Biological and Environmental Hazards, Risks, and Disasters PDF Download

Author: Ramesh Sivanpillai
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0128205806
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 570

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Book Description
Biological and Environmental Hazards, Risks, and Disasters, Second Edition provides an integrated look at major impacts to the Earth's biosphere caused by diseases, algal blooms, insects, animals, species extinction, deforestation, land degradation, and comet and asteroid strikes, with important implications for humans. This second edition from Elsevier's Hazards and Disasters Series incorporates perspectives from the natural and social sciences to offer in-depth coverage of threats from microscopic organisms to celestial objects and their potential impacts. Contributions from expert biological, health, ecological, environmental, wildlife, physical, and health scientists, readers will gain valuable insights on damages, causality, economic impacts, preparedness, and mitigation. - Provides inter- and multi-disciplinary research accessible to both specialists and non-specialists - Includes newly added chapters on emerging hazards and risks to earth's ecosystems (land conversion and habitat loss) and human health (spread of diseases) - Contains full-color tables, maps, diagrams, illustrations, and photographs of hazardous processes

Author: Ian Lerche
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 354029709X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 346

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Book Description
This book explores environmental and human risk problems caused by contamination, from the perspective of real world applications with quantitative procedures. It includes risk methods for environmental problems where data are sparse or fuzzy, and incorporates political, social and economic considerations in determining directions of remediation solutions for environmental contaminant problems. It highlights the impact of contaminants on human health – sometimes fatal - and the anthropogenic exacerbation of natural processes.

Author: M.K. Jha
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9048124980
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 628

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Book Description
The major challenges of the 21st century faced by human beings are how to achieve water security, food security, energy security and environmental security. Owing to enhanced natural/anthropogenic disasters worldwide, these challenges become much more complicated and daunting especially for developing countries. Therefore, it is important to highlight the risk of different disasters as well as the modern tools and techniques for minimizing disaster incidence and losses. Disaster management being highly multidisciplinary in nature, a comprehensive book dealing with different aspects of disaster management, and encompassing important disasters faced by humankind is presently not available. This book is an attempt to fulfill this gap. It provides clear, comprehensive, and up-to-date information about different facets of disaster management along with salient case studies. The book highlights the current status of disaster management focusing on developing nations, discusses vital issues such as climate change and sustainable development, modern approaches and tools/techniques, and the challenges of and future R&D needs for sustainable disaster management.

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309168902
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 84

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Book Description
The purpose of this regional workshop in the Southeast was to broaden the environmental health perspective from its typical focus on environmental toxicology to a view that included the impact of the natural, built, and social environments on human health. Early in the planning, Roundtable members realized that the process of engaging speakers and developing an agenda for the workshop would be nearly as instructive as the workshop itself. In their efforts to encourage a wide scope of participation, Roundtable members sought input from individuals from a broad range of diverse fields-urban planners, transportation engineers, landscape architects, developers, clergy, local elected officials, heads of industry, and others. This workshop summary captures the discussions that occurred during the two-day meeting. During this workshop, four main themes were explored: (1) environmental and individual health are intrinsically intertwined; (2) traditional methods of ensuring environmental health protection, such as regulations, should be balanced by more cooperative approaches to problem solving; (3) environmental health efforts should be holistic and interdisciplinary; and (4) technological advances, along with coordinated action across educational, business, social, and political spheres, offer great hope for protecting environmental health. This workshop report is an informational document that provides a summary of the regional meeting.

Author: Piers Blaikie
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134528612
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
The term 'natural disaster' is often used to refer to natural events such as earthquakes, hurricanes or floods. However, the phrase 'natural disaster' suggests an uncritical acceptance of a deeply engrained ideological and cultural myth. At Risk questions this myth and argues that extreme natural events are not disasters until a vulnerable group of people is exposed. The updated new edition confronts a further ten years of ever more expensive and deadly disasters and discusses disaster not as an aberration, but as a signal failure of mainstream 'development'. Two analytical models are provided as tools for understanding vulnerability. One links remote and distant 'root causes' to 'unsafe conditions' in a 'progression of vulnerability'. The other uses the concepts of 'access' and 'livelihood' to understand why some households are more vulnerable than others. Examining key natural events and incorporating strategies to create a safer world, this revised edition is an important resource for those involved in the fields of environment and development studies.

Author: Pankaj Pathak
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031410130
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This book delves into the anthropogenic activities responsible for environmental hazards, their compensation, and potential mitigation strategies. It sheds light on the major contributors to the climate change issues aggravated by non-sustainable practices for the overexploitation of natural resources. Critical topics such as high emissions in primary mining, the recovery of energy-critical metals by urban mining, solid waste management, and forest conservation are explored, offering insights into the urgent challenges we face. Amidst the rapid demand for resources and the expansion of human habitats, the book emphasizes the need for new approaches to natural resource management and introspection of our actions. Experts in the field discuss existing anthropogenic environmental hazards in detail, alongside environmental compensation, and effective mitigation approaches. The book begins with a chapter dedicated to risk assessment in primary mining activities for precious metals, proposing potential routes for mitigation. Chapter 2 focuses on assessing and mitigating the environmental footprints of energy-critical metals used in permanent magnets. In Chapter 3, a case study examines sustainable resource utilization through end-of-life room air conditioner recycling. Additional chapters provide critical insights into: The environmental impacts of e-waste and government policies for responsible management Hazards associated with industrial effluents and corresponding mitigation strategies The role of roadside plants in phytoremediation of heavy metal pollution Sustainable utilization of anthropogenic coal fly ash through mechanical and chemical activation Environmental damages resulting from the mismanagement of municipal solid waste Environmental problems and remediation strategies for anthropogenic biomass waste Challenges in sustainable municipal solid waste management and suggestions for environmental risk mitigation The book concludes with a chapter discussing collaborative governance and non-monetary compensation mechanisms for sustainable forest management. Given its breadth, this book serves as an indispensable resource for researchers, policymakers, and environmental professionals seeking sustainable approaches to tackle pressing environmental challenges.

Author: Richard B. Philp
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 146656721X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
Since the second edition of this text was published, many new environmental incidents have occurred, including another nuclear disaster, a mine disaster in the United States, and the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Updated throughout the text, Ecosystems and Human Health: Toxicology and Environmental Hazards, Third Edition explores the broad range of environmental and human health aspects of chemical and biological hazards—from natural toxins and disasters to man-made pollutants and environmental crises. The book begins with the basic principles of pharmacology and toxicology, risk analysis, and air, water, and soil pollution. It then examines various toxicants and hazards, such as airborne hazards, halogenated hydrocarbons, metals, and organic solvents. Chapters also discuss food additives and contaminants, pesticides, hormone disrupters, radiation hazards, and natural environmental hazards such as venomous and toxic animals. The text reviews the Chernobyl nuclear crisis and the Walkerton drinking water tragedy, as well as other disasters, assessing some of their long-term effects, now that sufficient time has elapsed since their occurrence. With updates in every chapter, this third edition contains significant expansion of information on the genetics of chemical carcinogenesis, global warming, food additives, invasive species in the Great Lakes, nuclear accidents, and more. The book describes how chemical toxins and biological hazards can impact the environment and the people who live in it. The author presents numerous examples of the relationship between ecosystem health and human health. He emphasizes the need to consider the environmental impact of human activities and includes many real-world examples and new case studies.

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309264146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
The United States is among the wealthiest nations in the world, but it is far from the healthiest. Although life expectancy and survival rates in the United States have improved dramatically over the past century, Americans live shorter lives and experience more injuries and illnesses than people in other high-income countries. The U.S. health disadvantage cannot be attributed solely to the adverse health status of racial or ethnic minorities or poor people: even highly advantaged Americans are in worse health than their counterparts in other, "peer" countries. In light of the new and growing evidence about the U.S. health disadvantage, the National Institutes of Health asked the National Research Council (NRC) and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to convene a panel of experts to study the issue. The Panel on Understanding Cross-National Health Differences Among High-Income Countries examined whether the U.S. health disadvantage exists across the life span, considered potential explanations, and assessed the larger implications of the findings. U.S. Health in International Perspective presents detailed evidence on the issue, explores the possible explanations for the shorter and less healthy lives of Americans than those of people in comparable countries, and recommends actions by both government and nongovernment agencies and organizations to address the U.S. health disadvantage.

Author: Mohammed I. El-Sabh
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400914334
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 865

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Book Description
In recent years, several major natural and man-made hazards have challenged scientists, government officials and the public in general: earthquakes, major volcanic and other seismic eruptions in Mount St. Helens, EI Chichon, Mexico city, Nevado del Ruiz, Japan, Italy, Greece, Cameroon and many other places on our globe; Tsunami in the Pacific Ocean and deadly storm surges along the coasts of India, Bangladesh and Japan; Cyclones, floods, thunderstorms, snow storms, tornadoes, drought, desertification and other climatic catastrophes; Amoco-Cadiz oil spill accident (France), Three-Mile Island (U. S. A. ) and Chernobyl (U. S. S. R. ) nuclear accidents, Bhopal chemical accident (India), acid rain (Canada, U. S. A. ) and other technological disasters. Such hazards have snuffed out millions of lives, infli

Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309052254
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 129

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Book Description
The diversity of marine life is being affected dramatically by fishery operations, chemical pollution and eutrophication, alteration of physical habitat, exotic species invasion, and effects of other human activities. Effective solutions will require an expanded understanding of the patterns and processes that control the diversity of life in the sea. Understanding Marine Biodiversity outlines the current state of our knowledge, and propose research agenda on marine biological diversity. This agenda represents a fundamental change in studying the oceanâ€"emphasizing regional research across a range of space and time scales, enhancing the interface between taxonomy and ecology, and linking oceanographic and ecological approaches. Highlighted with examples and brief case studies, this volume illustrates the depth and breadth of undescribed marine biodiversity, explores critical environmental issues, advocates the use of regionally defined model systems, and identifies a series of key biodiversity research questions. The authors examine the utility of various research approachesâ€"theory and modeling, retrospective analysis, integration of biotic and oceanographic surveysâ€"and review recent advances in molecular genetics, instrumentation, and sampling techniques applicable to the research agenda. Throughout the book the critical role of taxonomy is emphasized. Informative to the scientist and accessible to the policymaker, Understanding Marine Biodiversity will be of specific interest to marine biologists, ecologists, oceanographers, and research administrators, and to government agencies responsible for utilizing, managing, and protecting the oceans.