Geography and Environmental Systems

The birth of the world's great megacities is the surest and starkest harbinger of the "urban age" inaugurated in the twentieth century. As the world's urban population achieves majority for the first time in recorded history, theories proliferate on the nature of urban politics, including the shape and quality of urban democracy, the role of urban social and political movements, and the prospects for progressive and emancipatory change from the corridors of powerful states to the routinized rhythms of everyday life. At stake are both the ways in which the rapidly changing urban world is understood and the urban futures being negotiated by the governments and populations struggling to contend with these changes and forge a place in contemporary cities.

Exploring World History through Geography: From the Cradle of Civilization to a Globalized World takes readers on a fascinating and unique journey through time from many of the earliest world civilizations right into the 21st century. From the early civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia to our present-day globalized society, readers will learn how humans interacted-and still interact-with the environment around them, as well as the environment's role in not only shaping the society's world view but enabling the building of socially stratified and successful civilizations.

For most, "conservation" conjures the notion of minimizing human presence on wildlands to avoid harmful impacts. But too often, this defensive approach has pitted local communities against conservationists, wasting opportunities for collaboration and setting the stage for ongoing conflict. One conservation approach turns that paradigm on its head, and instead connects conservation with the well-being of human communities, setting both up for success. Called "Full Nature," this approach--pioneered by conservationist Ignacio Jiménez--seeks to promote fully functional natural landscapes that are tied to the basic needs of the communities in their midst. They become a self-sustaining cycle, where nature and people are integrated ecologically, socially, and politically. Effective Conservation is based on Jiménez's experience managing conservation projects on three continents over thirty years. Jiménez offers a pragmatic approach to conservation that puts the focus on working with people--neighbors, governments, politicians, businesses, media--to ensure they have a long-term stake in protecting and restoring parks and wildlife. Jiménez guides readers through the practical considerations of designing, analyzing, and managing effective conservation programs.

Fractional Operators with Constant and Variable Order with Application to Geo-hydrology provides a physical review of fractional operators, fractional variable order operators, and uncertain derivatives to groundwater flow and environmental remediation. It presents a formal set of mathematical equations for the description of groundwater flow and pollution problems using the concept of non-integer order derivative. Both advantages and disadvantages of models with fractional operators are discussed.

Gentrification is a global process that the United Nations now sees as a human rights issue. This new Planetary Gentrification Reader follows on from the editors' 2010 volume, The Gentrification Reader, and provides a more longitudinal (backward and forward in time) and broader (turning away from Anglo-/Euro-American hegemony) sense of developments in gentrification studies over time and space, drawing on key readings that reflect the development of cutting-edge debates. Revisiting new debates over the histories of gentrification, thinking through comparative urbanism on gentrification, considering new waves and types of gentrification, and giving much more focus to resistance to gentrification, this is a stellar collection of writings on this critical issue.