FACT! Australia has the worst mammal extinction rate in the world. Many of our native bird, reptile, fish and amphibian species are endangered. AUSTRALIA'S ENDANGERED ANIMALS… AND THEIR HABITATS is an exciting new series that takes a look at some of Australia's most threatened animal species and their unique habitats. Learn about: • Dozens of Australia's most vulnerable creatures • The habitats where Australia's animals live, feed and breed • Identifying characteristics that make a species vulnerable • Australian and international classification systems • Threats animals face and what is being done to save them • What YOU can do to make difference Inside each book you'll find current information, maps, statistics, fun facts, and photographs. Every book is a valuable resource designed to support Australian students and teachers, and meet Australian National Curriculum requirements.

Rather than a marginal part of protected area management, this book shows that freshwater conservation is central to sustaining biodiversity. It focuses on better practices for conserving inland aquatic ecosystems in protected areas (PAs), including rivers, wetlands, swamps, other brackish and freshwater ecosystems, and coastal estuaries.

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This volume focuses on microscopic plastic debris, also referred to as microplastics, which have been detected in aquatic environments around the globe and have accordingly raised serious concerns. The book explores whether microplastics represent emerging contaminants in freshwater systems, an area that remains underrepresented to date. Given the complexity of the issue, the book covers the current state-of-research on microplastics in rivers and lakes, including analytical aspects, environmental concentrations and sources, modelling approaches, interactions with biota, and ecological implications. To provide a broader perspective, the book also discusses lessons learned from nanomaterials and the implications of plastic debris for regulation, politics, economy, and society. In a research field that is rapidly evolving, it offers a solid overview for environmental chemists, engineers, and toxicologists, as well as water managers and policy-makers.

Growing human populations and higher demands for water impose increasing impacts and stresses upon freshwater biodiversity. Their combined effects have made these animals more endangered than their terrestrial and marine counterparts. Overuse and contamination of water, overexploitation and overfishing, introduction of alien species, and alteration of natural flow regimes have led to a 'great thinning' and declines in abundance of freshwater animals, a 'great shrinking' in body size with reductions in large species, and a 'great mixing' whereby the spread of introduced species has tended to homogenize previously dissimilar communities in different parts of the world. Climate change and warming temperatures will alter global water availability, and exacerbate the other threat factors. What conservation action is needed to halt or reverse these trends, and preserve freshwater biodiversity in a rapidly changing world? This book offers the tools and approaches that can be deployed to help conserve freshwater biodiversity.

Aldo Leopold, father of the "land ethic," once said, "The time has come for science to busy itself with the earth itself. The first step is to reconstruct a sample of what we had to begin with." The concept he expressedâ€"restorationâ€"is defined in this comprehensive new volume that examines the prospects for repairing the damage society has done to the nation's aquatic resources: lakes, rivers and streams, and wetlands. Restoration of Aquatic Ecosystems outlines a national strategy for aquatic restoration, with practical recommendations, and features case studies of aquatic restoration activities around the country. The committee examines: Key concepts and techniques used in restoration. Common factors in successful restoration efforts. Threats to the health of the nation's aquatic ecosystems. Approaches to evaluation before, during, and after a restoration project. The emerging specialties of restoration and landscape ecology.

This text examines the impact of climate change on freshwater ecosystems, past, present and future. It especially considers the interactions between climate change and other drivers of change including hydromorphological modification, nutrient loading, acid deposition and contamination by toxic substances using evidence from palaeolimnology, time-series analysis, space-for-time substitution, laboratory and field experiments and process modelling. The book evaluates these processes in relation to extreme events, seasonal changes in ecosystems, trends over decadal-scale time periods, mitigation strategies and ecosystem recovery. The book is also concerned with how aspects of hydrophysical, hydrochemical and ecological change can be used as early indicators of climate change in aquatic ecosystems and it addresses the implications of future climate change for freshwater ecosystem management at the catchment scale. This is an ideal book for the scientific research community, but is also accessible to Masters and senior undergraduate students.

This book uses ecosystem services-based approaches to address major global and regional water challenges, for researchers, students, and policy makers.