ECON 322: Natural Resources and Environmental Economics: eBooks

This innovative book applies GIS techniques to spatial cost-benefit analysis of a complex and topical land use change problem - the conversion of agricultural land to multipurpose woodland - looking in detail at issues such as opportunity costs, timber yield, recreation, carbon storage, etc., and embracing cost-cutting themes such as the evaluation of environmental preferences and the spatial transfer of benefit functions.

This edited book examines the major parameters of the socio-economic issues of inequality and focuses on the key economic issues of inequality--namely, income and wealth distribution; equity and equality of outcome; and equality of opportunities. Economic inequality is measured by wealth, income disproportions in distribution and consumption patterns in a specific area.

Environmental Economics explores the ways in which economic theory and its applications, as practised and taught today, must be modified to explicitly accommodate the goal of sustainability and the vital role played by environmental capital. Pivoting around the first and second laws of thermodynamics, as well as the principles of ecological resilience, this book is divided into five key parts, which includes extensive coverage of environmental microeconomics and macroeconomics. It drills down into issues and challenges including consumer demand; production and supply; market organisation; renewable and non-renewable resources; environmental valuation; macroeconomic stabilisation, and international trade and globalisation.

The central focus of the book will continue to be on this systematic integration of both mainstream and ecological approaches to environmental economics, and an acknowledgement that enduring solutions to major contemporary environmental challenges can be obtained through studies based on a well-conceived and balanced interdisciplinary approach.

The importance of the built environment to environmental protection is well established, with strict environmental regulations now a feature of the working lives of planners, contractors, building designers, and quantity surveyors alike. Those new to, or preparing to join this industry must have an understanding of how their environmental responsibilities relate to their professional responsibilities in economic terms. Designed as an introductory textbook, Urban and Environmental Economics: An Introduction provides the background information from these disciplines to understand crucial tools and economic techniques.

Making decisions about the management and conservation of nature is necessarily complex, with many competing pressures on natural systems, opportunities and benefits for different groups of people and a varying, uncertain social and ecological environment. An approach which is narrowly focused on either human development or environmental protection cannot deliver sustainable solutions. This volume provides frameworks for improving the integration of natural resource management with conservation and supporting stronger collaboration between researchers and practitioners in developed and developing countries.

This multidisciplinary book discusses the complex relationships between society, natural resources and the environment. Major resources including water, agriculture, energy, minerals and forests are considered, as well as different facets of the environment including climate, landforms and biodiversity.

This book brings an interdisciplinary team of fifty-eight international researchers to share their novel approaches, concepts, theories and knowledge on land use and the carbon cycle. It discusses contemporary theories and approaches combined with state-of-the-art technologies. The central theme is that land use and land management are tightly integrated with the carbon cycle and it is necessary to study these processes as a single natural-human system to improve carbon accounting and mitigate climate change. The book is an invaluable resource for advanced students, researchers, land-use planners and policy makers in natural resources, geography, forestry, agricultural science, ecology, atmospheric science and environmental economics.

This book provides a fascinating account of the contribution that natural resource exploitation has made to economic development in key eras of world history. This not only fills an important gap in the literature on economic history but also shows how we can draw lessons from these past epochs for attaining sustainable economic development in the world today.