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“Not since Jacques Cousteau has anyone brought us the sense of the ocean as our home . . . Far more than a science book.” —San Francisco Book Review Gordon Chaplin’s father was a seemingly happy-go-lucky, charismatic adventurer who married a wealthy heiress and transformed himself into the author of a landmark scientific study, Fishes of the Bahamas. The book was published by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, one of America's most esteemed scientific institutions. As a young boy, the author took part in collecting specimens for his father. Fifty years later, he was asked to join a team studying the state of sea life in the Bahamian waters where he grew up, as measured ...
In March 2011, people in a coastal Japanese city stood atop a seawall watching the approach of the tsunami that would kill them. They believed--naively--that the huge concrete barrier would save them. Instead, they perished, betrayed by the very thing built to protect them. Academics call it maladaptation; in simple terms, it's about solutions that backfire. Over the Seawall tells the stories behind these unintended consequences and the fixes that do more harm than good. From seawalls in coastal Japan, to reengineered waters in the Ganges River Delta, to the ribbon of water supporting both farms and cities in parched Arizona, we visit engineering marvels once deemed too smart and too big to fail. After each we better understand how complicated, grandiose schemes fail. Ultimately, we learn that if we are to adapt successfully to climate change, we must recognize that working with nature is not surrender but the only way to assure a secure future.
This SpringerBrief uses a complexity perspective to integrate risk, finance, and ecological issues in Miami, USA. It focuses on how the modern financial system, particularly the mortgage market, perceives and manages the risk of climate change. Authors Kathleen Sealey, Ray King Burch and P.-M. Binder offer the case study of South Florida to illustrate how landscapes can be either re-purposed to function ecologically when residents relocate or rebuilt to reduce the threat of future flooding, the tools needed to make these decisions, and how financial systems view and influence them. While the need to integrate financial markets into coastal (and environmental) management is increasingly recog...
World Resources 2000-2001, People and Ecosystems: The Fraying Web of Life focuses on the critical link between ecosystems and people and provides an overview of current global environmental and economic trends using hundreds of indicators in more than 150 countries. Until now there has not been a comprehensive, formalised process to assess human damage to our ecosystems, to establish a baseline for future actions, or to disseminate information that would aid the formulation of better policies world-wide. This book is the first reliable, comprehensive base of evidence for taking stock and taking care of the world's diverse ecosystems. • deals with the critical issues that focus on the link ...
The tropical UK Territories have extensive coral reefs. Huge parts of these areas are exceptionally rich, productive and diverse. Their marine biodiversity exceeds that of the UK itself, and several are already, or are planned to be, strictly protected. Some of these areas serve as reference sites for many other countries with damaged reefs and they are oases of tropical marine biodiversity in a fast-degrading world. This book reviews all of the UK reefs, from those scarcely known to those where substantial research has already been performed.
Communities and Museums in the 21st Century brings together innovative, multidisciplinary perspectives on contemporary museology and participatory museum practice that contribute to wider debates on museum communities, heritage, and sustainability. Set within the context of globalisation and decolonisation, this book draws upon bi-regional research that will enrich our understanding of the complex relationships between Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean through museum studies and practice. Chapters reflect upon the role of museums in defining community identities; the importance of young people’s participation and intergenerational work for sustainability; the role of museums in local...
This volume brings together examples of the best research to address the complexity of the Caribbean past.
From the contributors to The Conversation, a compelling essay collection on the world's water crises and the necessary steps to build a more sustainable and equitable water future for all. Water-related crises are affecting more and more communities, both in the United States and internationally. If we continue to delay upgrading our infrastructure and addressing rising environmental concerns, we risk further destabilizing already strained systems—or, worse, causing a catastrophic collapse. In The Conversation on Water, water scholar and professor Andrea K. Gerlak collects essays from The Conversation U.S. on critical issues related to water from leading experts in everything from public p...
Archaeological data now show that relatively intense human adaptations to coastal environments developed much earlier than once believed—more than 125,000 years ago. With our oceans and marine fisheries currently in a state of crisis, coastal archaeological sites contain a wealth of data that can shed light on the history of human exploitation of marine ecosystems. In eleven case studies from the Americas, Pacific Islands, North Sea, Caribbean, Europe, and Africa, leading researchers working in coastal areas around the world cover diverse marine ecosystems, reaching into deep history to discover how humans interacted with and impacted these aquatic environments and shedding new light on our understanding of contemporary environmental problems.
This study represents a contribution to the pre-Colonial archaeology of the Windward Islands in the Caribbean. The research aimed to determine how the Ceramic Age (c. 400 BC - AD 1492) Amerindian inhabitants of the region related to one another and others at various geographic scales, with a view to better understanding social interaction and organisation within the Windward Islands as well the integration of this region within the macro-region. This research approached the study of intra- and inter-island interaction and social development through an island-by-island study of some 640 archaeological sites and their ceramic assemblages. Besides providing insight into settlement sequences, pa...