This book presents recent results of collaborative studies in geophysics and ecology, focusing on the relationship between the physical environment and the distribution of the marine coastal ecosystems. The study area, the Sakiyamawan–Amitoriwan nature conservation area in Iriomote Island of Japan, is the only oceanic nature conservation area in the country. The area has no access roads, and the bay perimeter is uninhabited; therefore, it preserves the natural environment with very little human impact. In addition, it has various environmental gradients such as topography and inflows from rivers with mangrove forests which affect the distribution of marine coastal ecosystems such as those containing reef-building corals, sea grasses, and hermit crabs. For these reasons, the area is one of the best places for the study of the relationship between the physical environment and the distribution of the marine coastal ecosystems, a relationship that is important for their conservation but has not been investigated fully. This book is aimed at students and researchers in the fields of oceanography and marine coastal ecology as well as general readers who are interested in coral reefs, diving, and nature conservation.

This book is geared for advanced level research in the general subject area of remote sensing and modeling as they apply to the coastal marine environment. The various chapters focus on the latest scientific and technical advances in the service of better understanding coastal marine environments for their care, conservation and management. Chapters specifically deal with advances in remote sensing coastal classifications, environmental monitoring, digital ocean technological advances, geophysical methods, geoacoustics, X-band radar, risk assessment models, GIS applications, real-time modeling systems, and spatial modeling. Readers will find this book useful because it summarizes applications of new research methods in one of the world’s most dynamic and complicated environments. Chapters in this book will be of interest to specialists in the coastal marine environment who deals with aspects of environmental monitoring and assessment via remote sensing techniques and numerical modeling.

This book describes the development of ocean sciences over the past 50 years, highlighting the contributions of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to the field's progress. Many of the individuals who participated in the exciting discoveries in biological oceanography, chemical oceanography, physical oceanography, and marine geology and geophysics describe in the book how the discoveries were made possible by combinations of insightful individuals, new technology, and in some cases, serendipity. In addition to describing the advance of ocean science, the book examines the institutional structures and technology that made the advances possible and presents visions of the field's future. This book is the first-ever documentation of the history of NSF's Division of Ocean Sciences, how the structure of the division evolved to its present form, and the individuals who have been responsible for ocean sciences at NSF as "rotators" and career staff over the past 50 years.

Explores how two coastal ecosystems are responding to the pressures of human expansion The Northern Adriatic Sea, a continental shelf ecosystem in the Northeast Mediterranean Sea, and the Chesapeake Bay, a major estuary of the mid-Atlantic coast of the United States, are semi-enclosed, river-dominated ecosystems with urbanized watersheds that support extensive industrial agriculture. Coastal Ecosystems in Transition: A Comparative Analysis of the Northern Adriatic and Chesapeake Bay presents an update of a study published two decades ago. Revisiting these two ecosystems provides an opportunity to assess changing anthropogenic pressures in the context of global climate change. The new insights can be used to inform ecosystem-based approaches to sustainable development of coastal environments. Volume highlights include: Effects of nutrient enrichment and climate-driven changes on critical coastal habitats Patterns of stratification and circulation Food web dynamics from phytoplankton to fish Nutrient cycling, water quality, and harmful algal events Causes and consequences of interannual variability The American Geophysical Union promotes discovery in Earth and space science for the benefit of humanity. Its publications disseminate scientific knowledge and provide resources for researchers, students, and professionals. Read a review of this book in Marine Ecology review of this book

This textbook provides the reader with a foundation in policy development and analysis and describes how policy, including legal mechanisms, is applied to marine environments around the world. It offers a systematic treatment of all aspects of marine policy, including environmental protection, fisheries, transportation, energy, mining and climate change. It starts with a biophysical overview of the structure and function of the marine environment with a particular emphasis on the challenges and opportunities of managing the marine environment. An overview of the creation and function of international law is then provided with a focus on international marine law. It explores the geographic and jurisdictional dimensions of marine policy, as well the current and anticipated challenges facing marine systems, including climate change-related impacts and resource over-exploitation. The book should appeal to senior undergraduate and graduate students and form a core part of the curriculum for marine affairs, science and policy courses. It will also provide supplementary reading for students taking a course in the law of the oceans, but is not aimed at legal specialists.

The book presents a collection of large-scale network-modeling studies on coastal systems in Latin America. It includes a novel description of the functioning of coastal complex ecosystems and also predicts how natural and human-made disturbances percolate through the networks. Coastal areas belong to the most populated ecosystems around the globe, and are massively influenced by human impacts such as shipping, mining, fisheries, tourism, pollution and human settlements. Even though many of these activities have facilitated socio-economic development, they have also caused a significant deterioration in natural populations, communities and ecosystems worldwide. Covering coastal marine ecosystems of Latin America such as the NE and SE Pacific, NW Atlantic and Caribbean areas, it discusses the construction of quantitative (Ecopath-Ecosim-Ecospace and Centrality of Node Sets) and semi-quantitative (Loop Analysis) multispecies trophic-network models to describe and assess the impacts of natural and human interventions like pelagic and benthic fishing as well as natural events such as El Niño, and La Niña. The book also features steady state (and/or near moving equilibrium) and dynamical models to support the management of exploited organisms, and applies and quantifies macroscopic indices, based on Ascendency (Ulanowicz) and Local Stability (Levins ́ Loop Analysis). Further, it discusses the determination of the Keystone Species Complex Index, which is a holistic extension of the classical concept of Keystone Species (Paine), offering novel strategies for conservation monitoring and management.

The conservation of marine benthic biodiversity is a recognised goal of a number of national and international programs such as the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). In order to attain this goal, information is needed about the distribution of life in the ocean so that spatial conservation measures such as marine protected areas (MPAs) can be designed to maximise protection within boundaries of acceptable dimensions. Ideally, a map would be produced that showed the distribution of benthic biodiversity to enable the efficient design of MPAs. The dilemma is that such maps do not exist for most areas and it is not possible at present to predict the spatial distribution of all marine life using the sparse biological information currently available. Knowledge of the geomorphology and biogeography of the seafloor has improved markedly over the past 10 years. Using multibeam sonar, the benthic ecology of submarine features such as fjords, sand banks, coral reefs, seamounts, canyons, mud volcanoes and spreading ridges has been revealed in unprecedented detail. This book provides a synthesis of seabed geomorphology and benthic habitats based on the most recent, up-to-date information. Introductory chapters explain the drivers that underpin the need for benthic habitat maps, including threats to ocean health, the habitat mapping approach based on principles of biogeography and benthic ecology and seabed (geomorphic) classification schemes. Case studies from around the world are then presented. They represent a range of seabed features where detailed bathymetric maps have been combined with seabed video and sampling to yield an integrated picture of the benthic communities that are associated with different types of benthic habitat. The final chapter examines critical knowledge gaps and future directions for benthic habitat mapping research. - Reviews and compares the different methodologies currently being used - Includes global case studies - Provides geological expertise into what has traditionally been a biological discipline

Over recent decades, it has become widely recognized that water exchange between coastal aquifers and the ocean is an important component of the hydrologic cycle. Twenty years have passed since Willard S. Moore (Moore, 1999) introduced the term ‘subterranean estuary’ (STE) to identify those zones within coastal aquifers where fresh groundwater mixes with surface saltwater. Like open-water estuaries, STEs regulate the transfer of chemicals to the sea under the seashore by submarine groundwater discharge (SGD). This subterranean reactive node in the land-ocean exchange pathway has a physical, even if elusive, structure created by a combination of temporally and spatially variable mass transfer across the groundwater-ocean interface and dynamic flow processes. Many case studies have shown that SGD is a key material link between coastal watersheds and the sea and indeed spatially resolved budgets of radioactive tracers in shelf waters suggest it is the dominant bulk water flux to coastal zones globally. Clearly, STE outflow as SGD is a large source of biogeochemically active solutes to shelf seas, meaning that elemental budgets for these waters have to be revised in order to account for the new input. But how? Recognizing the global prevalence and potential environmental and societal impact of SGD, numerous attempts to quantify chemical inputs into the ocean through this pathway have been published over the past 40 years. However, the role of the STE in modulating chemical fluxes to coastal waters has been generally oversimplified, making a comprehensive analysis of cause and effect relationships between SGD inputs and ecosystem dynamics merely indicative. Unfortunately, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of the processes that control the interaction between allochthonous chemical delivery and autochthonous recycling in the STE that drive compositional variability of SGD flows. Like that applied to open-water estuaries, a general practical and theoretical framework is needed – one that captures the structure and biogeochemistry of STEs and allows more accurate understanding of the chemical composition of SGD outflows, while simultaneously providing for a typological basis that provides solid support for extrapolation of local SGD chemical flux measurements to regional, and from these to global, scale. A comprehensive and critical review of the current state-of-the-art would reveal that progress requires: a) improved variable-density groundwater flow models that provide more accurate predictions and insights into the flow, salt transport, and mixing dynamics in STEs; b) quantitative understanding of the physicochemical and temporal drivers of saline groundwater seepage and composition; and c) better knowledge of the microbial ecology of STEs and links to marine, freshwater, and terrestrial drivers of STE dynamics. Significant research effort has been devoted to addressing these knowledge gaps. It is now time to provide a focused synopsis of these efforts. We propose a combination of cutting-edge original research, systematic, practice and policy reviews, methods and hypothesis and theory articles, tied together by a direction-setting perspective analysis to generate a comprehensive and accurate scientific foundation supporting environmental managers, scientists, and other stakeholders to assess SGD feedbacks on coastal ecosystem functioning and resilience and implement successful coastal management policies.

Geophysics and Geochemistry is a component of Encyclopedia of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. Geophysics and Geochemistry are two closely intertwined and collaborating branches of Earth’s sciences. The content of the Theme on Geophysics and Geochemistry is organized with state-of-the-art presentations covering eight main topics: Foundations of Geophysics and Geochemistry; Geophysical Systems; Seismology and Volcanology; Geomagnetism and Geoelectricity; Aeronomy and Magnetosphere; Gravimetry; Geochemistry and Cosmochemistry; Planetology – Comparative Planetology of Earth-like Planets and Astrobiology which are then expanded into multiple subtopics, each as a chapter. These three volumes are aimed at the following a wide spectrum of audiences from the merely curious to those seeking in-depth knowledge: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

This book showcases how new and emerging technologies like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are trying to provide solutions to unresolved socio-economic and environmental problems. Unmanned vehicles can be classified into five different types according to their operation. These five types are unmanned ground vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned surface vehicles (operating on the surface of the water), unmanned underwater vehicles, and unmanned spacecraft. Unmanned vehicles can be guided remotely or function as autonomous vehicles. The technology has a wide range of uses including agriculture, industry, transport, communication, surveillance and environment applications. UAVs are widely used in precision agriculture; from monitoring the crops to crop damage assessment. This book explains the different methods in which they are used, providing step-by-step image processing and sample data. It also discusses how smart UAVs will provide unique opportunities for manufacturers to utilise new technological trends to overcome the current challenges of UAV applications. The book will be of great interest to researchers engaged in forest carbon measurement, road patrolling, plantation monitoring, crop yield estimation, crop damage assessment, terrain modelling, fertilizer control, and pest control.