Chapter 1 = The Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget is considered responsible for coining the term transdisciplinarity’ in the 1970s, defining it as a higher stage after the interdisciplinary relations. To date, transdisciplinarity research is a growing field in academia, but still there is no uniform definition. In this book chapter, we explore how the term ‘transdisciplinarity’ is used in ma…
The call for a One Health approach that transcends species and disciplinary boundaries assumes that human and veterinary medicine are discrete, distinctive domains whose separation must be overcome to achieve health benefits for all. This paper will problematize this assumption by demonstrating that until relatively recently, their boundaries were extremely fluid. Referring to specific examples…
This open access book identifies and discusses biodiversity’s contribution to physical, mental and spiritual health and wellbeing. Furthermore, the book identifies the implications of this relationship for nature conservation, public health, landscape architecture and urban planning – and considers the opportunities of nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation. This transdiscipli…
Urbanisation and climate change are among the major challenges for sustainable development in Africa. The overall aim of this book is to present innovative approaches to vulnerability analysis and for enhancing the resilience of African cities against climate change-induced risks. Locally adapted IPCC climate change scenarios, which also consider possible changes in urban population, have been …
This book explains how True Cost Accounting is an effective tool we can use to address the pervasive imbalance in our food system. Calls are coming from all quarters that the food system is broken and needs a radical transformation. A system that feeds many yet continues to create both extreme hunger and diet-related diseases, and one which has significant environmental impacts, is not serving …
Carbon moves through the atmosphere, through the oceans, onto land, and into ecosystems. This cycling has a large effect on climate – changing geographic patterns of rainfall and the frequency of extreme weather – and is altered as the use of fossil fuels adds carbon to the cycle. The dynamics of this global carbon cycling are largely predicted over broad spatial scales and long periods of …
Forest management has evolved from a mercantilist view to a multi-functional one that integrates economic, social, and ecological aspects. However, the issue of sustainability is not yet resolved. Quantitative Techniques in Participatory Forest Management brings together global research in three areas of application: inventory of the forest variables that determine the main environmental indice…
This new book is the first to make logical and important connections between trapping and foraging ecology. It develops and describes—both verbally and mathematically--the underlying principles that determine and define trap-organism interactions. More important, it goes on to explain and illustrate how these principles and relationships can be used to estimate absolute population densities i…
Natural and constructed wetlands play a very important role on the landscape and their ecological services are highly valuable. In fact, some wetland types are regarded as one of the most valuable ecosystems on the Earth. Water management, including flood water retention, biomass production, carbon sequestration, wastewater treatment and biodiversity sources, are among the most important ecolog…
The people that study these animals are lepidopterists, and the goal of this book is to introduce them with their own words. In twenty chapters, lepidopterists tell their stories, and these tales mirror the diversity of nature in their range and depth. You will find individuals that wrestle with the challenges of scientific careers, stories of far flung travel sand close calls, and historical p…