This book addresses most of the environmental impacts of sand mining from small rivers The problems and solutions addressed in this book are applicable to all rivers that drain through densely populated tropical coasts undergoing rapid economic growth. Many rivers in the world are drastically being altered to levels often beyond their natural resilience capability. Among the different types of human interventions, mining of sand and gravel is the most disastrous one, as the activity threat...

The world's population is increasing; but its supply of water is not. Empires have grown and declined due to discovery and exhaustion of their water sources, and now the West is at last catching on to the fact that abundance of water can no longer be taken for granted. For the last fifty years, wars have been fought over oil; for the next fifty, they may be fought over water (in fact, some local wars already have been). Remarkably, this new book is the first to bring together the ecologica...

1 2 J. H. SCHROEDER and B. H. PURSER 1 Introduction A symposium convened during the Vth International Coral Reef Congress in Papeete, Tahiti, 1985, encouraged the editors to assemble this volume of case studies by participating and, especially, by nonparticipating scientists. An attempt was made to include case studies from various regions and geological periods, carried out on various scales from regional to ultrastructural. We hope to present an overall view of reef diagenesis. Although ...

There is an extremely voluminous literature on radioactive waste and its disposal, much in the form of government-sponsored research reports. To wade through this mountain of literature is indeed a tedious task, and it is safe to speculate that very few, if any, individuals have the time to examine each report that has been issued during the preceding ten years. This book attempts to summarize much of this literature. Further, many workers in the geosciences have not received training in t...

This book seeks to enrich the growing literature on mine legacies by examining a case study of a small abandoned mine in Latin America. Using a combination of Rapid Rural Appraisal and secondary source analysis, this study assessed some of the most damaging legacies of the San Sebastian mine in eastern El Salvador, compared the country’s mine closure legislation against world’s best practice standards and provided strategies for awareness, prevention and remediation.The most damagi...

Discusses the global evolution of the earth, such as core- mantle separation, mantle-crust evolution, origin of ocean- atmosphere system, on the basis of isotope earth science and paleomagnetism, where recent devlopment in planetology and astrophysical theories are extensively taken into account.

Preface Uranium is a radioactive element and a heavy metal which is naturally occurring in ground and surface water. Although uranium is enriched in granites and gneiss ground water from these host rocks often shows low to intermediate uranium con centrations, while some ground waters from sandstone and carbonate aquifers show elevated uranium concentrations up to several hundred mg/1 without man made impact. On the other side, surface water contains increased anthropogenic uranium concent...

Nowadays, major environmental issues are the object of large public debates de spite the fact that scientific knowledge is often insufficient to draw unequivocal conclusions. Such is the case in the ongoing debate regarding the specific contri butions of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and of natural climate changes to global warming. At least 10 to 20 years of additional observations will be re quired, before we will be able to conclude, with certainty, on this subject. In the mean...

This book discusses the problems and feasible remediation of fluoride contamination in groundwater. The book investigates applications of various carbons derived from bio-mass and bio-polymers. It also inquires into surface modified carbons that use inorganic ions to help remove excess fluoride ions in drinking water and wastewater effluents. The compliance of kinetic and isotherm models with fluoride sorption is covered, and the suggested mechanisms of defluoridation by surface modified c...

This book presents recent lessons learned in the context of research and development for various dryland ecosystems, focusing on water resources management, land and vegetation cover degradation and remediation, and socioeconomic aspects, as well as integrated approaches to ensuring water and land security in view of the current and predicted climate change. As water and land are the essential bases of food production, the management of these natural resources is becoming a cornerstone for...