This open access book provides a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of the current state of knowledge covering climate change, surface water change, arsenic pollution, water utilization, water-food-energy nexus, water related hazards, water management, and water governance in the Lancang-Mekong River Basin. Considering the widely concerned fact that the climate change and human intervention induced impacts on water will bring unprecedented threats to human societies and ecosystems, the book intends to support UN's sustainable development goals through sustainable use of water by providing the most accurate and updated information on climate and water changes in a consistent way. Underlying all aspects of the book is a strong commitment to assessing the science comprehensively, without bias and in a way that is relevant to policy but not policy prescriptive. It can provide implications to support decision-makers and stakeholders for integrated water resources management and sustainable development at all levels.

This book assesses river health in the Lancang River Basin with regard to the impacts of hydropower projects. It studies key components of the transboundary effects of Chinese dams on the Lancang River including its hydrology, sediment transport, water temperature, and fish community. It also investigates the specific impacts of hydropower on women’s lives and livelihoods, and factors that influence women’s participation in river health management. In closing, the lessons learned regarding environmental protection and hydropower development in the Lancang River Basin are shared, e.g. with hydropower developers and regulators in Laos.

In four chapters and an introduction, this book systematically helps readers understand the development of the Geographical Sciences both in China and in the world during the past 30 years. Through data analysis of methodologies including CiteSpace, TDA, qualitative analysis, questionnaires, data mining and mathematical statistics, the book explains the evolution of research topics and their driving factors in the Geographical Sciences and its four branches, namely Physical Geography, Human Geography, Geographical Information Science and Environmental Geography. It also identifies the role of the Geographical Sciences in the analysis of strategic issues such as global change and terrestrial ecosystems, terrestrial water cycle and water resources, land change, global cryosphere evolution and land surface processes on the Tibetan Plateau, economic globalization and local responses, regional sustainable development, remote sensing modelling and parameter inversion, spatial analysis and simulation, and tempo-spatial processes and modelling of environmental pollutants. It then discusses research development and inadequacy of Chinese Geographical Sciences in the above-mentioned topics, as well as in the fields including Geomorphology and Quaternary environmental change, Ecohydrology, ecosystem services, the urbanization process and mechanism, medical and health geography, international rivers and transboundary environment and resources, detection and attribution of changes in land surface sensitive components, and uncertainty of spatial information and spatial analysis. It shows that the NSFC has driven the development in all these topics and fields. In addition, the book summarises trends of the Geographical Sciences in China and the research level in major countries of the world through an overview of geographical education in colleges and universities, the analysis of publications, citations and author networks of SCI/SSCI and CSCD indexed articles, and the description of Sino-USA, Sino-UK and Sino-German cooperation. This book serves as an important reference to anyone interested in geographical sciences and related fields.

The Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides a comprehensive assessment of the scientific literature relevant to climate change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. The report recognizes the interactions of climate, ecosystems and biodiversity, and human societies, and integrates across the natural, ecological, social and economic sciences. It emphasizes how efforts in adaptation and in reducing greenhouse gas emissions can come together in a process called climate resilient development, which enables a liveable future for biodiversity and humankind. The IPCC is the leading body for assessing climate change science. IPCC reports are produced in comprehensive, objective and transparent ways, ensuring they reflect the full range of views in the scientific literature. Novel elements include focused topical assessments, and an atlas presenting observed climate change impacts and future risks from global to regional scales. Available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Handbook provides a comprehensive overview of how water, energy and food are interconnected, comprising a coherent system: the nexus. It considers the interlinkages between natural resources, governance processes seeking coherence among water, energy and food policies, and the adoption of transdisciplinary approaches in the field.

A comprehensive interdisciplinary exploration of climate risks to water security for students, researchers, civil and environmental engineers, and management professionals.

River deltas are among the most sensitive and widely exploited territories habitats on Earth. Although predominantly shallow aquatic environments, river deltas are extremely important environments socioeconomically and their usage places ever-increasing stresses on these habitats, especially where there is any anthropogenic involvement. The effective governance and administration of river delta regions often requires an intricate scientific understanding of the various contributary natural processes. River Deltas Research - Recent Advances is a book that draws on the most recent world-class scientific research on river delta topics including climate change, water quality, geomorphology, anthropogenic stresses, water quality, sedimentation, ecosystems, and many more. The research was carried out by researchers who specialise in the river deltas and related issues.