Hydro-Climatic Extremes in the Anthropocene

Hydro-Climatic Extremes in the Anthropocene
Author: Christopher Ndehedehe
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 462
Release: 2023-10-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3031377273

This book explores how human civilization has contributed to changes in the Anthropocene, an era that marks a fundamental change in the way mankind has interacted with the Earth system. It examines the 21st century in the context of human development of water infrastructures, climate change impacts on freshwater resources, groundwater depletion, rising population, land use change, extreme events (droughts, floods, and wildfires). The implications of climate change impacts on environmental assets and the global water cycle are also highlighted. The book takes a pragmatically trans-disciplinary and holistic approach to the discussion of these issues, and the Earth system in the Anthropocene, drawing from a plethora of case studies. The capabilities of machine learning tools in satellite hydrology applications have been demonstrated as well as the feasibility of remote sensing data and innovative geospatial tools in environmental assessment. The book further showcases the multiple strengths and potential of new multi-disciplinary satellite radar programmes and geodetic missions, to measure and characterize extreme events, and their links to global climate, as well as in remote sensing of the environment. The aim is to provide innovative tools and a scientific framework that underpin our fundamental understanding of environmental systems, and the complexities of socio-hydrological systems in the Anthropocene. Policy issues have also been raised as an important aspect that can strengthen the management and administration of water resources, particularly in emerging economies where observational data is often lacking, limited, or difficult to access. It also highlights the lessons learned from freshwater hotspots (e.g., Lake Chad and Lake Urmia) where prolonged droughts and human activities have led to a permanent loss of surface water. It identifies the role of institutions and stakeholders in driving policies that underpins water management and climate change adaptation. The book articulates the novel applications of remote sensing tools as part of a monitoring framework that can alert stakeholders and the public sector to the dangers of mismanagement of freshwater in these hotspots and help facilitate water governance approaches. The book fills a critical gap in the multi-disciplinary aspect of planetary science, particularly in understanding the impacts of climate change and human actions on freshwater resources, as well as the stability of the Earth system.

Hydroclimatic Extremes in the Middle East and North Africa

Hydroclimatic Extremes in the Middle East and North Africa
Author: Ahmed Mohammed Hussain El Kenawy
Publisher: Elsevier
Total Pages: 477
Release: 2024-05-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0323859259

Hydroclimatic Extremes in the Middle East and North Africa: Assessment, Attribution and Socioeconomic Impacts focuses on assessing the current situation of hydroclimatic extremes in the MENA region, with particular emphasis on dry and wet extreme events. The results of the rapidly changing atmospheric and oceanic situations of these extremes will be addressed, presenting examples for the environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural impacts of these events in the region and evaluating the current ability to monitor and adapt to such events, as well as exploring the potential use of advanced geospatial techniques in improving current understanding of these extreme events. The book utilizes a multidisciplinary approach with various state-of-the-art methods, approaches, and analytical techniques in environmental, meteorological, and hydrological sciences, providing case studies from the Middle East and North Africa. It will provide a solid basis for scientists to assess the validation of several research methods in the region and may be applicable to other regions as climate change continues to cause increasing aridity worldwide. The case studies presented will reflect the multifaceted character of hydrometeorological extremes in the region, with representative examples for the environmental, socioeconomic, and cultural impacts of climate change. Therefore, this book is a valuable source for climatologists, meteorologists, hydrologists, geographers, and water resources scientists. Thoroughly details the effects of climate variability in the Middle East and North Africa, a hotspot region of climate change vulnerability Examines changes in hydroclimatic extremes at different spatial scales, ranging from local assessments to investigations that cover the entire region Provides a comprehensive assessment of hydrometeorological feedback to current and future climate change in the MENA region Fills the current gap in the literature concerning the response of arid and semiarid regions to climate change, with particular emphasis on the MENA region

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene
Author: Anik Bhaduri
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2014-08-11
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3319075489

The Global Water System in the Anthropocene provides the platform to present global and regional perspectives of world-wide experiences on the responses of water management to global change in order to address issues such as variability in supply, increasing demands for water, environmental flows and land use change. It helps to build links between science and policy and practice in the area of water resources management and governance, relates institutional and technological innovations and identifies in which ways research can assist policy and practice in the field of sustainable freshwater management. Until the industrial revolution, human beings and their activities played an insignificant role influencing the dynamics of the Earth system, the sum of our planet‘s interacting physical, chemical, and biological processes. Today, humankind even exceeds nature in terms of changing the biosphere and affecting all other facets of Earth system functioning. A growing number of scientists argue that humanity has entered a new geological epoch that needs a corresponding name: the Anthropocene. Human activities impact the global water system as part of the Earth system and change the way water moves around the globe like never before. Thus, managing freshwater use wisely in the planetary water cycle has become a key challenge to reach global environmental sustainability.

Hydroclimatology

Hydroclimatology
Author: Marlyn L. Shelton
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2009
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0521848881

A graduate textbook on the interdisciplinary significance of hydroclimatology, explaining the relationship between the climate system and the hydrologic cycle.

Deltas in the Anthropocene

Deltas in the Anthropocene
Author: Robert J. Nicholls
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2019-08-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3030235173

The Anthropocene is the human-dominated modern era that has accelerated social, environmental and climate change across the world in the last few decades. This open access book examines the challenges the Anthropocene presents to the sustainable management of deltas, both the many threats as well as the opportunities. In the world’s deltas the Anthropocene is manifest in major land use change, the damming of rivers, the engineering of coasts and the growth of some of the world’s largest megacities; deltas are home to one in twelve of all people in the world. The book explores bio-physical and social dynamics and makes clear adaptation choices and trade-offs that underpin policy and governance processes, including visionary delta management plans. It details new analysis to illustrate these challenges, based on three significant and contrasting deltas: the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mahanadi and Volta. This multi-disciplinary, policy-orientated volume is strongly aligned to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals as delta populations often experience extremes of poverty, gender and structural inequality, variable levels of health and well-being, while being vulnerable to extreme and systematic climate change.

Water Stories in the Anthropocene

Water Stories in the Anthropocene
Author: Angelo Monaco
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2024-10-21
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1040157661

Water Stories in the Anthropocene explores how climate change has emerged as a major theme in our daily lives as it poses a myriad of economic, scientific, political and cultural challenges in the age of the Anthropocene. In all its forms and manifestations, climate change is primarily a water crisis. Water scarcity, droughts, floods, deluge, rising sea levels, ice melting, wetlands loss and sea pollution are among the main threats posed by climate change, wreaking havoc on both human and nonhuman forms of life. This book engages with instances of extreme events related to water (droughts, floods, deluges) and the impact of climate change on some waterbodies (seas and wetlands) in contemporary Anglophone novels. By taking into account a corpus of novels ranging from the various areas of the Anglophone world, and thus shuttling between the Global North and the Global South, the book reads these novels as "water stories." This volume pays attention to the pervasive presence of water in all aspects of our lives, thus showing how narratives can offer insightful accounts of the present water crisis. Alternating between an econarratological perspective, reflections on the Anthropocene and the human/nonhuman imbrications within the blue humanities, the book contributes significantly to the considerations of the imaginative possibilities of these water stories, showing how narratives can offer insightful accounts of the present water crisis.

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation
Author: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 593
Release: 2012-05-28
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1107025060

Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters. This Special Report explores the social as well as physical dimensions of weather- and climate-related disasters, considering opportunities for managing risks at local to international scales. SREX was approved and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 18 November 2011 in Kampala, Uganda.