2 society would be a free, anarchic society [an - without, archos - ruler], a society in which each individual is responsible for the relationship between himself and the society. By inner persuasion, we must live by making the maximum contri bution of our physical and mental assets combined with minimal charge against and exploitation of the society. We must contribute to society as much as possible because, directly and indirectly, we enjoy the contributions of the global society in which we live and of which we are a part.To achieve this goal, we must know not only ourselves but also the society in which we live. A society is not uniform. It is composed of mosaics of people of varying characteristics, structured in different patterns and groups, the qUalities of which we must know because upon them depends our own place in the society. Were the world uniform of feature and society, there would no place for regional geography. But because the world varies in form and its societies are different, study of the differentiation of the world's surface and the regional geography as the people who live on it is an important tool for understanding the society in which we live, particularly when our goal is to live with it in harmony.

This book presents a new analytical framework and several newly developed quantitative methods to investigate the interactions between climatic, ecological, and socioeconomic factors as a total socioenvironmental system (TSES). Facing the increasingly imperiled ecosystems around the world, understanding the complex relationships between humans and environments is of utmost importance. This book offers several solutions to these challenges based on the author's research and illustrates them with case studies and annotated data sets. It develops the conceptual framework of a TSES, emphasizing the identification of causal relationships as a starting point to investigating the interactions between biophysical phenomena and socioeconomic factors. The book experiments with various spatial data assimilation techniques such as GIS for matching diverged areal units over which biophysical and socioeconomic datasets are collected. Trend extraction methods including machine learning for synchronizing distinct temporal rhythms hidden in biophysical and socioeconomic phenomena to augment their causal relationships are explored as well. The book also examines sustainability in urban systems, social systems, and ecosystems. This volume will be useful to readers across many disciplines, including but not limited to geographic information science, ecological informatics, environmental informatics, regional and urban modeling, quantitative social sciences and planning.

This book explores the interactions of local inhabitants and environmental systems in the Protected Natural Areas of Mexico. Its goal is to help understand how social groups contextualize ecological knowledge, how human activities contribute to modifying the environmental matrix, how cultural and economic aspects influence the use, management and conservation of their ecological environment, and how social phenomena are to be viewed against the backdrop of ecological knowledge. The book reviews the epistemological and historical bases of the socio-ecological relationship, and addresses the evolution of human-natural systems. From a methodological standpoint, it assesses the tools required for the integration of “human” and “natural” dimensions in the management of the environmental matrix. Further, in the case studies section, it reviews valuable recent experiences concerning the retro-interactions of local inhabitants with their environmental matrix. Given its scope, the book offers a valuable asset for researchers and professionals all over the world, especially those working in Latin American countries.

By their adoption of Agenda 21, most of the world's governments have acknowledged the need for sustainable development. This implies that new policies are needed, focusing on economic, social, cultural and ecological goals. At the same time, we also need to solve existing environmental and social problems, and prevent the occurrence of new ones. This volume presents, tests and illustrates a theoretically well-founded procedure for discovering regional opportunities for sustainable development, based on a systems approach to decision making. The procedure takes as its starting point the needs of the people involved, relating these to the measurement of available resources in order to find opportunities for multiple resource use and sustainable development. The needs of future generations and broader communities are taken into account throughout. The book studies regional planning and the implementation of plans, offering guidance and support to parties involved in debates on sustainable development, and improving the quality of their decision making.

This Special Issue explores the cross-disciplinary approaches, methodologies, and applications of socio-environmental vulnerability assessment that can be incorporated into sustainable management. The volume comprises 20 different points of view, which cover environmental protection and development, urban planning, geography, public policymaking, participation processes, and other cross-disciplinary fields. The articles collected in this volume come from all over the world and present the current state of the world’s environmental and social systems at a local, regional, and national level. New approaches and analytical tools for the assessment of environmental and social systems are studied. The practical implementation of sustainable development as well as progressive environmental and development policymaking are discussed. Finally, the authors deliberate about the perspectives of social–environmental systems in a rapidly changing world.

The book focuses on environment and conservation issues pertaining to the Himalayas, spanning Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bhutan and Myanmar. Environmental degradation, changes in snow cover and glaciers in India-Bhutan, threats to protected areas, and biodiversity in this ecologically fragile region are assessed in twelve distinct, regional case studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods for Social-Ecological Systems provides a synthetic guide to the range of methods that can be employed in social-ecological systems (SES) research. The book is primarily targeted at graduate students, lecturers and researchers working on SES, and has been written in a style that is accessible to readers entering the field from a variety of different disciplinary backgrounds. Each chapter discusses the types of SES questions to which the particular methods are suited and the potential resources and skills required for their implementation, and provides practical examples of the application of the methods. In addition, the book contains a conceptual and practical introduction to SES research, a discussion of key gaps and frontiers in SES research methods, and a glossary of key terms in SES research. Contributions from 97 different authors, situated at SES research hubs in 16 countries around the world, including South Africa, Sweden, Germany and Australia, bring a wealth of expertise and experience to this book. The first book to provide a guide and introduction specifically focused on methods for studying SES, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sustainability science, environmental management, global environmental change studies and environmental governance. The book will also be of interest to upper-level undergraduates and professionals working at the science–policy interface in the environmental arena.

This book presents an overview of modeling and simulation of environmental systems via diverse research problems and pertinent case studies. It is divided into four parts covering sustainable water resources modeling, air pollution modeling, Internet of Things (IoT) based applications in environmental systems, and future algorithms and conceptual frameworks in environmental systems. Each of the chapters demonstrate how the models, indicators, and ecological processes could be applied directly in the environmental sub-disciplines. It includes range of concepts and case studies focusing on a holistic management approach at the global level for environmental practitioners. Features: Covers computational approaches as applied to problems of air and water pollution domain. Delivers generic methods of modeling with spatio-temporal analyses using soft computation and programming paradigms. Includes theoretical aspects of environmental processes with their complexity and programmable mathematical approaches. Adopts a realistic approach involving formulas, algorithms, and techniques to establish mathematical models/computations. Provides a pathway for real-time implementation of complex modeling problem formulations including case studies. This book is aimed at researchers, professionals and graduate students in Environmental Engineering, Computational Engineering/Computer Science, Modeling/Simulation, Environmental Management, Environmental Modeling and Operations Research.

Recent technological advancements and other related factors and trends are contributing to the production of an astoundingly large and rapidly accelerating collection of data, or ‘Big Data’. This data now allows us to examine urban and regional phenomena in ways that were previously not possible. Despite the tremendous potential of big data for regional science, its use and application in this context is fraught with issues and challenges. This book brings together leading contributors to present an interdisciplinary, agenda-setting and action-oriented platform for research and practice in the urban and regional community. This book provides a comprehensive, multidisciplinary and cutting-edge perspective on big data for regional science. Chapters contain a collection of research notes contributed by experts from all over the world with a wide array of disciplinary backgrounds. The content is organized along four themes: sources of big data; integration, processing and management of big data; analytics for big data; and, higher level policy and programmatic considerations. As well as concisely and comprehensively synthesising work done to date, the book also considers future challenges and prospects for the use of big data in regional science. Big Data for Regional Science provides a seminal contribution to the field of regional science and will appeal to a broad audience, including those at all levels of academia, industry, and government.