Search

The Anthropocene is the human-dominated modern era that has accelerated social, environmental and climate change across the world in the last few decades. This open access book examines the challenges the Anthropocene presents to the sustainable management of deltas, both the many threats as well as the opportunities. In the world's deltas the Anthropocene is manifest in major land use change, the damming of rivers, the engineering of coasts and the growth of some of the world's largest megacities; deltas are home to one in twelve of all people in the world. The book explores bio-physical and social dynamics and makes clear adaptation choices and trade-offs that underpin policy and governance processes, including visionary delta management plans. It details new analysis to illustrate these challenges, based on three significant and contrasting deltas: the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mahanadi and Volta. This multi-disciplinary, policy-orientated volume is strongly aligned to the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals as delta populations often experience extremes of poverty, gender and structural inequality, variable levels of health and well-being, while being vulnerable to extreme and systematic climate change.

This book answers key questions about environment, people and their shared future in deltas. It develops a systematic and holistic approach for policy-orientated analysis for the future of these regions. It does so by focusing on ecosystem services in the world's largest, most populous and most iconic delta region, that of the Ganges-Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. The book covers the conceptual basis, research approaches and challenges, while also providing a methodology for integration across multiple disciplines, offering a potential prototype for assessments of deltas worldwide. Ecosystem Services for Well-Being in Deltas analyses changing ecosystem services in deltas; the health and well-being of people reliant on them; the continued central role of agriculture and fishing; and the implications of aquaculture in such environments.The analysis is brought together in an integrated and accessible way to examine the future of the Ganges Brahmaputra delta based on anear decade of research by a team of the world's leading scientists on deltas and their human and environmental dimensions. This book is essential reading for students and academics within the fields of Environmental Geography, Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy focused on solving the world's most critical challenges of balancing humans with their environments.This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Coastal zones exemplify the environmental pressures we face: their beauty attracts settlement, they offer potential for diverse economic activities, and they are sensitive natural habitats for important species, as well as providing a range of ecosystem services. They are also extremely vulnerable to the vicissitudes of climate change, which include rising sea levels and changes in extreme events such as storms. With large populations living in coastal and estuarine cities facing the ongoing threat of inundation, coordinated management is essential, especially as coastal zones form a linked system in which piecemeal, uncoordinated management could be counterproductive.