Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE) Series

Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Soils and Sediments

Sustaining Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Soils and Sediments brings together the world's leading ecologists, systematists, and evolutionary biologists to present scientific information that integrates soil and sediment disciplines across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems. It offers a framework for a new discipline, one that will allow future scientists to consider the linkages of biodiversity below-surface, and how biota interact to provide the essential ecosystemservices needed for sustainable soils and sediments.

Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle

Assessing the Impacts of Fertilizer Use on Food Production and the Environment

Nitrogen is an essential element for plant growth and development and a key agricultural input-but in excess it can lead to a host of problems for human and ecological health. Across the globe, distribution of fertilizer nitrogen is very uneven, with some areas subject to nitrogen pollution and others suffering from reduced soil fertility, diminished crop production, and other consequences of inadequate supply.

Agriculture and the Nitrogen Cycle provides a global assessment of the role of nitrogen fertilizer in the nitrogen cycle.

The Global Carbon Cycle

Integrating Humans, Climate, and the Natural World

While a number of gases are implicated in global warming, carbon dioxide is the most important contributor, and in one sense the entire phenomena can be seen as a human-induced perturbation of the carbon cycle. The Global Carbon Cycle offers a scientific assessment of the state of current knowledge of the carbon cycle by the world's leading scientists sponsored by SCOPE and the Global Carbon Project, and other international partners.

Interactions of the Major Biogeochemical Cycles

Global Change And Human Impacts

The circulation and interactions of major elements such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, oxygen, and hydrogen are critical for the maintenance of the earth's ecosystems. Human activities including agriculture, industry, and urbanization alter element interactions and contribute to major environmental problems ranging from climate change and depletion of the ozone layer to acidification of soils to the destruction of coral reefs.

Interactions of the Major Biogeochemical Cycles is a new scientific assessment of element interactions in the biosphere.

Invasive Alien Species

Invasive Alien Species

A New Synthesis

Invasive alien species are among today's most daunting environmental threats, costing billions of dollars in economic damages and wreaking havoc on ecosystems around the world. In 1997, a consortium of scientific organizations including SCOPE, IUCN, and CABI developed the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP) with the explicit objective of providing new tools for understanding and coping with invasive alien species.

The Silicon Cycle

The Silicon Cycle

Human Perturbations and Impacts on Aquatic Systems

Silicon is among the most abundant elements on earth. It plays a key but largely unappreciated role in many biogeochemical processes, including those that regulate climate and undergird marine food webs.
 
The Silicon Cycle is the first book in more than 20 years to present a comprehensive overview of the silicon cycle and issues associated with it.

Sustainability Indicators

Sustainability Indicators

A Scientific Assessment

While the concept of sustainability has been widely embraced, it has been only vaguely defined and is exceedingly difficult to measure. Sustainability indicators are critical to making the broad concept of sustainability operational by providing specific measures by which decision makers and the public can judge progress.
 
Sustainability Indicators defines the present state of the art in indicator development. It presents a comprehensive assessment of the science behind various indicators, while placing special emphasis on their use as communications tools.

Communicating Global Change Science to Society

An Assessment and Case Studies

National governments and research scientists may be equally concerned with issues of global environmental change, but their interests-and their timelines-are not the same. Governments are often focused on short-term effects and local impacts of global phenomena.

Biodiversity Change and Human Health

From Ecosystem Services to Spread of Disease

Biodiversity Change and Human Health brings together leading experts from the natural science and social science realms as well as the medical community to explore the explicit linkages between human-driven alterations of biodiversity and documented impacts of those changes on human health. The book utilizes multidisciplinary approaches to explore and address the complex interplay between natural biodiversity and human health and well-being.

Watersheds, Bays, and Bounded Seas

Watersheds, Bays, and Bounded Seas

The Science and Management of Semi-Enclosed Marine Systems

Some of the world’s most important bodies of water, from the Black Sea to the Bay of Bengal, are classified as “semi-enclosed marine systems” (SEMS). Separated from the open seas by a strait, island archipelago, or physical process, SEMS are particularly vulnerable to environmental damage and particularly difficult to fully understand and manage.
 
Watersheds, Bays, and Bounded Seas provides state-of-the-science information about these complex systems and identifies best management practices to preserve them.

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