This book reviews the mechanisms, patterns, and processes that regulate prokaryotic diversity through different habitats in the context of evolutionary and ecological hypotheses, principles, and theories. Despite the tremendous role of prokaryotic diversity in the function of the global ecosystem, it remains understudied in comparison to the rest of biological diversity. In this book, the autho…
Linlin Li addresses the analysis and design issues of observer-based FD and FTC for nonlinear systems. The author analyses the existence conditions for the nonlinear observer-based FD systems to gain a deeper insight into the construction of FD systems. Aided by the T-S fuzzy technique, she recommends different design schemes, among them the L_inf/L_2 type of FD systems. The derived FD and FTC …
This volume offers a new perspective to debates on local food and urban sustainability presenting the long silenced voices of the small-scale farmers from the productive green fringe of Sydney’s sprawling urban jungle. Providing fresh food for the city and local employment, these culturally and linguistically diverse farmers contribute not only to Sydney’s globalizing demographic and cultur…
What is family farming? How can it help meet the challenges confronting the world? How can it contribute to a sustainable and more equitable development? Not only is family farming the predominant form of agriculture around the world, especially so in developing countries, it is also the agriculture of the future. By declaring 2014 the “International Year of Family Farming,” the United Nati…
This book describes the complex processes involved in styrene degradation by microbes, including highly adaptive microorganisms, the various enzymes involved in styrene biodegradation, new styrene-catabolic routes, novel regulatory mechanisms, and the genes coding for styrene metabolizing enzymes. Numerous biotechnological applications are discussed, such as the development of sustainable eco-f…
This book presents a foundation for studying the micro-behavioral economics of global warming. The author develops an empirical model, named the Geographically-scaled Micro econometric model of Adapting Portfolios (G-MAP) in response to climatic changes and risks. The G-MAP model is applied to observed decisions of agricultural and natural resource enterprises in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Am…
This book is the outcome of empirical research on the sharing of water of the Teesta River, which flows through India and Bangladesh. The main purpose is to show how regional cooperation between India and Bangladesh regarding sharing of Teesta River water can ensure optimal benefits for people living in the area of the Teesta Basin located in the two countries. The author takes an interdiscipli…
This book uses resource economics costing approaches incorporating externalities to estimate the returns for the country’s irrigation and demonstrates how underestimating the cost of water leads farmers to overestimate profits. The importance of the subject can be judged in light of the fact that India is the largest user of groundwater both for irrigation and for drinking purposes, pumping t…
This book deals with the water policy and management in Canada. It discusses various problems and risks in the fresh and drinking water supply in the second largest country in the world. Mohammed Dore argues that water is underpriced and used wastefully in Canada. In selected case studies, he illustrates the major threats from human activity to Canadian freshwaters and drinking water resources,…
This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of multi-level water governance, developing a conceptual and analytical framework that captures the complexity of real water governance systems while also introducing different approaches to comparative analysis. Applications illustrate how the ostensibly conflicting goals of deriving general principles and of taking context-specific factors in…