Natural Environmental Change offers a concise introduction to this key topic in the study of the environment, geography, and earth science. Illustrated throughout, each chapter provides a broad spectrum of international case studies and further reading guides. Introductory chapters examine the theories of environmental change and provide a summary of Earth history. The records of environmnetal change are then explained, as revealed by data from various archives such as ocean sediment, ice core, terrestrial deposits such as glacial moraines and lake sediments, tree rings, and...

Extensively revised and rewritten to reflect the growth in environmental research during the last decade. Human-induced environmental change is occurring at such a rapid rate that, inevitably, the fundamental processes involved in biogeochemical cycling are being altered. Global Environmental Change considers alterations to the biogeochemical cycles of carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and other elements as a result of industrial/technological development and agriculture, which have significantly altered the natural environment. The book adopts a temporal and spatial approach to environmental change....

Carbon is chemically versatile and is thus the body and soul of biological, geological, ecological and economic systems. Its appropriation by humans through diversion of its biogeochemical cycle has been a mainstay of development. This domestication is characterized by a number of thresholds: control of fire, development of agriculture, expansion of Europe, fossil-fuel use and biotechnology. All have exacted an environmental toll, not least being climatic change and biodiversity loss. Carbon management now and in the future is a hot' political issue.There is no existing book which focuses on...