Managing wildland fire in the U.S. is a challenge increasing in complexity & magnitude. The goals & actions presented in this report encourage a proactive approach to wildland fire to reduce its threat. Five major topic areas on the subject are addressed: the role of wildland fire in resource management; the use of wildland fire; preparedness & suppression; wildland/urban interface protection; & coordinated program management. Also presented are the guiding principle that are fundamental to wildland fire management & recommendations for fire management policies. Photos, graphs, & references.

A stellar group of writers, scientists, and educators illuminate the intersections between environmental science, creative writing, and education, considering ways to strengthen communication between differing fields with common interests. The contributing authors include Ken Brewer, Dan Flores, Hartmut Grassl, Carolyn Tanner Irish, Ted Kerasote, William Kittredge, Ellen Meloy, Louis Owens, Jennifer Price, Robert Michael Pyle, Kent C. Ryden, Annick Smith, Craig B. Stanford, Susan J. Tweit, and Keith Wilson.

The forms of liberal democracy developed in the 19th century seem increasingly ill-suited to the problems we face in the 21st. This dilemma has given rise to a deliberative democracy, and this text explores four contemporary cases in which the principles have been at least partially instituted.

Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) pose the greatest crime threat to the United States and have "the greatest drug trafficking influence," according to the annual U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA's) National Drug Threat Assessment. These organizations work across the Western Hemisphere and globally. They are involved in extensive money laundering, bribery, gun trafficking, and corruption, and they cause Mexico's homicide rates to spike. They produce and traffic illicit drugs into the United States, including heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, and they traffic South American cocaine. Over the past decade, Congress has held numerous hearings addressing violence in Mexico, U.S. counternarcotics assistance, and border security issues. Mexican DTO activities significantly affect the security of both the United States and Mexico. As Mexico's DTOs expanded their control of the opioids market, U.S. overdoses rose sharply to a record level in 2017, with more than half of the 72,000 overdose deaths (47,000) involving opioids. Although preliminary 2018 data indicate a slight decline in overdose deaths, many analysts believe trafficking continues to evolve toward opioids. The major Mexican DTOs, also referred to as transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), have continued to diversify into such crimes as human smuggling and oil theft while increasing their lucrative business in opioid supply. According to the Mexican government's latest estimates, illegally siphoned oil from Mexico's state-owned oil company costs the government about $3 billion annually. Mexico's DTOs have been in constant flux. In 2006, four DTOs were dominant: the Tijuana/Arellano Felix organization (AFO), the Sinaloa Cartel, the Juárez/Vicente Carillo Fuentes Organization (CFO), and the Gulf Cartel. Government operations to eliminate DTO leadership sparked organizational changes, which increased instability among the groups and violence. Over the next dozen years, Mexico's large and comparatively more stable DTOs fragmented, creating at first seven major groups, and then nine, which are briefly described in this report. The DEA has identified those nine organizations as Sinaloa, Los Zetas, Tijuana/AFO, Juárez/CFO, Beltrán Leyva, Gulf, La Familia Michoacana, the Knights Templar, and Cartel Jalisco-New Generation (CJNG). In mid-2019, leader of the long-dominant Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin ("El Chapo") Guzmán, was sentenced to life in a maximum-security U.S. prison, spurring further fracturing of a once hegemonic DTO. By some accounts, a direct effect of this fragmentation has been escalated levels of violence. Mexico's intentional homicide rate reached new records in 2017 and 2018. In 2019, Mexico's national public security system reported more than 17,000 homicides between January and June, setting a new record. In the last months of 2019, several fragments of formerly cohesive cartels conducted flagrant acts of violence. For some Members of Congress, this situation has increased concern about a policy of returning Central American migrants to cities across the border in Mexico to await their U.S. asylum hearings in areas with some of Mexico's highest homicide rates. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, elected in a landslide in July 2018, campaigned on fighting corruption and finding new ways to combat crime, including the drug trade. According to some analysts, challenges for López Obrador since his inauguration include a persistently ad hoc approach to security; the absence of strategic and tactical intelligence concerning an increasingly fragmented, multipolar, and opaque criminal market; and endemic corruption of Mexico's judicial and law enforcement systems. In December 2019, Genero Garcia Luna, a former top security minister under the Felipe Calderón Administration (2006-2012), was arrested in the United States on charges he had taken enormous bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel.

Water has had an immeasurable impact on the history and growth of the United States. As an essential element of life water has been and remains a constant source of conflict and controversy as different constituencies fight for limited resources. The Encyclopedia of Water Politics and Policy in the United States is the most comprehensive reference source available that analyzes water-related issues in America. A diverse group of over 100 scholars have provided their research and analysis of why water is so significant by tracing its impact on issues like national and state boundaries, western migration, urbanization, and the economy. This volume chronicles the origins of present-day water problems, political conflicts, the impact of legislation and court decisions on the use of water resources, the major projects undertaken across the country, and what experts are proposing be done to preserve this basic component of the environment. Going back some 150 years, the Encyclopedia provides an overview of approximately 280 pieces of water-related legislation, legal cases, people, projects, and organizations that have shaped the history of the United States. In addition to historical coverage, the volume also addresses many current environmental issues including acid rain, agriculture, climate change, mining, erosion, levees and dams, pollution, urbanization, and wastewater treatment. The volume’s A to Z entries are divided into four sections: Regional Water Politics and Policy: Essays providing a narrative background and overview Major Issues in Water Politics and Policy: A comprehensive list of issues from colonial times to the present Law and Government: The people and legislation that have shaped water policy in the United States Places and Projects: Extensive coverage of the projects (including dams and aqueducts) the government has undertaken to develop the nation’s waterways Throughout the volume, concise text features highlight important events, advocacy groups, people, books, and sites important to water politics and policy. A thematic table of contents allows users to easily locate reclamation projects geographically, biographies of important figures, current issues by subject area, government agencies, and legal cases.