Challenges of a Changing Earth

Hardcover  216 pp, 187 illus., 79 in color  ISBN 3540433082      £77.00

Proceedings of the Global Change Open Science Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 10-13 July 2001

This book presents a state-of-the-science overview of global change and its consequences for human societies. It highlights four areas of critical importance - food, water resources, air quality and the carbon cycle - from both science and policy perspectives, and points the way towards the new scientific approaches needed to study the Earth System in the future. The book also summarises recent advances in understanding in global change science: the climate system, global biogeochemistry, land-ocean interactions and changing land cover and the Earth System.

Contents: Towards a Scientific Understanding of Global Change.- Achievements and Challenges: Food, Land, Water and Oceans; Air Quality in the 21st Century; The Global Carbon Cycle; Global Change and the Challenge for the Future.- Advances in Understanding: Global Biogeochemistry; Land-Ocean Interactions; The Climate System; Hot-Spots of Land-Use Change.- Looking to the Future: Simulating and Observing the Earth System; Does the Earth System Need Biodiversity; Can Technology Spare the Planet; Towards Global Sustainability.- Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change.