Use of Landscape Sciences for the Assessment of Environmental Security

Many people will have been waiting for a text that tackles head-on this crucial topic. Here it is. This book focuses on the relationship between environmental security and landscape assessment. It is the fruit of ideas incubated over the last five years, under the aegis of the NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society. The work, carried out by the plot study project on "Use of Landscape Sciences for Environmental Assessment", utilized the growing knowledge about environmental change, stress, and degradation that has increased the visibility of environmental condition as an important determinant of security. In this volume, environmental security is described from the viewpoint of landscape sciences. This approach is particularly suitable because landscapes are comprised of the abiotic and biotic ecological structures and processes of an area and their interrelations with the socio-economic component. Written in an accessible style, this book discusses the concept of environmental security from subjective and objective perspectives using different approaches and tools typical of landscape assessment.