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A collection of articles on the ecology of North American desert springs, by authors from the fields of biology, botany, ichthyology, conservation, geology and law; and covering both the special traits of springs and the ways in which they might be managed in order to survive.
This volume investigates the contemporary fauna that inhabit the Cuatro Ciénegas Basin. Divided into 15 chapters, it addresses and describes their diversity, taxonomic and biogeogaphic affinities, and ecological characteristics. The Cuatro Ciénegas Valley is a unique oasis in the south-central region of the State of Coahuila, part of the Sonoran Desert, in Mexico. Several clues, specially derived from the study of the microbiota, suggest a very ancient origin of the valley and its permanence through time. This condition had promoted a high level of endemism and led to unique interactions between the resident species.
In prehistoric times, the Santa Cruz River in what is now southern Arizona saw many ebbs, flows, and floods. It flowed on the surface, meandered across the floodplain, and occasionally carved deep channels or arroyos into valley fill. Groundwater was never far from the surface, in places outcropping to feed marshlands or ciénegas. In these wet places, arroyos would heal quickly as the river channel revegetated, the thriving vegetation trapped sediment, and the channel refilled. As readers of Requiem for the Santa Cruz learn, these aridland geomorphic processes also took place in the valley as Tucson grew from mud-walled village to modern metropolis, with one exception: historical water development and channel changes proceeded hand in glove, each taking turns reacting to the other, eventually lowering the water table and killing a unique habitat that can no longer recover or be restored. Authored by an esteemed group of scientists, Requiem for the Santa Cruz thoroughly documents this river—the premier example of historic arroyo cutting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when large floodflows cut down through unconsolidated valley fill to form deep channels in the major valleys of the American Southwest. Each chapter provides a unique opportunity to chronicle the arroyo legacy, evaluate its causes, and consider its aftermath. Using more than a collective century of observations and collections, the authors reconstruct the circumstances of the river’s entrenchment and the groundwater mining that ultimately killed the marshlands, a veritable mesquite forest, and a birdwatcher's paradise. Today, communities everywhere face this conundrum: do we manage ephemeral rivers through urban areas for flood control, or do we attempt to restore them to some previous state of perennial naturalness? Requiem for the Santa Cruz carefully explores the legacies of channel change, groundwater depletion, flood control, and nascent attempts at river restoration to give a long-term perspective on management of rivers in arid lands. Tied together by authors who have committed their life’s work to the study of aridland rivers, this book offers a touching and scientifically grounded requiem for the Santa Cruz and every southwestern river.
Environmental and specific diversity in the Chihuahuan desert in general, and in the Cuatro Ciénegas Basin in particular, has long been recognized as outstanding. This book provides a global ecological overview, together with in-depth studies of specific processes. The Chihuahuan desert is the warmest in North America, and has a complex geologic, climatic and biogeographical history, which affects today’s distribution of vegetation and plants and generates complex phylogeographic patterns. The high number of endemic species reflects this complex set of traits. The modern distribution of environments, including aquatic and subaquatic systems, riparian environments, gypsum dunes and gypsum-rich soils, low levels of phosphorous and organic matter, and high salinity combined with an extreme climate call for a range of adaptations. Plants are distributed in a patchy pattern based on punctual variations, and many of them respond to different resources and conditions with considerable morphological plasticity. In terms of physiological, morphological and ecological variability, cacti were identified as the most important group in specific environments like bajadas, characterized by high diversity values, while gypsophytes and gypsovagues of different phylogenies, including species with restricted distribution and endemics.
Water Matters: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals presents a compilation of water scenarios and their relationship to multiple facets of life, as water forms a nexus with food security and energy resources, thereby forming one of the fundamental pillars of sustainable development. The thematic topics focus on studies of achieving individual sustainable development goals, primarily on safe and sustainable drinking water availability, the role of water in sanitation, transboundary water, and water in the ecosystem. Each chapter presents a case study to enable a holistic review of the topic and provide insight for further research. Water Matters: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals integrates the knowledge on global-scale water reviews to local-scale case-studies, ideal for hydrologists, hydrogeologists and water managers in environmental and Earth sciences. - Provides interdisciplinary content that bridges the knowledge from water availability to sustainability through reviews of current technologies for clean water and water security - Includes global and regional reviews and case studies, building a bridge between broad reviews of water related issues by domain experts as well as detailed case studies - Identifies pathways for transforming water knowledge to achieve sustainable development goals to policy and governance of water, food, and energy security and sustainability
This comprehensive new book replaces and substantially expands upon the landmark Fishes of Arizona, which has been the authoritative source since it was first published in 1973. Inland Fishes of the Greater Southwest is a one-volume guide to native and non-native fishes of the lower Colorado River basin, downstream from the Grand Canyon, and of the northern tributaries of the Sea of Cortez in the United States and Mexico. In all, there are in-depth accounts of more than 165 species representing 30 families. The book is not limited to the fish. It provides insights into their aquatic world with information on topography, drainage relations, climate, geology, vegetational history, aquatic habitats, human-made water systems, and conservation. A section of the book is devoted to fish identification, with keys to native and non-native families as well as family keys to species. The book is illustrated with more than 120 black-and-white illustrations, 47 full-color plates of native fishes, and nearly 40 maps and figures. Many native fish species are unique to the Southwest. They possess interesting and unusual adaptations to the challenges of the region, able to survive silt-laden floods as well as extreme water temperatures and highly fluctuating water flows ranging from very low levels to flash floods. However, in spite of being well-adapted, many of the fish described here are threatened or endangered, often due to the acts of humans who have altered the natural habitat. For that reason, Inland Fishes of the Greater Southwest presents a vast amount of information about the ecological relationships between the fishes it describes and their environments, paying particular attention to the ways in which human interactions have modified aquatic ecosystemsÑand to how humans might work to ensure the survival of rapidly disappearing native species.
In this first-ever landmark study of New Mexico's wild carnivores, Jean-Luc E. Cartron and Jennifer K. Frey have assembled a team of leading southwestern biologists to explore the animals and the major issues that shape their continued presence in the state and region. The book includes discussions on habitat, evolving or altered ecosystems, and new discoveries about animal behavior and range, and it also provides details on the distribution, habitat associations, life history, population status, management, and conservation needs of individual carnivore species in New Mexico. Like Cartron's award-winning Raptors of New Mexico, Wild Carnivores of New Mexico shares the same emphasis on scientific rigor and thoroughness, high readability, and visual appeal. Each chapter is illustrated with numerous color photographs to help readers visualize unique morphological or life-history traits, habitat, research techniques, and management and conservation issues.
Western Water A to Z is the first ever field guide to Western water. Reinventing this twentieth-century genre for a twenty-first-century audience, Robert R. Crifasi answers questions about rivers, water projects, the culture of water, the ecosystems water projects have created or destroyed, and the reliance of cities, farms, and industries on this critical resource. Organized as a collection of terms, the book addresses the most salient water issues and provides helpful background information regarding their origins and implications. Photographs serve a vital role in the cultural dialogue on water and stand as an equal partner to the text. Each subject is covered in about one page and is accompanied by one or two striking images from famous photographers like Margaret Bourke-White, Carleton E. Watkins, Arthur Rothstein, William Henry Jackson, and Dorothea Lang as well as Crifasi’s own work. Water often finds itself at the center of our cultural discourse in art, cinema, and literature, which play essential roles in shaping our understanding and experience of Western water. Crifasi also engages personalities that are nearly synonymous with Western water—John Wesley Powell, Elwood Mead, and Floyd Dominy, among others—to show how their lives intertwined with and often influenced the course of water development across the region. Travelers, adventurers, students, and anyone interested in water will find Western Water A to Z a handy and entertaining reference guide.
Accounting for approximately 99% of all liquid freshwater on Earth, groundwater has the potential to provide societies with tremendous social, economic and environmental benefits and opportunities. However, this natural resource is often poorly understood, and consequently undervalued, mismanaged and even abused. In spite of its overall abundance, groundwater remains vulnerable to over-exploitation and pollution, both of which can have devastating effects on the resource and its availability. In the context of growing water scarcity across many parts of the world, the enormous potential of groundwater and the need to manage it sustainably can no longer be overlooked. The 2022 edition of The United Nations World Water Development Report describes the challenges and opportunities associated with the development, management and governance of groundwater across the world.
The publication of The Colorado Plateau: Cultural, Biological, and Physical Research in 2004 marked a timely summation of current research in the Four Corners states. This new volume, derived from the seventh Biennial Conference on the Colorado Plateau in 2003, complements the previous book by focusing on the integration of science into resource management issues. The 32 chapters range in content from measuring human impacts on cultural resources, through grazing and the wildland-urban interface issues, to parameters of climate change on the Plateau. The book also introduces economic perspectives by considering shifting patterns and regional disparities in the Colorado Plateau economy. A series of chapters on mountain lions explores the human-wildland interface. These chapters deal with the entire spectrum of challenges associated with managing this large mammal species in Arizona and on the Colorado Plateau, conveying a wealth of timely information of interest to wildlife managers and enthusiasts. Another provocative set of chapters on biophysical resources explores the management of forest restoration, from the micro scale all the way up to large-scale GIS analyses of ponderosa pine ecosystems on the Colorado Plateau. Given recent concerns for forest health in the wake of fires, severe drought, and bark-beetle infestation, these chapters will prove enlightening for forest service, park service, and land management professionals at both the federal and state level, as well as general readers interested in how forest management practices will ultimately affect their recreation activities. With broad coverage that touches on topics as diverse as movement patterns of rattlesnakes, calculating watersheds, and rescuing looted rockshelters, this volume stands as a compendium of cutting-edge research on the Colorado Plateau that offers a wealth of insights for many scholars.