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E-raamat: Environmental Change in Mountains and Uplands [Taylor & Francis e-raamat]

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Teised raamatud teemal:
Mountain environments are often perceived to be austere, isolated, and inhospitable. In fact, these areas are of immense value to mankind, providing direct life support to close to 10 percent of the world's population and sustaining a wide variety of species - many of which are endemic to this environment.





'Environmental Change in Mountains and Uplands' provides detailed account of the fragile and marginal physical and socio-economic systems which make up the world's mountain regions. Discussing the direct and indirect impacts of human interference on environmental ecosystems, it then turns to the social and economic consequences of such environmental change - both upon the mountain environment itself and upon the populations who depend on mountain resources for their economic sustenance.





This book includes a review of possible implications for adaption and mitigation strategies in a global context. Working within a broad temporal scale, it draws upon paleoenvironmental records to document past changes which have occured in the absence of major anthropogenic influences, as well as utilising modelling as a means to assessing future environmental change.
List of figures
ix
List of tables
xi
List of boxes
xii
Acknowledgements xiii
Mountains and uplands: an introduction
1(16)
Chapter Summary
1(1)
Mountain regions of the world
1(1)
Importance of mountain regions to humankind
2(2)
Current environmental and socio-economic information and statistics
4(1)
Environmental stresses: the emergence of the human factor
5(7)
Global enviornmental change: fundamental issues
12(5)
Characterization of mountain environments
17(43)
Chapter Summary
17(1)
Climate
17(8)
Hydrological systems
25(1)
Mountain cryosphere
26(3)
Soils
29(2)
Ecological systems and biodiversity
31(4)
Human environments
35(3)
Data for research on Mountain environments
38(3)
Past environmental change in mountains and Uplands
Chapter summary
41(1)
Introduction
41(1)
Proxy data: reconstructing the past
41(4)
Enviornmental change in the distant past
45(1)
Mountain environments during the last major glaciation
46(1)
Mountain environments during the Holocene
47(7)
Climatic change in the Twentieth century
54(6)
Modelling approaches to assess enviornmental change
60(20)
Chapter Summary
60(1)
The significance of modelling
60(1)
Spatial and temporal scales
61(2)
Global and regional climate models
63(5)
Semi-empirical methods and statistical downscaling techniques
68(1)
Ecosystem models
69(3)
Integrated Assessment models
72(3)
Limits and range of application of models
75(5)
Possible future changes in mountain environments
80(21)
Chapter summary
80(1)
Natural forcings
80(3)
Causal mechanisms of anthropogenic pressures on the environment
83(4)
Environmental pollution
87(3)
Land-use changes
90(4)
Climatic change
94(7)
Impact of enviornmental change on natural systems
101(17)
Chapter summary
101(1)
Challenges for impact assessments
101(1)
Impact on hydrology
102(4)
Impacts on the mountain cryosphere
106(2)
Extreme events and their impacts on geomorphological features
108(2)
Impacts on ecological systems
110(8)
Socio-economic impacts of enviornmental change in mountain regions
118(31)
Chapter summary
118(1)
Introduction
118(2)
Mountain agriculture
120(5)
Human health
125(5)
Tourism
130(5)
Hydro-power and other commercial activities
135(2)
Conclusions: adaptation strategies and policy
Chapter summary
137(1)
Introduction
137(4)
Adaptation strategies
141(1)
Policy response
142(6)
End note
148(1)
References 149(16)
Index 165
Professor of Geography, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.