddies are threatened worldwide due to the modernization of agriculture and abandonment of farmland caused by depopulation and the aging of rural communities. Therefore, multiple ecological and sociological aspects must be considered in the ecological restoration of paddy fields. This book aims to do so by incorporating various disciplines of natural and social sciences. Strategies for sustainable agriculture are reviewed, including financial incentives for farmers and the use of flagship wildlife species such as the crested ibis (toki) to promote ecological restoration. With the increasing popularity of environmentally friendly rice farming in parts of Asia and the western United States, this book offers model cases for sustainable management of paddy-dominated landscapes.

Download or read book Fish Diversity of Japan written by Yoshiaki Kai and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-01-21 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book reviews and summarizes the studies on the fish diversity of Japan. It covers the present knowledge of ichthyofauna, habitat distribution, phylogeography, ecology, morphology, and conservation, as well as the history of ichthyology and fish collections in Japan. The book comprises five parts: I. Fish Diversity and Ichthyology of Japan, II. Habitat Distribution and Species Diversity, III. Diversity within Species: Phylogeographic Perspective on Japanese Fishes, IV. Morphological and Ecological Diversifications, and V. Conservation of Fish Diversity in Japan. The Japanese Archipelago is surrounded by two major warm and one cold currents. It is located in the western North Pacific and encompasses several climatic regimes from north to south. Although the land area of Japan is small, the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Japan ranks as the sixth largest in the world, including several marginal seas (Sea of Okhotsk, Sea of Japan, and East China Sea), and deep trenches (Izu-Ogasawara, Japan, and Kurile Trenches). Owing to a variety of marine habitats and a complex geological history, Japan has a rich fish species diversity, representing over 4,500 species in 370 families. The richness of fish species diversity has attracted many scientists since the late 1700s, and continuous studies have led to the development of ichthyology in Japan. With chapters written by leading experts in the field, the book will provide a stimulating and reliable resource for future research and contribute to the progress of ichthyology of the world.

Download or read book Global Blue Economy written by Md. Nazrul Islam and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2022-11-28 with total page 611 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global blue economy is an economic arena that depends on the benefits and values realized from the coastal and marine environments. This book explains the "sustainable blue economy" as a marine-based economy that provides social and economic benefits for current and future generations. It restores, protects, and maintains the diversity, productivity, and resilience of marine ecosystems, and is based on clean technologies, renewable energy, and circular material flows.

Download or read book Riverine Ecology Volume 2 written by Susanta Kumar Chakraborty and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-02-27 with total page 953 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is part of a two-volume set that offers an innovative approach towards developing methods and tools for assigning conservation categories of threatened taxa and their conservation strategies by way of different phases of eco-restoration in the context of freshwater river systems of tropical bio-geographic zones. The set provides a considerable volume of research on the biodiversity component of river ecosystems, seasonal dynamics of physical chemical parameters, geo-hydrological properties, types, sources and modes of action of different types of pollution, river restoration strategies and methodologies for the ongoing ecological changes of river ecosystems. Volume 2 highlights biodiversity potential in aiding the resistance and resilience of riverine ecosystem functioning and their synergistic effects on ongoing environmental perturbations. Comprehensive information on the conservation of river-associated-wildlife is provided, covering the impacts of pollution, land-use changes, river policies, and ecosystem restoration strategies. The book offers an innovative approach towards developing methods and tools for assigning conservation categories of threatened taxa, and covers their conservation strategies by way of different phases of eco-restoration in the context of freshwater river systems of tropical bio-geographic zones.

Download or read book Evolution and Biogeography written by Martin Thiel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-27 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the eighth volume of a ten-volume series on The Natural History of the Crustacea. The volume examines Evolution and Biogeography, and the first part of this volume is entirely dedicated to the explanation of the origins and successful establishment of the Crustacea in the oceans. In the second part of the book, the biogeography of the Crustacea is explored in order to infer how they conquered different biomes globally while adapting to a wide range of aquatic and terrestrial conditions. The final section examines more general patterns and processes, and the chapters offer useful insight into the future of crustaceans.

Download or read book Lateral Asymmetry in Animals written by Michio Hori and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-07-23 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents the latest research findings on the laterality of fish and other animals. It describes all aspects of lateral asymmetry, including ecology, morphology, behaviour, dynamics of lefty and righty morphs, genetics and evolution, through field observations, experiments and modeling. Lateral asymmetry in scale-eating cichlids gives a simple and beautiful example of negative frequency-dependent selection and resulting oscillation of lefty and righty morph frequencies. Lateral dimorphism is found not only in scale-eaters but in all orders of fish, shrimps and cuttlefish. Lateral asymmetry interacts between species through "cross-predation." Contrary to fish, lateral asymmetry in snails acts as, in most cases, positive frequency-dependent selection and provides deep insights into speciation. Especially, snakes eating righty snails facilitate speciation of lefty snails. As a collaboration work of field ecologists and theoretical biologists, this book covers a variety of topics on lateral asymmetry, which are consistently related to predation. The topics include behavioral ecology, population dynamics, physiology, evolution, genetics, development, learning and neuroscience, statistics, with the subjects of fish, shrimp, prawn, and crayfish, crab, cuttlefish, and snake and snail. Chapters cover new research results such as cuttlefish laterality dynamics, interaction between laterality of snails and snakes, evolution of laterality genetic system, and statistical analysis of laterality oscillation. Readers will appreciate the simplicity and beauty of lateral asymmetry and its profound impact on ecology and evolution.

Download or read book Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan written by Denis Gainty and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-22 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1895, the newly formed Greater Japan Martial Virtue Association (Dainippon Butokukai) held its first annual Martial Virtue Festival (butokusai) in the ancient capital of Kyoto. The Festival marked the arrival of a new iteration of modern Japan, as the Butokukai’s efforts to define and popularise Japanese martial arts became an important medium through which the bodies of millions of Japanese citizens would experience, draw on, and even shape the Japanese nation and state. This book shows how the notion and practice of Japanese martial arts in the late Meiji period brought Japanese bodies, Japanese nationalisms, and the Japanese state into sustained contact and dynamic engagement with one another. Using a range of disciplinary approaches, Denis Gainty shows how the metaphor of a national body and the cultural and historical meanings of martial arts were celebrated and appropriated by modern Japanese at all levels of society, allowing them to participate powerfully in shaping the modern Japanese nation and state. While recent works have cast modern Japanese and their bodies as subject to state domination and elite control, this book argues that having a body – being a body, and through that body experiencing and shaping social, political, and even cosmic realities – is an important and underexamined aspect of the late Meiji period. Martial Arts and the Body Politic in Meiji Japan is an important contribution to debates in Japanese and Asian social sciences, theories of the body and its role in modern historiography, and related questions of power and agency by suggesting a new and dramatic role for human bodies in the shaping of modern states and societies. As such, it will be valuable to students and scholars of Japanese studies, Japanese history, modern nations and nationalisms, and sport and leisure studies, as well as those interested in the body more broadly.

Download or read book Turbulent Streams written by Roderick I. Wilson and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-05-31 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Turbulent Streams: An Environmental History of Japan’s Rivers, 1600–1930, Roderick I. Wilson shows how rivers have played an important role in Japanese history and moves beyond conventional stories of technological progress and environmental decline to provide a dynamic history of environmental relations.

Download or read book Forging Environmentalism written by Joanne R Bauer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-01-28 with total page 441 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on an unusually rich empirical base, this timely and compelling book examines how environmental values are constructed and legitimized within the policy process. It trains the spotlight on four environmentally significant countries - China, Japan, India, and the United States - representing a wide diversity of cultural, social, economic, and political characteristics. Through a combination of case studies and comparative analysis, the contributors illuminate cultural assumptions, standards, and analytic techniques that shape environmental actions and policies around the world. "Forging Environmentalism" provides valuable direction regarding what can be done to secure public support for environmental policies. Incorporating expert legal, economic, philosophical, sociological, and political perspective points the way toward the possibilities for a convergence of environmental norms and values across diverse cultures.

Download or read book Well Being Across the Globe written by and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2024-05-29 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global multidimensional concept, well-being is an important measure that is closely associated with quality of life. This book examines well-being concepts and measurements, related health theories and correlates of well-being, as well as gender and geographical differences. The authors explore the evidence on well-being policies, programs, and health interventions, in addition to issues of health advocacy, self-care, and healthy aging. They also examine global wellness perspectives in the context of planetary challenges and decolonization. As the authors share their unique perspectives, they bring to the fore the integration of cross-cutting themes of gender, human rights, social and environmental justice/equity and inclusivity, health promotion/settings, and healthy public policy. This book explores the diversity of philosophical and methodological perspectives on wellness and well-being. It further contextualizes the lived experience of the dimensions of well-being as experienced by the contributors across different regions of the globe.

Download or read book Living Wooden Culture of Lake Biwa written by Zipangu Bridge and published by Zipangu Bridge. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shiga Prefecture is home to Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan. Lake Biwa comprises one sixth of the area of Shiga Prefecture. People in this area have cherished the lifestyle that makes use of the water source of Lake Biwa. Shiga Prefecture has a rich history with water. Japanese legend includes the story of the birth of Lake Biwa. Like Mt. Fuji, Lake Biwa is a famous Japanese symbol. This photo magazine will introduce tourist destinations for an enriching journey around Lake Biwa. Indulge your interest in Shiga Prefecture and Japanese culture through the articles of this magazine. In this issue, we interviewed six people on the theme "Living Wooden Culture of Lake Biwa" and presented articles that delved into the vibrant scene there. We featured six experts are those who are familiar with wooden and culture around Lake Biwa and are active in their respective fields. The area around Lake Biwa is rich in nature. In particular, forest areas make up half of Shiga Prefecture. Since ancient times, Japanese people have lived and worked on the heavily forested mountains, made wooden tools, and lived with wooden items in their lives. From woodcarving and woodturning to old and new Japanese-style houses, and gardens, both old and new, we can see that wood has always been an essential part of Japanese life. This time, we talked with the experts about Japanese wood culture that closely relates to our life. From these interviews, I hope that you can feel the rich life of Japanese woods through photographs.

Download or read book Water Ethics written by M.Ramon Llamas and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2009-03-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the context of the current financial crisis, and at a time of deep global change, growing attention is paid to the global norms and ethical values that could underpin future global policy. Water is a key global resource. At the 3rd Marcelino Botin Foundation Water Workshop, held in Santander, Spain, June 12-14, 2007, the role of ethics in the de