How can water be scarce when it covers so much of the planet?
While freshwater is abundant and there is more than enough fresh water on the earth to meet all existing demands, the geographical disparity between the supply and demand is such that this could never be achieved. In poorer countries, water may also […]

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Dr Jane Turpie is a senior lecturer at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa as well as director of Anchor Environmental Consultants. She obtained a PhD in estuarine ecology and ornithology in 1994 before venturing into the fields of conservation biology and resource economics with the benefit of […]

1950s
Following the gradual development of ecosystem management approaches, the 1950s saw the publication of the “Green Book” - Proposed Practices for Economic Analysis of River Basin Projects, in which the prevailing philosophy was that the government’s role in water resources planning and management should reflect state-of-the-art economic analysis.
1960s and 1970s
This was the dawn of the […]

The International Council for Science (ICSU), in conjunction with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), has designated 2007-2008 an International Polar Year. Activities are designed to focus the attention of the public and the scientific community on the need for greater understanding of the complex interrelationships between the geophysical and climatological

Introduction

Approximately 6.6 billion humans now inhabit the Earth. By comparison, there might be 20 million mallard ducks and, among a multitude of threatened and endangered species, perhaps 100,000 gorillas, 50,000 polar bears, and less than 10,000 tigers, 2,000 giant pandas and 200 California condors. Notably, the human population has grown nearly

Rita Colwell, Earth Portal International Advisory Board member, was awarded the National Medal of Science by the President on July 27, 2007. The Medal is awarded to individuals “deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to knowledge in the physical, biological, mathematical, or engineering sciences,” and was updated by Congress in 1980 […]

Introduction

Aquatic plants grow in shallow to deep water zones. The three main types of aquatic plants are (1) single-celled phytoplankton, (2) periphyton (algae growing attached to substrates) and (3) multicellular macrophytes. Phytoplankton includes several groups of algae (e.g., green algae,

Origins of Neoclassical Economic Theory

In textbooks on economics, the creators of neoclassical economics (Stanley Jevons, Leon Walras, Maria Edgeworth, and Vilfredo Pareto) are credited with transforming the study of economics into a rigorously mathematical scientific discipline. There are, however,

John R. Stilgoe is a historian and a Robert and Lois Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape at Harvard University. Most recently author of Landscape and Images (University of Virginia Press, 2005), Stilgoe conducts research on subjects ranging from the national critical infrastructure in private-policy decision making, the graphic-design context of early […]