Spring 2016
Island Press Spring 2016
Climate Change in Wildlands Pioneering Approaches to Science and Management Andrew James Hansen, William Monahan, David M. The...
Summary Scientists have been warning for years that human activity is heating up the planet and climate change is under way. In the past century, global temperatures have risen an average of 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit, a trend that is expected to only accelerate. But public sentiment has taken a long time to catch up, and we are only just beginning to acknowledge the serious effects this will have on all life on Earth. The federal government is crafting broad-scale strategies to protect wildland ecosystems from the worst effects of climate change. The challenge now is to get the latest science into the hands of resource managers entrusted with protecting water, plants, fish and wildlife, tribal lands, and cultural heritage sites in wildlands.
9781610917124 Pub Date: 6/7/2016 $35.00 Paperback 384 Pages Science / Environmental Science SCI026000
Teaming with NASA and the Department of the Interior, ecologist Andrew Hansen, along with his team of scientists and managers, set out to understand how climate and land use changes affect montane landscapes of the Rockies and the Appalachians, and how these findings can be applied to wildlands elsewhere. They examine changes over the past century as well as expected future change, assess the vulnerability of species and ecosystems to these changes, and provide new, collaborative management approaches to mitigate expected impacts. A series of case studies showcases how managers might tackle such wide-ranging problems as the effects of warming streams on cold-water fish in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and dying white-bark pine stands in the Greater Yellowstone area. A surprising finding is that species and ecosystems vary dramatically in vulnerability to climate change. While many will suffer severe effects, others may actually benefit from projected changes. Climate Change in Wildlands is a collaboration between scientists and managers, providing a science-derived framework and common-sense approaches for keeping parks and protected areas healthy on a rapidly changing planet.
Contributor Bio Andrew Hansen is a professor in the Ecology Department at Montana State University. He studies how land use and climate change influence plants and animals and implications for ecosystem management, especially in the context of protected areas. He currently is on the science leadership teams for the North Central Climate Science Center and the Montana Institute of Ecosystems. William B. Monahan is an ecologist with the US National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program, which documents the current status and recent trends of park ecosystems to allow managers to make better-informed decisions and to work more effectively with other agencies and individuals for the benefit of park resources. Monahan's work primarily focuses on quantifying broad-scale environmental changes and impacts to park resources, including impacts due to climate and land use change. David M. Theobald is a senior scientist at Conservation Science Partners in Fort Collins, Colorado, and adjunct professor at Colorado State University. He applies concepts from geography and landscape ecology and methods from spatial analysis to understand patterns of landscape change and their effects on watersheds, fish and wildlife habitat, and biodiversity.
Island Press Spring 2016
The Future of the Suburban City Lessons from Sustaining Phoenix Grady Gammage
Summary There exists a category of American cities in which the line between suburban and urban is almost impossible to locate. These suburban cities arose in the last half of twentieth-century America, based largely on the success of the single-family home, shopping centers, and the automobile. The low-density, auto-centric development of suburban cities, which are largely in the arid West, presents challenges for urban sustainability as it is traditionally measured. Yet, some of these cities—Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Salt Lake, Dallas, Tucson, San Bernardino, and San Diego—continue to be among the fastest growing places in the United States.
9781610916233 Pub Date: 4/5/2016 $25.00 Paperback 192 Pages Architecture / Urban & Land Use Planning ARC010000
In The Future of the Suburban City, Phoenix native Grady Gammage, Jr. looks at the promise of the suburban city as well as the challenges. He argues that places that grew up based on the automobile and the single-family home need to dramatically change and evolve. But suburban cities have some advantages in an era of climate change, and many suburban cities are already making strides in increasing their resilience. Gammage focuses on the story of Phoenix, which shows the power of collective action — government action — to confront the challenges of geography and respond through public policy. He takes a fresh look at what it means to be sustainable and examines issues facing most suburban cities around water supply, heat, transportation, housing, density, urban form, jobs, economics, and politics. The Future of the Suburban City is a realistic yet hopeful story of what is possible for any suburban city.
Contributor Bio Grady Gammage, Jr. is a Senior Scholar at Arizona State University's Global Institute of Sustainability and Senior Fellow at ASU’s Morrison Institute. He also teaches at the ASU College of Law and at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Gammage is also a practicing lawyer, a real estate developer, and a former elected official.
Island Press Spring 2016
Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries A Critical Appraisal of Catches and Ecosystem Impacts Daniel Pauly, Dirk Zeller
Summary
9781610917698 Pub Date: 8/30/2016 $60.00 Paperback 550 Pages Science / Earth Sciences SCI052000
Until now, there has been only one source of data on global fishery catches: information reported to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations by member countries. An extensive, ten-year study conducted by The Sea Around Us Project of the University of British Columbia shows that this catch data is fundamentally misleading. Many countries underreport the amount of fish caught (some by as much as 500%), while others such as China significantly overreport their catches. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world’s foremost fisheries experts, and edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project. The Atlas includes one-page reports on 272 nations or regions, plus fourteen topical global chapters. National reports describe the state of the country's fishery, by sector; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations. While it has long been clear that the world’s oceans are in trouble, the lack of reliable data on fishery catches has obscured the scale, and nuances, of the crisis. The atlas shows that, globally, catches have declined rapidly since the 1980s, signaling an even more critical situation than previously understood. The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries provides a comprehensive picture of our current predicament and steps that can be taken to ease it. For researchers, students, fishery managers, professionals in the fishing industry, and all others concerned with the status of the world’s fisheries, the Atlas will be an indispensable resource.
Contributor Bio Daniel Pauly is a professor in the Fisheries Centre and Department of Zoology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and Principal Investigator for the Sea Around Us Project, a scientific collaboration between the University of British Columbia and the Pew Environmental Group. He is author of Five Easy Pieces: The Impact of Fisheries on Marine Ecosystems, and coauthor with Jay Maclean of In a Perfect Ocean: The State of Fisheries and Ecosystems in the North Atlantic Ocean. Dirk Zeller is the Senior Researcher and Project Manager of the Sea Around Us Project. He has produced over 150 scientific contributions in journals, book chapters, and research reports.
Island Press Spring 2016
Global Street Design Guide National Association of City Transportation Offici...
Summary Each year, 1.2 million people die from traffic fatalities, highlighting the need to design streets that offer safe and enticing travel choices for all people. Cities around the world are facing the same challenges as cities in the US, and many of these problems are rooted in outdated codes and standards.
9781610917018 Pub Date: 6/16/2016 $60.00 Hardcover 460 Pages Transportation TRA000000
The Global Street Design Guide is a timely resource that sets a global baseline for designing streets and public spaces and redefines the role of streets in a rapidly urbanizing world. The guide will broaden how to measure the success of urban streets to include: access, safety, mobility for all users, environmental quality, economic benefit, public health, and overall quality of life. The first-ever worldwide standards for designing city streets and prioritizing safety, pedestrians, transit, and sustainable mobility are presented in the guide. Participating experts from global cities have helped to develop the principles that organize the guide. The Global Street Design Guide builds off the successful tools and tactics defined in NACTO’s Urban Street Design Guide and Urban Bikeway Design Guide while addressing a variety of street typologies and design elements found in various contexts around the world. This innovative guide will inspire leaders, inform practitioners, and empower communities in realizing the potential in their public space networks. It will help cities unlock the potential of streets as safe, accessible, and economically sustainable places.
Contributor Bio The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is a membership network that provides support and resources for city transportation officials in cities of all sizes.
Island Press Spring 2016
Human Ecology(2nd Edition) How Nature and Culture Shape Our World Frederick R. Steiner, Richard T.T. Forman
Summary Humans have always been influenced by natural landscapes, and always will be—even as we create ever-larger cities and our developments fundamentally change the nature of the earth around us. In Human Ecology, noted city planner and landscape architect Frederick Steiner encourages us to consider how human cultures have been shaped by natural forces, and how we might use this understanding to contribute to a future where both nature and people thrive.
9781610917384 Pub Date: 2/16/2016 $30.00 Paperback 256 Pages Architecture / Landscape ARC008000
Human ecology is the study of the interrelationships between humans and their environment, drawing on diverse fields from biology and geography to sociology, engineering, and architecture. Steiner admirably synthesizes these perspectives through the lens of landscape architecture, a discipline that requires its practitioners to consciously connect humans and their environments. After laying out eight principles for understanding human ecology, the book’s chapters build from the smallest scale of connection—our homes—and expand to community scales, regions, nations, and, ultimately, examine global relationships between people and nature. In this age of climate change, a new approach to planning and design is required to envision a livable future. Human Ecology provides architects, landscape architects, urban designers, and planners—and students in those fields— with timeless principles for new, creative thinking about how their work can shape a vibrant, resilient future for ourselves and our planet.
Contributor Bio Frederick Steiner is dean of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas, Austin. His books include The Living Landscape, 2nd Edition (McGraw-Hill, 2001) and, with Ian McHarg, To Heal The Earth (Island Press, 1998).
Island Press Spring 2016
Modern Poisons A Brief Introduction to Contemporary Toxicology Alan Kolok
Summary
9781610913829 Pub Date: 5/5/2016 $22.00 Paperback 256 Pages Science / Life Sciences SCI007000
Traditional toxicology textbooks tend to be doorstops: tomes filled with important but seemingly abstract chemistry and biology. Meanwhile, magazine and journal articles introduce students to timely topics such as BPA and endocrine disruption or the carcinogenic effects of pesticides, but don’t provide the fundamentals needed to understand the science of toxicity. Written by a longtime professor of toxicology, Modern Poisons bridges this gap. This accessible book explains basic principles in plain language while illuminating the most important issues in contemporary toxicology. Kolok begins by exploring age-old precepts of the field such as the dose-response relationship and the concept, first introduced by Ambroise Paré in the sixteenth century, that a chemical’s particular action depends on its inherent chemical nature. The author goes on to show exactly how chemicals enter the body and elicit their toxic effect, as well as the body’s methods of defense. With the fundamentals established, Kolok digs into advances in toxicology, tracing the field’s development from World War II to the present day. The book examines both technical discoveries and their impacts on public policy. Highlights include studies of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in toiletries and prescriptions, the emerging science on prions, and our growing understanding of epigenetics. Readers learn not only how toxic exposure affects people and wildlife, but about the long-term social and environmental consequences of our chemicals. Whether studying toxicology itself, public health, or environmental science, readers will develop a core understanding of—and curiosity about—this fast-changing field.
Contributor Bio Alan Kolok is Director of the Aquatic Toxicology Laboratory, Interim Director at the Center for Environmental Health and Toxicology, and Professor of Biology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. He is the editor of the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
Island Press Spring 2016
State of the World Can a City Be Sustainable?
Summary
9781610917551 Pub Date: 4/21/2016 $24.99 Paperback 300 Pages Science / Environmental Science SCI026000
Cities are the world’s future. Today, more than half of the global population—3.7 billion people—are urban dwellers, and that number is expected to double by 2050. There is no question that cities are growing; the only debate is over how they will grow. Will we invest in the physical and social infrastructure necessary for livable, equitable, and sustainable cities? In the latest edition of State of the World, the flagship publication of the Worldwatch Institute, experts from around the globe examine the core principles of sustainable urbanism and profile cities that are putting them into practice. State of the World first puts our current moment in context, tracing cities in the arc of human history. It also examines the basic structural elements of every city: materials and fuels; people and economics; and biodiversity. In part two, professionals working on some of the world’s most inventive urban sustainability projects share their first-hand experience. Success stories come from places as diverse as Ahmedabad, India; Freiburg, Germany; and Shanghai, China. In many cases, local people are acting to improve their cities, even when national efforts are stalled. Parts three and four examine cross-cutting issues that affect the success of all cities. Topics range from the nitty-gritty of handling waste and developing public transportation to civic participation and navigating dysfunctional government. Throughout, readers discover the most pressing challenges facing communities and the most promising solutions currently being developed. The result is a snapshot of cities today and a vision for global urban sustainability tomorrow.
Contributor Bio Through research and outreach that inspire action, the Worldwatch Institute works to accelerate the transition to a sustainable world that meets human needs. The Institute’s top mission objectives are universal access to renewable energy and nutritious food, expansion of environmentally sound jobs and development, transformation of cultures from consumerism to sustainability, and an early end to population growth through healthy and intentional childbearing.
Island Press Spring 2016
Transit Street Design Guide Summary Transit and cities grow together. As cities work to become more compact, sustainable, and healthy, their work is paying dividends: in 2014, Americans took 10.8 billion trips on public transit, the highest since the dawn of the highway era. But most of these trips are on streets that were designed to move private cars, with transit as an afterthought. The NACTO Transit Street Design Guide places transit where it belongs, at the heart of street design. The guide shows how streets of every size can be redesigned to create great transit streets, supporting great neighborhoods and downtowns.
9781610917476 Pub Date: 4/14/2016 $50.00 Hardcover 260 Pages Transportation / Public Transportation TRA009000
The Transit Street Design Guide is a well-illustrated, detailed introduction to designing streets for high-quality transit, from local buses to BRT, from streetcars to light rail. Drawing on the expertise of a peer network and case studies from across North America, the guide provides a much-needed link between transit planning, transportation engineering, and street design. The Transit Street Design Guide presents a new set of core principles, street typologies, and design strategies that shift the paradigm for streets, from merely accommodating service to actively prioritizing great transit. The book expands on the transit information in the acclaimed Urban Street Design Guide, with sections on comprehensive transit street design, lane design and materials, stations and stops, intersection strategies, and city transit networks. It also details performance measures and outlines how to make the case for great transit street design in cities. The guide is built on simple math: allocating scarce space to transit instead of private automobiles greatly expands the number of people a street can move. Street design and decisions made by cities, from how to time signals to where bus stops are placed, can dramatically change how transit works and how people use it. The Transit Street Design Guide is a vital resource for every transportation planner, transit operations planner, and city traffic engineer working on making streets that move more people more efficiently and affordably.
Contributor Bio The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) is a membership network that provides support and resources for city transportation officials in cities of all sizes.
Island Press Spring 2016
Unnatural Selection How We Are Changing Life, Gene by Gene Emily Monosson
Summary Gonorrhea. Bed bugs. Weeds. Salamanders. People. All are evolving, some surprisingly rapidly, in response to our chemical age. In Unnatural Selection, Emily Monosson shows how our drugs, pesticides, and pollution are exerting intense selection pressure on all manner of species. And we humans might not like the result. Monosson reveals that the very code of life is more fluid than once imagined. When our powerful chemicals put the pressure on to evolve or die, beneficial traits can sweep rapidly through a population. Species with explosive population growth—the bugs, bacteria, and weeds—tend to thrive, while bigger, slower-to-reproduce creatures, like ourselves, are more likely to succumb.
9781610914994 Pub Date: 3/29/2016 $24.95 Paperback 200 Pages Science / Life Sciences SCI027000
Monosson explores contemporary evolution in all its guises. She examines the species that we are actively trying to beat back, from agricultural pests to life-threatening bacteria, and those that are collateral damage—creatures struggling to adapt to a polluted world. Monosson also presents cutting-edge science on gene expression, showing how environmental stressors are leaving their mark on plants, animals, and possibly humans for generations to come. Unnatural Selection is eye-opening and more than a little disquieting. But it also suggests how we might lessen our impact: manage pests without creating super bugs; protect individuals from disease without inviting epidemics; and benefit from technology without threatening the health of our children.
Contributor Bio Emily Monosson is an environmental toxicologist, writer, and consultant. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, author of Evolution in a Toxic World: How Life Responds to Chemical Threats, and the editor of Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out.
Island Press Spring 2016
Urban Acupuncture Jaime Lerner
Summary During his three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil in the 1970s and ‘80s, architect and urbanist Jaime Lerner transformed his city into a global model of the sustainable and livable community. From the pioneering Bus Rapid Transit system to parks designed to catch runoff and reduce flooding, and the creation of pedestrian-only zones, Lerner has been the driving force behind a host of innovative urban projects. In more than forty years of work in cities around the globe, Lerner has found that changes to a community don’t need to be large-scale and expensive to have a transformative impact—in fact, one block, park, or a single person can have an outsized effect on life in the surrounding city.
9781610917278 Pub Date: 2/2/2016 $18.00 Paperback 160 Pages Architecture / Urban & Land Use Planning ARC010000
In Urban Acupuncture, Lerner celebrates these “pinpricks” of urbanism—projects, people, and initiatives from around the world that ripple through their communities to uplift city life. With meditative and descriptive prose, Lerner brings readers around the world to streets and neighborhoods where urban acupuncture has been practiced best, from the bustling La Boqueria market in Barcelona to the revitalization of the Cheonggyecheon River in Seoul, South Korea. Through this journey, Lerner invites us to re-examine the true building blocks of vibrant communities—the tree-lined avenues, night vendors, and songs and traditions that connect us to our cities and to one another. Urban Acupuncture is the first of Jaime Lerner’s visionary work to be published in English. It is a love letter to the elements that make a street hum with life or a neighborhood feel like home, penned by one of the world’s most successful advocates for sustainable and livable urbanism.
Contributor Bio Jaime Lerner is a renowned architect and planner who served three terms as mayor of Curitiba, Brazil and two terms as governor of the state of Paraná. He has won numerous international awards, including the United Nations Environmental Award in 1990, and was nominated as one of Time magazine’s twenty-five most influential thinkers in the world in 2010. Lerner is founder of Jaime Lerner Associated Architects, served as President of the International Union of Architects from 2002-2005, and is currently a member of the board of directors of the World Resources Institute.
Island Press Spring 2016
Wild By Design Strategies for Creating Life-Enhancing Landscapes Margie Ruddick
Summary Can nature—in all its unruly wildness—be an integral part of creative landscape design? In her beautifully illustrated book, Wild by Design, award-winning designer Margie Ruddick urges designers to look beyond the rules often imposed by both landscaping convention and sustainability checklists. Instead, she offers a set of principles for a more creative and intuitive approach that challenges the entrenched belief that natural processes cannot complement high-level landscape design.
9781610915984 Pub Date: 3/17/2016 $45.00 Paperback 248 Pages Architecture / Landscape ARC008000
Wild by Design defines and explains the five fundamental strategies Ruddick employs, often in combination, to give life, beauty, and meaning to landscapes: Reinvention, Restoration, Conservation, Regeneration, and Expression. Drawing on her own projects—from New York City’s Queens Plaza, formerly a concrete jungle of traffic, to a desertscape backyard in Baja, California, to the Living Water Park in Chengdu, China—she offers guidance on creating beautiful, healthy landscapes that successfully reconnect people with larger natural systems. A revealing look into the approach of one of sustainable landscape design’s most innovative practitioners, Wild by Design stretches the boundaries of landscape design, offering readers a set of broader, more flexible strategies and practical examples that allow for the unexpected exuberance of nature to be a welcome part of our gardens, parks, backyards, and cities.
Contributor Bio For over twenty years, Margie Ruddick has been recognized for her pioneering work in landscape design. Winner of the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in landscape architecture, Ruddick has crafted an innovative approach to design that brings together aspects of the landscape that seem to contrast—wild and urban, formally ordered and free, with attention to the messy margins where life happens. She has designed numerous high-profile projects including New York City's Queens Plaza, the Urban Garden Room at One Bryant Park, Shillim Institute and Retreat in India’s Western Ghats, and the Living Water Park in Chengdu, China. Elle Décor named Ruddick one of five landscape designers “who are reshaping our world,” and Dwell identified her as a “Landscape Design Icon.” Ruddick has taught at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, Yale, Princeton, Parsons School of Design, and more. She is principal of Margie Ruddick Landscape.