Integrated Environmental Management : A Transdisciplinary Approach

Based on 40 years of experience, Integrated Environmental Management: A Transdisciplinary Approach brings together many ecological and technological tool boxes and applies them in a transdisciplinary method. The book demonstrates how to combine continuous improvement management tools and principles with proven environmental assessment methodologies. This integrated ecological and environmental management approach lets you view environmental problems from a holistic angle, considering the ecosystem as an entity as well as the entire spectrum of solutions and possible combinations of solutions.

The book discusses the importance of examining all facets or possible problems associated with an ecosystem simultaneously and evaluating all the solution possibilities proposed by the relevant disciplines at the same time. The authors underline that there is no alternative to integrated, multidisciplinary, ecological–environmental management―at least not on a long-term basis. They lay down the fundamental concepts in an applications-oriented manner that allows you to apply the seven steps of environmental management directly.

However, the book goes beyond delineating the available tool boxes; it also details how they can be integrated and combined to find an optimum solution to ecological–environmental problems.

Sven Erik Jørgensen is an ecologist and chemist. He has become professor emeritus in environmental chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. He received in 1958 a master of science in chemical engineering from the Danish Technical University, then doctor of environmental engineering (Karlsruhe University) and doctor of science in ecological modelling (Copenhagen University). He is an honourable doctor at Coimbra University, Portugal and at Dar es Salaam University, Tanzania. In 1975 he founded a journal, Ecological Modelling, and in 1978 ISEM, the International Society of Ecological Modelling. There have been several awards: the Ruder Boskovic Medal, the Prigogine Prize, the Pascal Medal, the Einstein professorship at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Santa Chiara Prize for multidisciplinary teaching, and in 2004, together with William Mitsch, the Stockholm Water Prize. He has published 366 papers of which 275 were in peer-reviewed international journals, and has edited or authored 76 books, of which several have been translated into other languages (Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese). He has authored a textbook in ecological modeling "Fundamentals of Ecological Modelling", which was published as a fourth edition together with Brian Fath in 2011. It has been translated into Chinese and Russian (third edition). Recently he authored the textbook "Introduction to Systems Ecology". It was published in English in 2012 and in Chinese in 2013. He was editor in chief of the Encyclopedia of Ecology published in 2008, and of the Encyclopedia of Environmental Management published during December 2012. He has taught courses in ecological modelling in 32 countries. He is the editorial board member of 18 international journals in the fields of ecology and environmental management. He is currently the president of ISEM and has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences, for which he is chairman of the Section for Environmental Sciences.

João Carlos Marques graduated in Biology at the University of Lisbon (1980), PhD in Ecology at the University of Coimbra (1989), President of IMAR – Institute of Marine Research (Portugal) from 1997 to 2006, Vice-Rector for Scientific Research at the University of Coimbra from 2003 to 2007, he is presently Vice-Director of MARE – Marine and Environmental Sciences Centre, and Scientific Coordinator of the MARE pole at the University of Coimbra, Portugal.

Marine and estuarine ecologist, he has been working with biological and ecological processes in marine and estuarine ecosystems, system’s ecology, and ecological modelling. Since 1990, he coordinated 15 large research projects, funded both by Portuguese Agencies and European Union Programmes, besides participating as member of the research team in 20 other. So far, he authored or co-authored more than 225 scientific papers in international refereed journals, 7 books, and 12 books chapters (international editions), and supervised 47 MSc and 23 PhD students, in Portugal and abroad.

He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Ocean and Coastal Management and Ecological Indicators, from Elsevier.

Søren Nors Nielsen obtained the PhD in Structurally Dynamic Modelling in 1992, in the University of Copenhagen, and the "Agregação" in 2009, in the University of Coimbra. He is a world expert on the application of thermodynamic methods for the analysis and assessment of biological systems functioning, mainly in aquatic environments, and of ecological modeling in environmental management. He authored or co-authored a large number of papers in peer review journals, book chapters and books.