Venice Against the Sea: A City Besieged

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"Venice is in trouble," writes John Keahey. The city is sinking into the sea. It has lost six feet over the last millennium and soon will lose more. The problem has become so bad that hotel concierges routinely distribute rubber boots to guests, and tourists cross historic squares on elevated boardwalks. Long-time residents flee not only the rising water, but also the rising cost-of- living and the rising industrial pollution. Venice, according to Keahey, "is evolving into a crumbling museum." Once, of course, it was an economic powerhouse with global reach; later it became the repository of some of the finest art and architecture in the world. Now it's sinking, largely due to the remorseless facts of geography, but also because the city's residents have abused their underground water resources. In Venice Against the Sea, Keahey offers a detailed description of what's gone wrong--and explores how the city might be saved, at least temporarily, through innovative engineering. This is a book anybody who has fallen in love with Venice will want to read, yet it issues a stark warning for people in coastal cities all over the world. If sea levels continue to rise, Venice's bleak fate may also be their own. --John Miller

Book Description

Venice is sinking - six feet over the past 1,000 years.The reasons for this are many.Although there is a natural geologic tendency for some sinking, humans have exacerbated the problem by exploiting on a massive scale underground water resources for industrial purposes.Coupled with these events - and perhaps most significant - are climatic changes all over the globe.The heating of the atmosphere after the last ice age, dramatically speeded up by humans, has led to a steady, continuing rise in sea level.This global warming is likely to persist beyond human control for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.Venetians, other Italians, and many in the world community are locked in debate over Venice's plight. Venice Against the Sea explains how the city and its 177 canals were built and what has led up to this long-foreseen crisis.It explores the various options currently being considered for "solving" this problem and chronicles the ongoing debate among scientists, engineers, and politicians about the pros and cons of each potential solution.Through extensive research and interviews, award-winning journalist John Keahey has written the definitive book on this fascinating problem. No matter what the experts decide to do, one thing is for certain - Venice's art, its buildings, and its history are too important to the planet's cultural identity to let it slip beneath the rising waters of the Adriatic.AUTHORBIO: John Keahey, a veteran newspaper journalist, is an Idaho native raised in Nampa, Idaho. He has degrees from the University of Utah, and lives in Salt Lake City with his wife, book designer Connie Disney.He is also the author of A Sweet and Glorious Land.

Customer Reviews:

Very good, gets a little technical towards the end.......2002-07-24

The first three-quarters+ of the book is excellent. It provides a good overview of Venetian history and explains how/why the city is essentially sinking. The author then gets into a TREMENDOUS amount of depth (no pun intended) concerning funding for a proposed gate project, various changes of Italian government, etc.-- probably more than you need to know, certainly more than I needed. Overall, though, the book was very good, even for someone who knows Venice as well as I do.

Environmental Role of Wetlands in Headwaters (Nato Science Series: IV: Earth and Environmental Sciences)

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Environmental Role of Wetlands in Headwaters (Nato Science Series: IV: Earth and Environmental Sciences)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1402042264

Book Description

Internationally, the wetlands of headwater and upland regions provide many valuable environmental services. They influence flood flows, sediment loads and aquifer recharge; biochemical water qualities and biodiversity. They affect the livelihoods of many communities providing water, peat, timber, grazing, crops and, locally, aesthetic, cultural, recreational, nature conservation and educational benefits. Previously, many of these lands were valued only for their capacity to be converted to other uses through drainage and forestation. Today, their benefits are better appreciated. Better environmental management highlights ways of bringing enhanced benefits from these lands to all stakeholders and of minimising their potentially negative impacts due to climatic emissions of greenhouse gases, hydrological changes (especially flooding, water chemistry) and sediment release. This book moves towards a more comprehensive inventory of the benefits and costs of headwater wetlands. It evaluates the research that tries to understand the tolerances, exchanges, checks and balances within headwater landscapes and the downstream impacts of changes in wetlands. It employs case studies and reviews from 21 nations spanning Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. It explores the new policy frameworks, changes in land husbandry, new systems for community education, participatory processes and technological interventions required for the effective management of headwater wetlands and the full integration of wetlands (including newly constructed wetlands) into environmental management and planning. In the past, most research dealt with wetlands as isolated features, this book examines wetlands in their watershed management context.

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Cornell Instructor's Opinion
great guide for planners and environmental studies
great guide for planners and environmental studies
A good handbook for any planner

Water in Environmental Planning
Thomas Dunne , and Luna B. Leopold
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0716700794

Customer Reviews:

Cornell Instructor's Opinion.......2005-01-06

Despite its age and somewhat outdated nomenclatures, this book is still the best comprehensive introductory hydrology book in existence. There are better quantitative hydrology texts (e.g., Dingman), better engineering texts (e.g., Chow and prodigies), more cogent overviews of hydrology (e.g., Hornberger et al.), and more appropriate "handbooks" (e.g., Chow or Maidment). But, Dunne and Leopold is the only text I know of that provides a good balance among applied context, quantitative tools, and conceptual descriptions of basic and integrated processes while retaining its comprehensive character without copious mistakes and errors. I sincerely hope that a new, similarly good text emerges soon.

great guide for planners and environmental studies.......2001-09-13

first chapter is dry but the rest of the book is a thorough compilation of techniques, history, design, purpose and review.

great guide for planners and environmental studies.......2001-09-13

first chapter is dry but the rest of the book is a thorough compilation of techniques, history, design, purpose and review.

A good handbook for any planner.......2000-07-14

Dunne & Leopold's "Water In Environmental Planning" is a great tool of reference for the planner of any type. It addresses key issues in the role of water during the planning process and also includes important formulas for solving water problems. If you can get past a boring first chapter, this book is well worth the money and makes a great reference for the urban, rural or environmental planner. 4 stars.

Land-Use and Land-Cover Change: Local Processes and Global Impacts (Global Change - The IGBP Series)

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Land-Use and Land-Cover Change: Local Processes and Global Impacts (Global Change - The IGBP Series)

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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Global Warming: The Complete Briefing

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ASIN: 3540322019

Book Description

The book presents recent estimates of the rates in changes of major land classes such as forest, cropland and pasture. Among the causative mechanisms behind land change, synergetic factor combinations are found to be more common than single key factor explanations. Aggregated globally, multiple impacts of local land changes are shown to significantly affect central aspects of Earth System functioning. Innovative developments and applications in the fields of modeling and scenario construction are presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the most pressing implications for the design of appropriate intervention policies, and on new directions and frontiers of research.
The edited book synthesizes research achievements by dozens of scientists related to the Land-Use/Cover Change (LUCC) project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) and the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP). It summarizes relevant findings on global land-use change which arose from value-adding activities of the LUCC project, starting in 1995 and extending until its termination in October 2005. The main intention is to describe how human modification of land cover became a major driving force of Earth System changes over the past 300 years, a period of most rapid transformations, with fundamental implications for current landscape configurations. In writing this book, current knowledge and understanding is reported on the rates, causes/pathways, impacts, future scenarios/models, policy implications and new research directions in the field of land-use/cover change.

Geo-Spatial Technologies in Urban Environments: Policy, Practice, and Pixels

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Geo-Spatial Technologies in Urban Environments: Policy, Practice, and Pixels

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3540694161

Book Description

This book expands the current frame of reference of remote sensing and geographic information specialists to include an array of socio-economic and related planning issues. Using remotely sensed data, the project explores the efficacy and policy implications of new approaches toward analyzing data (i.e., homogeneity indices), integrates approaches from human geography (i.e., Expansion Method), and explores the utility of employing geo-technologies to further the politics of local growth and smart growth coalitions (i.e., green space).

Remote Sensing Image Analysis: Including the Spatial Domain (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing)

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Remote Sensing Image Analysis: Including the Spatial Domain (Remote Sensing and Digital Image Processing)

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

ASIN: 1402025599

Book Description

Remote Sensing image analysis is mostly done using only spectral information on a pixel by pixel basis. Information captured in neighbouring cells, or information about patterns surrounding the pixel of interest often provides useful supplementary information. This book presents a wide range of innovative and advanced image processing methods for including spatial information, captured by neighbouring pixels in remotely sensed images, to improve image interpretation or image classification. Presented methods include different types of variogram analysis, various methods for texture quantification, smart kernel operators, pattern recognition techniques, image segmentation methods, sub-pixel methods, wavelets and advanced spectral mixture analysis techniques. Apart from explaining the working methods in detail a wide range of applications is presented covering land cover and land use mapping, environmental applications such as heavy metal pollution, urban mapping and geological applications to detect hydrocarbon seeps.

The book is meant for professionals, PhD students and graduates who use remote sensing image analysis, image interpretation and image classification in their work related to disciplines such as geography, geology, botany, ecology, forestry, cartography, soil science, engineering and urban and regional planning.

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Jan Mayen Island in Scientific Focus

Manufacturer: Springer
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 140202956X

Book Description

Jan Mayen is a volcanic island surrounded by the deep Greenland, Iceland and Norwegian Seas. There, atmospheric and oceanic processes unleash potential energy that forces very dynamic interactions between sea and air. This unique geophysical focal point generates climatic variability in northern Europe, and supports marine biological production that sustains the yield of large living resources. The marine populations are clearly fluctuating with variations in climate, and raises questions about effects of man-made climate change. Since the last Ice Age the sinking of Greenland Sea Deep-Water has been a substantial driving force for the Global Thermo-Haline Circulation which feeds warm Atlantic water into the Nordic Seas. Global warming may interact with the deep-water formation and force feedback mechanisms that express themselves beyond imagination. The book addresses such problems to raise an interest for doing research on the island and in its waters. The potentials for doing that increases when the island's Loran-C station closes down in 2005. The book recommends how the international scientific community may gain access to this really challenging arena for local, regional and Global research. It is a blueprint for the logistics required for science to succeed in a very remote and physically demanding place on Earth.

Living with Long Island's South Shore (Living with the Shore)

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Living with Long Island's South Shore (Living with the Shore)
Larry McCormick
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0822305011

The Pacific Northwest Coast: Living with the Shores of Oregon and Washington (Living with the Shore)

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The Pacific Northwest Coast

The Pacific Northwest Coast: Living with the Shores of Oregon and Washington (Living with the Shore)
Paul D. Komar , and Paul D. Komar
Manufacturer: Duke University Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822320207

Book Description

While the coast of the Pacific Northwest becomes populated with houses, condominiums, motels, and restaurants, its beaches and cliffs continue to be altered by ocean currents and winter storms. A companion volume to Living with the Shore of Puget Sound and the Georgia Strait, The Pacific Northwest Coast serves as a source of information about the coast of the Pacific Northwest, its geological setting, the natural responses of beaches and cliffs to ocean processes, and the ever-present problem of erosion.
In this guide, Paul D. Komar, one of the nation’s leading coastal oceanographers, examines the lessons taught by ages of geological and cultural history. With explanations of the area’s geological evolution, including natural shoreline erosion and sea-cliff landsliding, Komar details human interaction with the coast: erosion caused by early settlers, the development and destruction of Bayocean Spit, the disastrous effects caused by the 1982–1983 El Niño, and the notorious failure of a construction project on the picturesqueæbut unstableæbluffs at Jump-Off Joe. Emphasizing the actual and potential harm to human projects and to the natural heritage of the coast, Komar provides the knowledge necessary for finding a safe home near the shore while preserving the beauty that draws us to it.

Customer Reviews:

The Pacific Northwest Coast.......2000-05-29

The book is valuable and understandable. I am doing research in preparation to a move to the west coast of Oregon. Professor Komar takes a complicated issue and makes it understandable for a lay person. He is clear about what level of evidence exists for various subjects and is clear when expressing his opinion. The book very much answered just about all the questions I had.

Developing Tsunami-Resilient Communities: The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program

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Developing Tsunami-Resilient Communities: The National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1402033532

Book Description

Tsunamis remain an ever-present threat to lives and property along the coasts of most of the world’s oceans. Because of the geographical extent of U.S. coastlines, an earthquake in Alaska can generate a local tsunami for Alaskans and, hours later, a distant tsunami for communities in Hawaii and along the Pacific Coast . This volume chronicles the development and accomplishments of a joint State/Federal partnership that was forged to reduce tsunami hazards along U.S. coastlines – the National Tsunami Hazard Mitigation Program. By integrating hazard assessment, warning guidance, and mitigation activities, the program has created a roadmap and a set of tools to develop communities more resilient to local and distant tsunamis. Among the set of tools are tsunami forecasting, educational experiments, early alerting systems, and design guidance for tsunami-resilient communities. Part of this book has already been published in a recent journal issue.

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