The adverse consequences of pollution impact on terrestrial ecosystems have been under careful investigation since the beginning of the twentieth century. Several thousand case studies have documented the biotic effects occurring in contaminated areas. However, after more than a century of research, ecologists are still far from understanding the effects of pollution on biota. Only a few generalisations have been made on the basis of extensive monitoring programs and numerous expe- ments with industrial contaminants. The need to reveal general patterns in the responses of terrestrial biota to...

The presence of xenobiotics in the aquatic environment is seen as one of the biggest challenges for a sustainable water future. Thus, there is a need to understand, in an integrated manner, the sources, flow paths, fate and effects of xenobiotics in the urban water cycle. This book is an authoritative and comprehensive reference source covering: occurrence, sources and fluxes of xenobiotics in urban waters, processes concerning the fate and transport of xenobiotics, mass flows and transformation products, mitigation, treatment methods and systems for the removal of xenobiotics, risk...

This textbook is about the law, economics, practical assessment, and the management of risky activities arising from routine, catastrophic environmental and occupational exposures to hazardous agents. The textbook begins where emission and exposure analysis end by providing estimates or predictions of deleterious exposures. Thus, we deal with determining the nature and form of relations between exposure and response, damage functions, and with the principles and methods used to determine the costs and benefits of risk management actions from the vantage point of single and multiple...

With more than 50% of the world s population already living in towns and cities, migration from rural areas continuing at an alarming rate in developing countries and suburbanisation using more and more land in developed countries, the urban environment has become supremely important with regard to human health and wellbeing. For centuries, urbanisation has caused relatively low level soil conta- nation mainly by various wastes. However, from the time of the Industrial Revolution onwards, both the scale of urban development and the degree of soil contamination rapidly increased and involved...

This book s main objective is to decipher for the reader the main processes in the atmosphere and the quantification of air pollution effects on humans and the environment, through first principles of meteorology and modelling/measurement approaches. The understanding of the complex sequence of events, starting from the emission of air pollutants into the atmosphere to the human health effects as the final event, is necessary for the prognosis of potential risk to humans from specific chemical compounds and mixtures of them. It fills a gap in the literature by providing a solid grounding in...

This book provides a unique overview of research methods over the past 25 years assessing critical loads and temporal effects of the deposition of air pollutants. It includes critical load methods and applications addressing acidification, eutrophication and heavy metal pollution of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Applications include examples for each air pollution threat, both at local and regional scale, including Europe, Asia, Canada and the US. The book starts with background information on the effects of the deposition of sulphur, nitrogen and heavy metals and geochemical and...

This edited book is devoted to environmental risk management in gas industry impacted polar ecosystems of Russia, one of the hottest topics of modern environmental science. The contributions from experts cover topics that shed new light on the impacts of oil and natural gas production on arctic ecosystems in the country as well as biogeochemical engineering technologies to manage pollution in these areas. Readers will also discover new insights on potential ecological indicators for assessing geo-environmental risks of these impacted ecosystems, and climate modeling in polar areas.
The...

This book provides a unique overview of research methods over the past 25 years assessing critical loads and temporal effects of the deposition of air pollutants. The use of those indicators is then illustrated in the assessment of critical loads and their exceedances and in the temporal assessment of air pollution risks.

This book provides a concise, yet comprehensive overview of the many facets relating to human health risk assessments in relation to chemical exposure problems.