Bøker utgitt av Island Press

Offers a source of information and analysis on freshwater resources. This title examines critical global trends and offers the data available on a variety of topics related to water. It features chapters on water policy, transboundary waters, and the effects of fossil fuel production on water resources, among other issues.

The Digital Age was expected to usher in an era of clean production, an alternative to smokestack industries and their pollutants. But as environmental journalist Elizabeth Grossman reveals in this penetrating analysis of high tech manufacture and disposal, digital may be sleek, but it's anything but clean. Deep within every electronic device lie toxic materials that make up the bits and bytes, a complex thicket of lead, mercury, cadmium, plastics, and a hof other often harmful ingredients.High Tech Trash is a wake-up call to the importance of the e-waste issue and the health hazards involved. Americans alone own more than two billion pieces of high tech electronics and discard five to seven million tons each year. As a result, electronic waste already makes up more than two-thirds of the heavy metals and 40 percof the lead found in our landfills. But the problem goes far beyond American shores, mtragically to the cities in China and India where shiploads of discarded electronics arrive daily. There, they are "e;recycled"e;-picked apart by hand, exposing thousands of workers and community residents to toxics.As Grossman notes, "e;This is a story in which we all play a part, whether we know it or not. If you sit at a desk in an office, talk to friends on your cell phone, watch television, listen to music on headphones, are a child in Guangdong, or a native of the Arctic, you are part of this story."e;The answers lie in changing how we design, manufacture, and dispose of high tech electronics. Europe has led the way in regulating materials used in electronic devices and in e-waste recycling. But in the United States many have yet to recognize the persisthuman health and environmental effects of the toxics in high tech devices. If SilSpring brought national attention to the dangers of DDT and other pesticides, High Tech Trash could do the same for a new generation of technology's products.

A renowned water expert looks at repairing our broken water cycle using nature's rhythms.

An overview of recent trends in ecological restoration, perfect for students.

Patrick Condon, a renowned leader of urban design, offers tools for cities to adapt to climate change and shifting demographics.

Industries that drive economic growth and support our comfortable modern lifestyles have exploited natural resources to do so. But now there's growing understanding that business can benefit from a better relationship with the environment. Leading corporations have begun to leverage nature-based remediation, restoration, and enhanced lands management to meet a variety of business needs, such as increasing employee engagement and establishing key performance indicators for reporting and disclosures. Strategic Corporate Conservation Planning offers fresh insights for corporations and environmental groups looking to create mutually beneficial partnerships that use conservation action to address business challenges and realize meaningful environmental outcomes. Myriad case studies featuring programs from habitat restoration to environmental educational initiatives at companies like Bridgestone USA, General Motors, and CRH Americas are included to help spark new ideas.

Addresses a problem that is the reason many restoration projects are not as effective or successful as they could be: a lack of understanding of the principles of sound planning and management. The authors offer a framework for developing and executing an ecological restoration project in order to maximize its potential for success.

Presents a study of one of the biologically richest and most endangered ecosystems in North America. This book explains the natural history of southern grasslands, their origin and history, and the physical determinants of grassland distribution, including ecology, soils, landform, and hydrology.

Provides an examination of various aspects of green roads, from transportation policy to the basics of road design, public involvement, road ecology, and the economics of sustainable roads. This book offers a practical strategy for rethinking how we design, plan, and maintain our transportation infrastructure.

Brings together leading researchers in the range of specialties that are relevant to the study of human dimensions of fish and wildlife work around the globe to provide theoretical and historical context as well as a demonstration of tools, methodologies, and idea-sharing for practical implementation and integration of practices.

Providing a different perspective on the ecological dynamics of abandoned land, this book gives an understanding of why agricultural land is abandoned, the factors that determine the ecological recovery of old fields, and how this understanding contributes to theoretical and applied ecology. It includes 12 case studies.

More severe storms and rising seas will inexorably push the American coastline inland with profound impact on communities, infrastructure, and natural systems. In A New Coast, Jeffrey Peterson draws a comprehensive picture of how storms and rising seas will change the coast. Peterson offers a clear-eyed assessment of how governments can work with the private sector and citizens to be better prepared for the coming coastal inundation.Drawing on four decades of experience at the Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Senate, Peterson presents the science behind predictions for coastal impacts. He explains how current policies fall short of what is needed to effectively prepare for these changes and how the Trump Administration has significantly weakened these efforts. While describing how and why the current policies exist, he builds a strong case for a bold, new approach, tackling difficult topics including: how to revise flood insurance and disaster assistance programs; when to step back from the coast rather than build protection structures; how to steer new development away from at-risk areas; and how to finance the transition to a new coast. Key challenges, including how to protect critical infrastructure, ecosystems, and disadvantaged populations, are examined. Ultimately, Peterson offers hope in the form of a framework of new national policies and programs to support local and state governments. He calls for engagement from the private sector and local and national leaders in a "e;campaign for a new coast.”A New Coast is a compelling assessment of the dramatic changes that are coming to America's coast. Peterson offers insights and strategies for policymakers, planners, and business leaders preparing for the intensifying impacts of climate change along the coast.

As the US population grows-potentially adding more than 110 million people by 2050-cities and their suburbs will continue expanding, eventually meeting the suburbs of neighboring cities and forming continuous urban megaregions. There are now at least a dozen megaregions in the US, such as the one extending from Richmond, Virginia, to Portland, Maine, and the megaregion that runs from Santa Barbara through Los Angeles and San Diego, down to the Mexican border. In Designing the Megaregion, planning and urban design expert Jonathan Barnett takes a fresh look at designing megaregions. Barnett argues that planning megaregions requires ecological literacy and a renewed commitment to social equity in order to address the increasing pressure this growth puts on natural, built, and human resources. If current trends continue, new construction in megaregions will put additional stress on natural resources, make highway gridlock and airline delays much worse, and cause each region to become more separate and unequal. Barnett offers an incremental approach to designing at the megaregional scale that will help prepare for future economic and population growth. Designing the Megaregion explains how we can, and should, redesign megaregional growth using mostly private investment, without having to wait for large-scale, government initiatives and trying to create whole new governmental structures. Barnett explains practical initiatives for adapting development in response to a changing climate, improving transportation systems, and redirecting the forces that make megaregions very unequal places. There is an urgent need to begin designing megaregions, and Barnett offers a hopeful way forward using systems that are already in place.

Some parks, preserves, and other natural areas serve people well; others are disappointing. Successful design and managemrequires knowledge of both people and environments.With People in Mind explores how to design and manage areas of "e;everyday nature"e; -- parks and open spaces, corporate grounds, vacant lots and backyard gardens, fields and forests -- in ways that are beneficial to and appreciated by humans. Rachel Kaplan and Stephen Kaplan, leading researchers in the field of environmental psychology, along with Robert Ryan, a landscape architect and urban planner, provide a conceptual framework for considering the human dimensions of natural areas and offer a fresh perspective on the subject. The authors examine.physical aspects of natural settings that enhance preference and reduce fear ways to facilitate way-finding how to create restorative settings that allow people to recover from the stress of daily demands landscape elements that are particularly important to human needs techniques for obtaining useful public input

Through interviews and reporting, Food Town, USA showcases innovative approaches to sustainable food that can be applied in any city.

The 25th Anniversary Edition of the classic memoir celebrates the human side of science.

A fresh, optimistic narrative that shows how the West has thrived in the face of water scarcity and can handle future shortages.

This story of an unlikely organic farmer shows the future of healthy American agriculture.

The Great Lakes are the largest collection of fresh surface water on earth, and more than 40 million Americans and Canadians live in their basin. Will we divert water from the Great Lakes, causing them to end up like Central Asia's Aral Sea, which has lost 90 percent of its surface area and 75 percent of its volume since 1960? Or will we come to see that unregulated water withdrawals are ultimately catastrophic? Peter Annin writes a fast-paced account of the people and stories behind these upcoming battles. Destined to be the definitive story for the general public as well as policymakers, The Great Lakes Water Wars is a balanced, comprehensive look behind the scenes at the conflicts and compromises that are the past-and future-of this unique resource.

This beautifully illustrated short e-book explores the idea that to create vibrant, sustainable urban areas for the long term, we must first understand what happens naturally when people congregate in cities-innate, unprompted interactions of urban dwellers with each other and their surrounding urban and physical environment. Wolfe elaborates on the perspective that the underlying rationales for urban policy, planning and regulation are best understood from a historical perspective and in a better understanding of the everyday uses of urban space. To make his case, Wolfe draws on his years of writing about urbanism as well as his professional experiences as a land use and environmental lawyer and offers compelling case study vignettes from everyday urban life.Successful community, Wolfe argues, is among the first principles of what makes humans feel happy, and therefore city dwellers invariably celebrate environments where and when they can coexist safely, in a mutually supportive way. Wolfe believes such celebration is most interesting when it occurs spontaneously-seemingly without effort. He contends it is critical to first isolate these spontaneous and latent examples of successful urban land use, before applying any prescriptive government policies or initiatives. Wolfe provides something rare in contemporary urbanist writing-rich illustrations and examples from real life-both historical and current. His writing about the past and the future of urban form offers readers inspiration, historical context, and a better understanding of how a sustainable, inviting urban environment is created.

The most comprehensive book available about planning for climate change on the local level.

An accessibly-written guide to the current tools and strategies for designing a low-carbon future.

An essential resource for practitioners and academics of corridor ecology, updated with new science.

A well-known expert on cities brings an inside perspective to the future of American downtowns.

Reveals the true costs of our seemingly cheap and convenient food system.

A journalist concerned with the risks of hair dye learns to embrace grey hair and better health.

Shares the science behind pollinators and why they're threatened, along with real stories of the efforts to save them.

A book of practical insight and lessons for using small vacant lots to create public green space.

Global stories show urban innovations that are responding to climate change.

An easy-to-read guide to the current Farm Bill and its implications for food and agriculture.