Scattered like dots rising from the deep across vast expanses of the world’s tropical and subtropical oceans, atolls with their turquoise lagoons and reefs teeming with colorful marine life have captured the public imagination. They have also been the homeland of millions of people for millennia as various groups of migrants spread across the far reaches if the Pacific, Indian and Western Atlantic regions. Developed from recently available satellite data, A Global Atlas of Atolls presents high-quality details of 476 atolls across the globe, characterizing aspects of the atoll rim, the lagoon, and their coral reef communities in unprecedented detail. In synthesizing and enhancing understanding of these unique seascapes, this volume provides a distinct compendium of descriptions and images, as well as documentation of the environmental conditions of winds, waves, and tides and a summary of the background literature for each atoll area. There is no comparable work. After an introduction that includes a glossary of terms, each atoll is documented in the form of an atlas written for scientists, but accessible to any diver or reader interested in these spectacular reef-island habitats. This book also describes some current challenges and perspectives on their future. It will be useful as a reference work for marine scientists, while providing a minimum of technical jargon for those who are not scientists, but who enjoy reading about exotic places with unusual attributes.

The Global Atlas of Marine Fisheries is the first and only book to provide accurate, country-by-country fishery catch data. This groundbreaking information has been gathered from independent sources by the world's foremost fisheries experts. Edited by Daniel Pauly and Dirk Zeller of the Sea Around Us Project, the Atlas includes one-page reports on 273 countries and their territories, plus fourteen topical global chapters. Each national report describes the current state of the country's fishery; the policies, politics, and social factors affecting it; and potential solutions. The global chapters address cross-cutting issues, from the economics of fisheries to the impacts of mariculture. Extensive maps and graphics offer attractive and accessible visual representations.

An up-to-date, detailed, and fully-illustrated account of the biodiversity and status of coral reefs.

Seagrasses are a vital and widespread but often overlooked coastal marine habitat. This volume provides a global survey of their distribution and conservation status.

Examines the Earth's geologic history, climate, vegetation, population, food, economies, and mineral resources, and offers physical, political, and subject maps of each continent.

Beyond the tropical paradise and beyond the fear of climate change effects, the Maldives is a fascinating island country that faces social, cultural, economic and environmental transformations. Atolls of the Maldives: Nissology and Geography provides a spatial analysis on some key challenges the Maldivian society has to deal with, and guides the reader in the discovery of the human and environmental geography of this Indian Ocean archipelago. Geographers, political scientists, sociologists, geologists, biologists and experts in environmental policies help the audience to move through the complex systems of interrelations, connections and disconnections that shape the environment and the geography of this extraordinary archipelagic country.