Synopses & Reviews
The book explores new approaches and applications of geospatial technologies to understand past, present and future impacts environmental policies and management practices have on the landscape.
Synopsis
Geotechnologies and the Environment: Environmental Applications and Mana- ment presents an engaging and diverse array of physically-oriented GIScience applications that have been organized using four broad themes. While the book's themes are by no means mutually exclusive, Hoalst-Pullen and Patterson provide an elegant overview of the eld that frames the collection's subsequent thematic str- ture - Wilderness and Wildlife Response; Glaciers; Wetlands and Watersheds; and Human Health and the Environment. Over the course of the volume, the contrib- ing authors move beyond basic (and in some respects clich d) landscape ecology of land use change to explore human-environment dynamics heretofore not emp- sized in the applied literature. In doing so, the collection presents a compelling case for the importance of developing new physically-oriented GIScience applications that reside at the nexus of social and natural systems with the explicit intent of informing public policy and/or the decision making practices of resource managers. Individually, the chapters themselves are intentionally diverse. The diversity of the approaches, their spatial context, and emphases on management applications demonstrate the many ways in which geotechnologies can be used to address small and big problems in both developed and developing regions. The collection's int- nal coherence is derived - like the book series - from its explicit appeal to a wide variety of human-environment interactions with potential policy linkages.
Synopsis
This book explores approaches and applications of geospatial technologies to understand the impacts that environmental policies and management practices have on the landscape. It includes a range of case studies that highlight different environmental aspects.
Table of Contents
Forward.- Introduction.- Case Studies.- Identifying and Monitoring Infectious Disease Vector Habitats.- Potential Human Impacts on the Application of Sewage Sludge to Agricultural Fields.- Using GIS to Protect and Manage Wetlands in an Agroecosystem: Nebraska's Rainwater Basin.- High Altitude Reservoirs: A Glacial Inventory in Semiarid Chile.- Using GIS and Remote Sensing to Monitor Climate Change in the Southern Rockies.- Habitat Quality Following the Eruption of Mount St. Helens.- Endemics and Invasives: High Resolution Imagery Use for Species Censusing and Mapping.- Fire Ecology and Wildlife Habitat Mapping and Monitoring.- Using GIS and Remotely Sensed Data to Characterize Fire Dynamics in the Tropics: A Case Study in the Southern Yucatan.- Assessing Biodiversity in the Tropics.- Optimizing Natural Resource Management in Mammoth Cave National Park Using Geospatial Technologies.- Mountain Top Removal in Kentucky: Monitoring and Modeling its Impact with GIS and Remote Sensing Techniques.