A comprehensive review of dryland climates and their relationship to the physical environment, hydrology, and inhabitants. Chapters are divided into five major sections on background meteorology and climatology; the nature of dryland climates in relation to precipitation and hydrology; the climatology and climate dynamics of the major dryland regions on each continent; and life and change in the world's drylands. It includes key topics such as vegetation, geomorphology, desertification, mi...

The aim of this book is to introduce scientific ballooning to the many people who are interested in the use of balloons for scientific applications. The book offers a basic understanding of the engineering details and the scientific research giving rise to balloon activities going on today. Above all, the book will serve as a guidebook for young scientists and researchers seeking to become involved in space science and technology by participating in balloon projects. The book deals with th...

This book presents a one-stop reference to the empirical correlations used extensively in geotechnical engineering. Empirical correlations play a key role in geotechnical engineering designs and analysis. Laboratory and in situ testing of soils can add significant cost to a civil engineering project. By using appropriate empirical correlations, it is possible to derive many design parameters, thus limiting our reliance on these soil tests. The authors have decades of experience in geotechn...

This book provides an overview of paste tailings disposal at mine sites. It deals comprehensively with the characterization of sulphide-rich tailings, geotechnical and microstructural behaviour, surface tailings disposal applications, underground paste backfilling, and case studies. The authors place emphasis on the characterization, monitoring, disposal and treatment, as well as environmental considerations of problematic sulphidic tailings. The framework is supported by worldwide case st...

The ongoing population growth is resulting in rapid urbanization, new infrastructure development and increasing demand for the Earth's natural resources (e.g., water, oil/gas, minerals). This, together with the current climate change and increasing impact of natural hazards, imply that the engineering geology profession is called upon to respond to new challenges. It is recognized that these challenges are particularly relevant in the developing and newly industrialized regions. The idea b...

This monograph provides state-of-the-art theoretical and computational findings from investigations on physical and chemical dissolution front instability problems in porous media, based on the author’s own work. Although numerical results are provided to complement theoretical ones, the focus of this monograph is on the theoretical aspects of the topic and those presented in this book are applicable to a wide range of scientific and engineering problems involving the instability of nonlin...

This book reflects the latest research results in computer modelling of landslide-induced debris flows. The book establishes an understanding of the initiation and propagation mechanisms of landslides by means of numerical simulations, so that mitigation strategies to reduce the long-term losses from landslide hazards can be devised.In this context, the book employs the Discrete Element Method (DEM) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to investigate the mechanical and hydraulic ...

What is the progress in hydraulic research? What are the new methods used in modeling of transport of momentum, matter and heat in both open and conduit channels? What new experimental methods, instruments, measurement techniques, and data analysis routines are used in top class laboratory and field hydro-environment studies? How to link novel findings in fundamental hydraulics with the investigations of environmental issues? The consecutive 32nd International School of Hydraulics that too...

This book details how the GALO system of basin modelling may be used in the analysis of actual, non-standard problems of geology. It begins by addressing the tectonic subsidence of sedimentary basins, and goes on to consider the problems of maturation of organic matter and hydrocarbon generation in the vicinity of intrusions and subtrappean sedimentary complexes. Lastly, the book discusses the formation of temperature and heat flow distributions with depth due to the sharp climate variatio...

This book is a collection of papers presented at the International Workshop on Geotechnical Natural Hazards held July 12–15, 2014, in Kitakyushu, Japan. The workshop was the sixth in the series of Japan–Taiwan Joint Workshops on Geotechnical Hazards from Large Earthquakes and Heavy Rainfalls, held under the auspices of the Asian Technical Committee No. 3 on Geotechnology for Natural Hazards of the International Society for Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering. It was co-organized by...

Mathematical models are the effective tool to solve different tasks predicting pollutant movement. The finite difference method is the oldest, but still remains widely used in hydrogeological practice. However, this method is not very useful to construct the new transport models because it cannot approximate the shape of remediation elements exactly. Therefore the book is concerned with the FEM (Finite Element Method) and BEM (Boundary Element Method), and also with the comparison of advan...

Geophysical mass flows, such as landslides, avalanches or debris flows, are frequent mass movement processes in mountain areas and often cause disastrous damage. This book lays a foundation for formulating the depth-averaged equations describing the shallow geophysical mass flows over non-trivial topography. It consists of the detailed derivation of the model equations. The stimulating numerical examples demonstrate how the proposed models are applied. All this make this book accessible to...