A characteristic of the present global ecological situation is increasing instability or put another waya crisis in the civilization system, the global scale of which is expressed through a deterioration of human and animal habitats. The most sub stantial features of global ecodynamics of the late 20th and early 21st centuries include the rapid increase in world population (mainly in developing countries), increase in the size of the urban population (considerable growth in the number of megalopolises), and increase in the scales of such dangerous diseases as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, tuberculosis, etc. With growing population size the problems of providing people with food and improving their living conditions in many regions will not only not be resolved but will become even more urgent. Any possible benefit from decrease in per capita consumption as a result of increased efficiency of technologies will be outweighed by the impact of such a growth in population size. Despite the predom inant increase of population in developing countries, their contribution to the impact on the environment will not necessarily exceed that of developed countries. Key to ensuring sustainable development of the nature/society system (NSS) is the relation ship between production and consumption, as mentioned at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg (2002). As civilization has developed, so the problem of predicting the scale of expected climate change and associated change in human habitats has become more urgent.

Opens a new approach to the study of global environment changes on the world population as well as other ecosystems

Autorentext

Arthur J. Cracknell: In the mid 1970s Prof. Cracknell started to become involved in remote sensing (Earth Observation) work, a field that was then in its infancy. The idea that led him to start remote sensing work in the former Physics Department at Dundee University was to provide a link between the generators of satellite data and the environmental scientists and engineers who would like to use the data. This work on the processing and interpretation of remote sensing data developed by Prof. Cracknell expanded enormously over a period of about 25 years and led to the publication by him and his co-authors of over 200 research papers and about 20 or so books on the subject. The books range from an introductory textbook on the subject, which is about to go into its second edition, to monographs and edited conference and summer school proceedings. Prof. Vladimir F. Krapivin published numerous papers and a number of books relevant to environmental and global changes studies. Among the latter are:"Ecoinformatics Methods" (with I.I. Potapov), 2002, Moscow (in Russian)."Modelling the Global Carbon Cycle" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev), 2004, Moscow (in Russian)."Global Change of the Environment: Ecoinformatics" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev), St. Petersburg (in Russian)."Perspectives of Civilization Development: Multidimensional Analysis" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and V.P. Savinikh), 2003, Moscow (in Russian)."Global Environmental Change: Modelling and Monitoring" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and G.W. Phillips), Springer, 2002, Germany;"Global Carbon Cycle and Climate Change" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and C.A. Varotsos), Springer/Praxis, 2003, U.K.;"Global Ecodynamics: a Multidimensional Analysis" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev, V.P. Savinikh, and C.A. Varotsos), 2004, Springer/Praxis, U.K."Natural Disasters as Interactive Components of Global Ecodynamics" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev and C.A. Varotsos);"Atmospheric Aerosol Properties: Formation, Processes and Impacts" (with K.Ya. Kondratyev, L.S. Ivlev and C.A. Varotsos).

Inhalt
Problems of globalization and sustainable development.- Globalization and biogeochemical cycles in the environment.- Numerical modeling of the nature/society system.- Global change and geoinformation monitoring.- Decision-making risks in global ecodynamics.