Following the discovery of large petroleum reserves in northern Alaska, the US Department of Energy implemented an integrated field and modeling study to help define potential impacts of energy-related disturbances on tundra ecosystems. This volume presents the major findings from this study, ranging from ecosystem physiology and biogeochemistry to landscape models that quantify the impact of road-building. An important resource for researchers and students interested in arctic ecology, as well as for environmental managers concerned with practical issues of disturbances.

As the global climate changes, there are concomitant changes in global biological productivity. This book is devoted to the assessment of terrestrial Net Primary Productivity ("the total amount of energy acquired by green plants during photosynthesis, minus the energy lost through respiration"--APDS&T, pp. 1457). The book is comprised of three major sections. The first section is a review of the processes that operate globally to influence productivity--these are the initial conditions of any model of primary productivity. The second section is comprised of chapters that assess the contribution of particular ecosystems to global productivity. The final major section contains chapters of a synthetic nature that describe attempts to model global productivity. This book should appeal to both ecologists and environmental scientists.

With detailed essays on the Arctic's environment, wildlife, climate, history, exploration, resources, economics, politics, indigenous cultures and languages, conservation initiatives and more, this Encyclopedia is the only major work and comprehensive reference on this vast, complex, changing, and increasingly important part of the globe. Including 305 maps. This Encyclopedia is not only an interdisciplinary work of reference for all those involved in teaching or researching Arctic issues, but a fascinating and comprehensive resource for residents of the Arctic, and all those concerned with global environmental issues, sustainability, science, and human interactions with the environment.

Wetlands are prominent landscapes throughout North America. The general characteristics of wetlands are controversial, thus there has not been a systematic assessment of different types of wetlands in different parts of North America, or a compendium of the threats to their conservation. Wetland Habitats of North America adopts a geographic and habitat approach, in which experts familiar with wetlands from across North America provide analyses and syntheses of their particular region of study. Addressing a broad audience of students, scientists, engineers, environmental managers, and policy makers, this book reviews recent, scientifically rigorous literature directly relevant to understanding, managing, protecting, and restoring wetland ecosystems of North America.

Soon after the first Earth Day in 1970, the academic world saw a virtual explosion of new, interdisciplinary 'environmental' programs, many of which took explicit note for the first time of the fact that 'environmental' problems are inherently social problems as well. Even in the new programs, however, issues of equity and the environment were usually relegated to isolated classes on environmental ethics. Today, they still are.

There is an increased awareness of the importance of polar regions, and their vulnerability to anthropogenic derived change. This book offers a concise but comprehensive introduction to polar ecology. The emphasis is on the organisms that dominate these environments although pollution, conservation and experimental aspects are also considered.

This reference work concentrates upon both the natural and man-made changes to the world's environment. Containing over 300 original, signed articles by distinguished scholars and 1,500 illustrations it is the comprehensive encyclopedia for this multi-discipline, high profile field. Articles fall into the general categories of: concepts of global change, earth and earth systems, human factors, resources, responses to global change agreements and associations, biographies and case studies. The accessible and jargon-free language make it an excellent work for the professional scholar as well as the interested general reader and a detail network of cross references and blind entries will help readers at all levels.