This book presents comprehensive knowledge regarding the spatial and temporal distributions, influential factors, interactions with coexisting contaminants, migration behavior, and environmental risk posed by microplastics (MPs) in urban waterways. It provides a novel theoretical approach for the combined risks from MPs and coexisting contaminants, and advanced three-dimensional modeling techniques for different MPs’ dispersal and transport behaviors in urban waterways. Additionally, this ...

This book discusses the physicochemical changes (transformations) that metals deposited on urban road surfaces undergo during dry weather periods, in order to provide insights into their potential impacts on stormwater quality. Based on extensive field experiments, and laboratory and data analyses, it examines transformation characteristics of metals with respect to the particle size of road dust, antecedent dry days and land uses. Further, it proposes a new risk-assessment methodology, im...

This multi-disciplinary book provides practical solutions for safeguarding the sustainability of the urban water environment.Firstly, the importance of the urban water environment is highlighted and the major problems urban water bodies face and strategies to safeguard the water environment are explored. Secondly, the diversity of pollutants entering the water environment through stormwater runoff are discussed and modeling approaches for factoring in climate change and future urba...

This book presents a detailed analysis in relation to pollutant processes and transport pathways encompassing atmospheric pollutants, atmospheric deposition and build-up on road surfaces of traffic generated key pollutants. The research study undertaken by the authors created extensive knowledge relating to the relevant processes and establishing their relationships as a chain of processes. The information presented in this book was derived based on comprehensive experimental investigation...

The Princeton Guide to Ecology is a concise, authoritative one-volume reference to the field's major subjects and key concepts. Edited by eminent ecologist Simon Levin, with contributions from an international team of leading ecologists, the book contains more than ninety clear, accurate, and up-to-date articles on the most important topics within seven major areas: autecology, population ecology, communities and ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere, conservation biology, ecos...

How does life on our planet respond to--and shape--climate? This question has never been more urgent than it is today, when humans are faced with the daunting task of guiding adaptation to an inexorably changing climate. This concise, accessible, and authoritative book provides an unmatched introduction to the most reliable current knowledge about the complex relationship between living things and climate.Using an Earth System framework, David Schimel describes how organisms, commu...

Harnessing evolution for more sustainable agricultureAs human populations grow and resources are depleted, agriculture will need to use land, water, and other resources more efficiently and without sacrificing long-term sustainability. Darwinian Agriculture presents an entirely new approach to these challenges, one that draws on the principles of evolution and natural selection.R. Ford Denison shows how both biotechnology and traditional plant bree...

In 1936 a German chemist identified certain organic molecules that he had extracted from ancient rocks and oils as the fossil remains of chlorophyll--presumably from plants that had lived and died millions of years in the past. It was another twenty-five years before this insight was developed and the term "biomarker" coined to describe fossil molecules whose molecular structures could reveal the presence of otherwise elusive organisms and processes. Echoes of Life is the story of...

The impending threats of catastrophic climate change and peak oil are driving our society towards increased use of biomass for energy, chemical compounds and other materials - the beginnings of a biobased economy. As alternative development models for the biobased economy emerge, we need to determine potential applications, their perspectives and possible impacts as well as policies that can steer technological and market development in such a way that our objectives are met. Currently, it...

Carbon stored in soils represents the largest terrestrial carbon pool and factors affecting this will be vital in the understanding of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This book provides an integrated view on measuring and modeling soil carbon dynamics. Based on a broad range of in-depth contributions by leading scientists it gives an overview of current research concepts, developments and outlooks and introduces cutting-edge methodologies, ranging from questions of appropriate measu...

The major subdisciplines of ecology--population ecology, community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and evolutionary ecology--have diverged increasingly in recent decades. What is critically needed today is an integrated, real-world approach to ecology that reflects the interdependency of biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. From Populations to Ecosystems proposes an innovative theoretical synthesis that will enable us to advance our fundamental understanding of ecological systems a...

Environmental Soil Physics is a completely updated and modified edition of the Daniel Hillels previous, successful books, Introduction to Soil Physics and Fundamentals of Soil Physics. Hillel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, one of the true leaders in the field of environmental sciences. The new version includes a chapter and problems on computational techniques, addresses current environmental concerns and trends. - Updates and expands the scope of Hillel's prior works, Fundamentals of...