Those who work in the field of sustainable development seek to balance the needs of people with the limits of the available resources. For some time, scientists have been aware that if people keep consuming resources at the same rates, these resources will either be used up (in the case of non-renewable resources such as fossil fuels) or else depleted to the point at which they can no longer renew themselves (for example, fish or certain animal species). Up until the past several hundred years, people thought the world was so big and so rich in resources that they would never be used up. Today,we know this is not true. The five volumes in this Encyclopedia give readers a serious look at this important topic.

CONTENTS: Tree Thinning as an Option to Increase Herbaceous Yield of an Encroached Semi-Arid Savanna in South Africa; Quantifying the Effectiveness of Climate Change Mitigation Through Forest Plantations and Carbon Sequestration with an Integrated Land-Use Model; An Estimate of Carbon Emissions from 2004 Wildfires Across Alaskan Yukon River Basin; Contested Spatial Coincidence of Conservation and Mining Efforts in Madagascar; Forest Management in Madagascar:An Historical Overview; Scientific Bases for a Participatory Forest Landscape Management; Using Geospatial Information Technology in Natural Resources Management:The Case of Urban Land Management In West Africa; Assessment of Alternative Land Management Practices Using Hydrological Simulation and a Decision Support Tool; Simulated Responses of Soil Organic Carbon Stock to Tillage Management Scenarios in the Northwest Great Plains…

CONTENTS: Potential and Limitations of Payments for Environmental Services (PES) as a Means to ManageWatershed Services in Mainland Southeast Asia;Water Quality Agreement:The Process for a Sustainable Outcome; Challenge to Revert Unsustainable Trends; Rapid Urbanization and Implications for Flood Risk Management in Hinterland of the Pearl River Delta, China;Water Productivity Mapping (WPM) Using Landsat ETM+ Data for the Irrigated Croplands of the Syrdarya River Basin in Central Asia; Role of Satellite Sensors in Groundwater Exploration; Using Spatial Information Technologies as Monitoring Devices in InternationalWatershed Conservation along the Senegal River Basin ofWest Africa; Effect of Low Quality Effluent from Wastewater Stabilization Ponds to Receiving Bodies, Case of Kilombero Sugar Ponds and Ruaha River,Tanzania…