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Stochastic Subsurface Hydrogeology is the study of subsurface, geological heterogeneity, and its effects on flow and transport process, using probabilistic and geostatistical concepts. This book presents a rational, systematic approach for analyzing and modeling subsurface heterogeneity, and for modeling flow and transport in the subsurface, and for prediction and decision-making under uncertainty. The book covers the fundamentals and practical aspects of geostatistics and stochastic hydrogeology, coupling theoretical and practical aspects, with examples, case studies and guidelines for applications, and provides a summary and review of the major developments in these areas.

With both the growing importance of integrating studies of air-sea interaction and the interest in the general problem of global warming, the appearance of the second edition of this popular text is especially welcome. Thoroughly updated and revised, the authors have retained the accessible, comprehensive expository style that distinguished the earlier edition. Topics include the state of matter near the interface, radiation, surface wind waves, turbulent transfer near the interface, the planetary boundary layer, atmospherically-forced perturbations in the oceans, and large-scale forcing by sea surface buoyancy fluxes. This book will be welcomed by students and professionals in meteorology, physical oceanography, physics and ocean engineering.

Coastal zones are becoming increasingly topical (and politically sensitive) as they face relentless pressures from urban expansion, recreational development and sea level rise due to climate change. This timely book provides a comprehensive introduction to the formation, dynamics, maintenance and perpetuation of coastal sand dune systems. It describes the interactions between living organisms and the physical processes of geomorphology, with particular emphasis on conservation and management issues due to this habitat's increasingly endangered status. A global range of examples enhance the book's international appeal, which also includes coverage of the latest methods/techniques and experimental approaches with suggestions for student-based field studies and projects. This accessible text is suitable for both senior undergraduate and graduate students taking courses in coastal zone management, marine biology, plant ecology, restoration ecology and conservation biology, as well as the many professional ecologists and conservation biologists requiring a concise but authoritative overview of the topic. The book will also be of relevance and use to coastal managers, planners and naturalists.

Article 76 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea lays down the rules and regulations governing claims to a continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles for the 130 coastal States and entities that have ratified or acceded to it. This book is designed to help those coastal States implement the provisions of Article 76, covering the technical issues involved and explaining the interface between the legal concepts contained within the article. It covers all aspects that will have to be considered by a coastal State if it wishes to make a claim under the Convention, including the characteristics of continental margins, distance determination, bathymetric data collection. geological and geophysical techniques, and boundary conditions.

Humans have had a long relationship with the ebb and flow of tides on river deltas around the world. The fertile soils of river deltas provided early human civilizations with a means of farming crops and obtaining seafood from the highly productive marshes and shallow coastal waters associated with deltas. However, this relationship has at times been both nurturing and tumultuous for the development of early civilizations. The vicissitudes of seasonal changes in river flooding events as well as frequently shifting deltaic soils made life for these early human settlements challenging. These natural transient processes that affect the supply of sediments to deltas today are in many ways very similar to what they have been over the millennia of human settlements. But something else has been altered in the natural rhythm of these cycles. The massive expansion of human populations around the world in both the lower and upper drainage basins of these large rivers have changed the manner in which sediments and water are delivered to deltas. Because of the high density of human populations found in these regions, humans have developed elaborate hydrological engineering schemes in an attempt to "tame" these deltas. The goal of this book is to provide information on the historical relationship between humans and deltas that will hopefully encourage immediate preparation for coastal management plans in response to the impending inundation of major cities, as a result of global change around the world.

Marine sediments provide the largest habitat on planet earth, yet knowledge of the structure and function of their flora and fauna continues to be poorly described in current textbooks. This concise, readable introduction to benthic ecology builds upon the strengths of the previous edition but has been thoroughly revised throughout to incorporate the new technologies and methods that have allowed a rapid and ongoing development of the field. It explores the relationship between community structure and function, and the selection of global examples ensures an international appeal and relevance. The economic value of marine sediments increases daily, reflected in the text with a new emphasis on pollution, climate change, conservation, and management. This accessible textbook is suitable for both advanced undergraduate and graduate students who have had a general ecology course, but no further training in benthic ecology. It will also be of relevance and use to professional researchers and consultants in marine ecology and environmental science who seek a compact but comprehensive introduction to benthic ecology.

Though not traditionally thought of as strategic natural resources, glaciers are a crucial part of our global ecosystem playing a fundamental role in the sustaining of life around the world. Comprising three quarters of the world's freshwater, they freeze in the winter and melt in the summer, supplying a steady flow of water for agriculture, livestock, industry and human consumption. The white of glacier surfaces reflect sunrays which otherwise warm our planet. Without them, many of the planet's rivers would run dry shortly after the winter snow-melt. A single mid-sized glacier in high mountain environments of places like California, Argentina, India, Kyrgyzstan, or Chile can provide an entire community with a sustained flow of drinking water for generations. On the other hand, when global temperatures rise, not only does glacier ice wither away into the oceans and cease to act as water reservoirs, but these massive ice bodies can become highly unstable and collapse into downstream environments, resulting in severe natural events like glacier tsunamis and other deadly environmental catastrophes. But despite their critical role in environmental sustainability, glaciers often exist well outside our environmental consciousness, and they are mostly unprotected from atmospheric impacts of global warming or from soot deriving from transportation emissions, or from certain types of industrial activity such as mining, which has been shown to have devastating consequences for glacier survival. Glaciers: The Politics of Ice is a scientific, cultural, and political examination of the cryosphere -- the earth's ice -- and the environmental policies that are slowly emerging to protect it. Jorge Daniel Taillant discusses the debates and negotiations behind the passage of the world's first glacier-protection law in the mid-2000s, and reveals the tension that quickly arose between industry, politicians, and environmentalists when an international mining company proposed dynamiting three glaciers to get at gold deposits underneath. The book is a quest to educate general society about the basic science behind glaciers, outlines current and future risks to their preservation, and reveals the intriguing politics behind glacier melting debates over policies and laws to protect the resource. Taillant also makes suggestions on what can be done to preserve these crucial sources of fresh water, from both a scientific and policymaking standpoint. Glaciers is a new window into one of the earth's most crucial and yet most ignored natural resources, and a call to reawaken our interest in the world's changing climate.

The ocean helps moderate climate change thanks to its considerable capacity to store CO2, through the combined actions of ocean physics, chemistry, and biology. This storage capacity limits the amount of human-released CO2 remaining in the atmosphere. As CO2 reacts with seawater, it generates dramatic changes in carbonate chemistry, including decreases in pH and carbonate ions and an increase in bicarbonate ions. The consequences of this overall process, known as "ocean acidification", are raising concerns for the biological, ecological, and biogeochemical health of the world's oceans, as well as for the potential societal implications. This research level text is the first to synthesize the very latest understanding of the consequences of ocean acidification, with the intention of informing both future research agendas and marine management policy. A prestigious list of authors has been assembled, among them the coordinators of major national and international projects on ocean acidification.

Since the publication of Jerlov's classic volume on optical oceanography in 1968, the ability to predict or model the submarine light field, given measurements of the inherent optical properties of the ocean, has improved to the point that model fields are very close to measured fields. In the last three decades, remote sensing capabilities have fostered powerful models that can be inverted to estimate the inherent optical properties closely related to substances important for understanding global biological productivity, environmental quality, and most nearshore geophysical processes. This volume presents an eclectic blend of information on the theories, experiments, and instrumentation that now characterize the ways in which optical oceanography is studied. Through the course of this interdisciplinary work, the reader is led from the physical concepts of radiative transfer to the experimental techniques used in the lab and at sea, to process-oriented discussions of the biochemical mechanisms responsible for oceanic optical variability. The text will be of interest to researchers and students in physical and biological oceanography, biology, geophysics, limnology, atmospheric optics, and remote sensing of ocean and global climate change.

Scientists and engineers around the world are striving to develop new sources of energy. One source, ocean thermal energy conversion, has virtually unlimited potential. It is based on techniques that exploit heat produced by solar energy that may, in turn, be used to produce fuel and electricity. This book reviews the status and background of this promising technology. William H. Avery is the leading expert in this field, and his co-author Chih Wu is an authority on heat engine performance. Together they describe the workings of an OTEC power plant and how such a system might be implemented as part of a futuristic national energy strategy. The book is the only detailed presentation of basic OTEC technology, its testing and improvement. It is based on extensive development initiatives undertaken internationally during the period from 1974 through 1985. The book offers a thorough assessment of the economics of OTEC in comparison with other energy production methods. It will be of interest to a wide range of professionals in energy research, power and mechanical engineering, and to upper-level undergraduate students taking courses in these fields.

The vadose zone is the region between ground level and the upper limits of soil fully saturated with water. Hydrology in the zone is complex: nonlinear physical, chemical, and biological interactions all affect the transfer of heat, mass, and momentum between the atmosphere and the water table. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach to vadose zone hydrology, bringing together insights from soil science, hydrology, biology, chemistry, physics, and instrumentation design. The chapters present state-of-the-art research, focusing on new frontiers in theory, experiment, and management of soils. Thh is bounded by Se collection addresses the full range of processes, from the pore-scale to field and landscape scales.