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"Case studies from North America, Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Japan demonstrate natural outdoor learning and play environments that support hands-on interdisciplinary lessons and expand the possibilities for schoolyard recreation, while nurturing healthy imagination and socialization"--Provided by publisher.
In a time of uncertainty about our environmental future—an eye-opening global tour of some of the most wounded places on earth, and stories of how a passionate group of eco-restorers is leading the way to their revitalization. Award-winning science journalist Judith D. Schwartz takes us first to China’s Loess Plateau, where a landmark project has successfully restored a blighted region the size of Belgium, lifting millions of people out of poverty. She journeys on to Norway, where a young indigenous reindeer herder challenges the most powerful orthodoxies of conservation—and his own government. And in the Middle East, she follows the visionary work of an ambitious young American as he attempts to re-engineer the desert ecosystem, using plants as his most sophisticated technology. Schwartz explores regenerative solutions across a range of landscapes: deserts, grasslands, tropics, tundra, Mediterranean. She also highlights various human landscapes, the legacy of colonialism and industrial agriculture, and the endurance of indigenous knowledge. The Reindeer Chronicles demonstrates how solutions to seemingly intractable problems can come from the unlikeliest of places, and how the restoration of local water, carbon, nutrient, and energy cycles can play a dramatic role in stabilizing the global climate. Ultimately, it reveals how much is in our hands if we can find a way to work together and follow nature’s lead.
This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for CaliforniaÕs remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem typeÑits distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed. Each chapter evaluates natural processes for a specific ecosystem, describes drivers of change, and discusses how that ecosystem may be altered in the future. This book also explores the drivers of CaliforniaÕs ecological patterns and the history of the stateÕs various ecosystems, outlining how the challenges of climate change and invasive species and opportunities for regulation and stewardship could potentially affect the stateÕs ecosystems. The text explicitly incorporates both human impacts and conservation and restoration efforts and shows how ecosystems support human well-being. Edited by two esteemed ecosystem ecologists and with overviews by leading experts on each ecosystem, this definitive work will be indispensable for natural resource management and conservation professionals as well as for undergraduate or graduate students of CaliforniaÕs environment and curious naturalists.
Urbanization drastically alters the ecosystems structure and functions, disrupts cycling of C and other elements along with water. It alters the energy balance and influences climate at local, regional and global scales. In 2008, urban population exceeded the rural population. In 2050, 70% of the world population will live in urban centers. The number of megacities (10 million inhabitants) increased from three in 1975 to 19 in 2007, and is projected to be 27 in 2025. Rapid urbanization is altering the ecosystem C budget. Yet, urban ecosystems have a large C sink capacity in soils and biota. Judicious planning and effective management can enhance C pool in urban ecosystems, and off-set some of the anthropogenic emissions. Principal components with regards to C sequestration include home lawns and turfs, urban forests, green roofs, park and recreational/sports facilities and urban agriculture.
"Asphalt: A History" provides a narrative history of asphalt and its effects from ancient times to the modern day. Although asphalt creates our environment, it also threatens it"--
Evolution of Fossil Ecosystems describes all of the main Fossil Lagerstätten (sites of exceptional fossil preservation) from around the world in a chronological order. It covers the history of research, stratigraphy and taphonomy, main faunal and floral elements, and the palaeoecology of each site and gives a comparison with coeval sites around the w
When Eric Toensmeier and Jonathan Bates moved into a duplex in a run-down part of Holyoke, Massachusetts, the tenth-of-an-acre lot was barren ground and bad soil, peppered with broken pieces of concrete, asphalt, and brick. The two friends got to work designing what would become not just another urban farm, but a "permaculture paradise" replete with perennial broccoli, paw paws, bananas, and moringa—all told, more than two hundred low-maintenance edible plants in an innovative food forest on a small city lot. The garden—intended to function like a natural ecosystem with the plants themselves providing most of the garden's needs for fertility, pest control, and weed suppression—also features an edible water garden, a year-round unheated greenhouse, tropical crops, urban poultry, and even silkworms. In telling the story of Paradise Lot, Toensmeier explains the principles and practices of permaculture, the choice of exotic and unusual food plants, the techniques of design and cultivation, and, of course, the adventures, mistakes, and do-overs in the process. Packed full of detailed, useful information about designing a highly productive permaculture garden, Paradise Lot is also a funny and charming story of two single guys, both plant nerds, with a wild plan: to realize the garden of their dreams and meet women to share it with. Amazingly, on both counts, they succeed.
It has often been said that generals prepare for the next war by re-fighting the last. The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill was unlike any previous – an underwater well blowout 1,500 meters deep. Much has been learned in the wake of DWH and these lessons should in turn be applied to both similar oil spill scenarios and those arising from “frontier” explorations by the marine oil industry. The next deep oil well blowout may be at 3,000 meters or even deeper. This volume summarizes regional (Gulf of Mexico) and global megatrends in marine oil exploration and production. Research in a number of key areas including the behavior of oil and gas under extreme pressure, impacts on biological resources of the deep sea, and the fate of oil and gas released in spills is synthesized. A number of deep oil spills are simulated with detailed computer models, and the likely effects of the spills and potential mitigation measures used to combat them are compared. Recommended changes in policies governing marine oil exploration and development are proposed, as well as additional research to close critical and emerging knowledge gaps. This volume synthesizes state-of-the-art research in deep oil spill behavior and response. It is thus relevant for government and industry oil spill responders, policy formulators and implementers, and academics and students desiring an in-depth and balanced overview of key issues and uncertainties surrounding the quest for deep oil and potential impacts on the environment.
