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Effective Sea System and Case Studies

Description: This report describes SEA (Strategic Environmental Assessment), and case studies demonstrating the merits of SEA in Europe and North America. The report is aimed at helping readers understanding and implementing SEA.
Date: June 2003
Creator: Hayashi, Kiichiro; Sadler, Barry; Verheem, Rob; Dusik, Jiri & Tomlinson, Paul
open access

Outline of the Basic Environment Plan

Description: This is the third Basic Environment Plan of Japan. The theme of the plan is "integrated improvements of the environment, economy, and society." The plan develops long-term goals and will be assessed by quantitative targets and indicators for management. The plan calls for a clear public information campgaign.
Date: August 2006
Creator: Japan. Kankyōshō.
open access

Remarks by Administrator O'Keefe at the Earth Observation Summit

Description: Remarks by NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe at the 2003 Earth Observation Summit in Washington, DC. The purpose of the summit was to promote the development of a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation system or systems among governments and the international community to understand and address global environmental and economic challenges, and also to begin a process to develop a conceptual framework and implementation plan for building this integrated Earth observation sys… more
Date: July 31, 2003
Creator: O'Keefe, Sean
open access

More El Niños May Mean More Rainfall Extremes

Description: Researchers at NASA and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), studying changes in tropical precipitation patterns, have noted a higher frequency of El Niños and La Niñas over the last 21 years. In addition, when either of those events occur, the world can expect more months with unusually high or low precipitation with droughts more common than floods over land areas.
Date: January 16, 2001
Creator: Earth Observatory
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Oil Pollution Act of 1990

Description: The Oil Pollution Act (OPA) of 1990 streamlined and strengthened EPA's ability to prevent and respond to catastrophic oil spills. A trust fund financed by a tax on oil is available to clean up spills when the responsible party is incapable or unwilling to do so. The OPA requires oil storage facilities and vessels to submit to the Federal government plans detailing how they will respond to large discharges. EPA has published regulations for above ground storage facilities; the Coast Guard h… more
Date: 1990
Creator: United States. Congress.
open access

National Environmental Policy Act of 1969

Description: The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was one of the first laws ever written that establishes the broad national framework for protecting our environment. NEPA's basic policy is to assure that all branches of government give proper consideration to the environment prior to undertaking any major federal action that significantly affects the environment. NEPA requirements are invoked when airports, buildings, military complexes, highways, parkland purchases, and other federal activities a… more
Date: January 1, 1970
Creator: United States. Congress.
open access

NOAA Updates What Defines Normal Temperature

Description: Normal temperatures and precipitation levels for your area may have changed as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climatic Data Center recently released new 'normal' data for about 8,000 weather stations. The data defines the normal temperature at locations across the United States, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and U.S. Pacific Islands. These data are used as a benchmark for weather forecasters to calculate day-to-day temperature and rainfall departures from typic… more
Date: September 6, 2001
Creator: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
open access

Nuclear Waste Policy Act

Description: The Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) supports the use of deep geologic repositories for the safe storage and/or disposal of radioactive waste. The Act establishes procedures to evaluate and select sites for geologic repositories and for the interaction of state and federal governments. It also provides a timetable of key milestones the federal agencies must meet in carrying out the program. The NWPA assigns the Department of Energy (DOE) the responsibility to site, build, and operate a deep geo… more
Date: January 7, 1983
Creator: United States. Congress.
open access

Our Changing Planet: The FY 2001 U.S. Global Change Research Program

Description: This report, prepared under the auspices of the President's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), highlights the Program's recent research and describes future plans and goals. The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) was established in 1989 and authorized by Congress in the Global Change Research Act of 1990. The first edition of Our Changing Planet was transmitted to the Congress as a supplement to the FY1990 budget. In just over a decade, the USGCRPhas generated remarkable … more
Date: September 2000
Creator: Subcommittee on Global Change Research, Committee on Environment and Natural Resources of the National Science and Technology Council
open access

Our Changing Planet: The Fiscal Year 2003 U.S. Global Change Research Program and Climate Change Research Initiative

Description: This document is a supplement to the President's Fiscal Year 2003 Budget. The report describes the activities and plans of the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP). The report also describes the start-up activities for the U.S. Climate Change Research Initiative (CCRI), established by President George W. Bush to accelerate research on climate change. The CCRI supplements the ongoing USGCRP work by providing focus and targeting resources to areas where significant 2 to 5 year improvement… more
Date: 2002
Creator: Climate Change Science Program (U.S.)
open access

New Source of Natural Fertilizer Discovered in Oceans

Description: New findings suggest that the deep ocean is teeming with organisms that produce essential natural fertilizers. A National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research team led by Jonathan Zehr, a marine scientist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has discovered a previously unknown type of photosynthetic bacteria that fixes nitrogen, converting nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form other organisms can use.
Date: August 8, 2001
Creator: National Science Foundation (U.S.). Office of Legislative and Public Affairs.
open access

Solid Waste Disposal Act

Description: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) gives EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from the "cradle-to-grave." This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA also set forth a framework for the management of non-hazardous solid wastes. The 1986 amendments to RCRA enabled EPA to address environmental problems that could result from underground tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances. HSWA - the Federal Haza… more
Date: 1976
Creator: United States. Congress.
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Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) Science Plan

Description: Human population and associated industrial activities continue to increase rapidly, and have reached levels that put the environment under stress in many areas of the world. In addition natural fluctuations of the Earth's physical and biological systems, often occur in time frames that are not readily evident to man. Such fluctuations cause additional stress on the environment, and can result in changes that impact society in terms of diminished availability of clean water, unspoiled land and n… more
Date: 1997
Creator: Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC)
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Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

Description: Coastal zones play a key role in Earth System functioning, by contributing significantly to the life support systems of most societies. Human activities modifying riverine hydrology and riverine material fluxes to the coastal zone, have increased in both scale and rate of change in the last 200 years. The underlying processes that drive changes to coastal systems occur at a multiplicity of temporal and spatial scales. These changes alter the availability of ecosystem goods and services. However… more
Date: 2005
Creator: Land-Ocean Interactions in the Coastal Zone
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Global Land Project: Science Plan and ImplementationStrategy

Description: The Global Land Project (GLP) Science Plan and Implementation Strategy represents the joint research agenda of IGBP and IHDP to improve the understanding of land system dynamics in the context of Earth System functioning. This plan is therefore a first critical step in addressing the interaction between people and their environments. It is part of the broader efforts to understand how these interactions have affected, and may yet affect, the sustainability of the terrestrial biosphere, and the … more
Date: September 2005
Creator: Global Land Project (GLP)
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Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

Description: The iLEAPS Science Plan and Implementation Strategy defines the scientific objectives and key research issues of the land-atmosphere project of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme. It also outlines a strategy for addressing the key research questions. The scope of iLEAPS research spans from molecular level processes - such as synthesis of volatile organic compounds in vegetation - to Earth System science issues, climate and global change. iLEAPS research emphasises the importance o… more
Date: 2005
Creator: Integrated Land Ecosystem-Atmosphere Processes Study
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Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

Description: This Science Plan and Implementation Strategy sets out the research agenda for the second phase of IGBP. The document describes the IGBP strategy for producing high quality, unbiased, credible, fundamental scientific research in the area of global change: a strategy centered on ten projects, to be carried out by the several thousand scientists worldwide who are part of the IGBP network. Further, the document describes how the organization will communicate the results of this research to diffe… more
Date: 2006
Creator: International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme
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Global Wetland Distribution and Functional Characterization: Trace Gases and the Hydrologic Cycle

Description: The IGBP Wetlands workshop (Santa Barbara, CA, USA,16-20 May 1996) was held for the purpose of identifying data and research needs for characterizing wetlands in terms of their role in biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles. Wetlands cover only about 1% of the Earth's surface, yet are responsible for a much greater proportion of biogeochemical fluxes between the land surface, the atmosphere and hydrologic systems. They play a particularly important function in processing methane, carbon dioxide, … more
Date: 1998
Creator: Sahagian, Dork & Melack, John
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Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics: Implementation Plan

Description: This document describes plans for the implementation of the Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (GLOBEC) programme element of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP). This Implementation Plan is an international response to the need to understand how global change, in the broadest sense, will affect the abundance, diversity and productivity of marine populations comprising a major component of oceanic ecosystems. The Plan describes the consensus view, developed under the auspices of … more
Date: 1999
Creator: GLOBEC International Project Office
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Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC): Implementation Strategy

Description: The Implementation Strategy of the Land-Use and Land-Cover Change (LUCC) project specifies in greater detail the activities and projects that will fulfil the mandate outlined in the LUCC Science/Research Plan published in 1995. The project, a joint initiative of IGBP and IHDP, is addressing important global change questions on the local, regional and global scale. The planned and ongoing activities involve a wide community of natural and social scientists. The new understanding of land-use and … more
Date: 1999
Creator: Scientific Steering Committee and International Project Office of LUCC
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Global Change and Mountain Regions: The Mountain Research Initiative

Description: The strong altitudinal gradients in mountain regions provide unique and sometimes the best opportunities to detect and analyse global change processes and phenomena. Meteorological, hydrological, cryospheric and ecological conditions change strongly over relatively short distances; thus biodiversity tends to be high, and characteristic sequences of ecosystems and cryospheric systems are found along mountain slopes. The boundaries between these systems experience shifts due to environmental chan… more
Date: 2001
Creator: Bekcer, Alfred & Bugmann, Harald
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The Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study: Science Plan and Implementation Strategy

Description: SOLAS (Surface Ocean - Lower Atmosphere Study) is a new international research initiative that has as its goal: To achieve quantitative understanding of the key biogeochemical-physical interactions and feedbacks between the ocean and the atmosphere, and of how this coupled system affects and is affected by climate and environmental change. Achievement of this goal is important in order to understand and quantify the role that ocean-atmosphere interactions play in the regulation of climate and … more
Date: 2004
Creator: Broadgate, Wendy & Young, Bill
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The Kalahari Transect: Research on Global Change and Sustainable Development in Southern Africa

Description: The Kalahari Transect is proposed as one of IGBPs Transects (see Koch et al. 1995 [IGBP Report 36]). It is located so as to span the gradient between the arid subtropics and the moist tropics in southern Africa, a zone potentially susceptible to changes in the global precipitation pattern. Its focus is the relationships between the structure and function of ecosystems and their large-scale biophysical and human drivers (climate, atmosphere and land use). The Kalahari Transect spans a strong cli… more
Date: 1997
Creator: Scholes, R.J. & Parsons, D.A.B.
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