Large Lakes : Ecological Structure and Function

Colette Serruya

ISBN 10: 3642840795 / ISBN 13: 9783642840791

Published by Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2011

About this Item

Druck auf Anfrage Neuware - Printed after ordering - The vast majority of the world's lakes are small in size and short lived in geological terms. Only 253 of the thousands of lakes on this planet have surface areas larger than 500 square kilometers. At first sight, this statistic would seem to indicate that large lakes are relatively unimportant on a global scale; in fact, however, large lakes contain the bulk of the liquid surface freshwater of the earth. Just Lake Baikal and the Laurentian Great Lakes alone contain more than 38% of the world's total liquid freshwater. Thus, the large lakes of the world accentuate an important feature of the earth's freshwater reserves-its extremely irregular distribution. The energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s made us aware of the fact that we live on a spaceship with finite, that is, exhaustible resources. On the other hand, the energy crisis led to an overemphasis on all the issues concerning energy supply and all the problems connected with producing new energy. The energy crisis also led us to ignore strong evidence suggesting that water of appropriate quality to be used as a resouce will be used up more quickly than energy will. Although in principle water is a 'renewable resource,' the world's water reserves are diminishing in two fashions, the effects of which are multiplicative: enhanced consumption and accelerated degradation of quality.

Seller Inventory # 9783642840791

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Large Lakes : Ecological Structure and Function
• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3642840795
• ISBN 13: 9783642840791
• Binding: Taschenbuch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 235W x 155H x 38D millimeters 235 millimeters width by 155 millimeters height by 38 millimeters depth
• Weight: 1060 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The vast majority of the world's lakes are small in size and short lived in geological terms. Only 253 of the thousands of lakes on this planet have surface areas larger than 500 square kilometers. At first sight, this statistic would seem to indicate that large lakes are relatively unimportant on a global scale; in fact, however, large lakes contain the bulk of the liquid surface freshwater of the earth. Just Lake Baikal and the Laurentian Great Lakes alone contain more than 38% of the world's total liquid freshwater. Thus, the large lakes of the world accentuate an important feature of the earth's freshwater reserves-its extremely irregular distribution. The energy crisis of the 1970s and 1980s made us aware of the fact that we live on a spaceship with finite, that is, exhaustible resources. On the other hand, the energy crisis led to an overemphasis on all the issues concerning energy supply and all the problems connected with producing new energy. The energy crisis also led us to ignore strong evidence suggesting that water of appropriate quality to be used as a resouce will be used up more quickly than energy will. Although in principle water is a "renewable resource," the world's water reserves are diminishing in two fashions, the effects of which are multiplicative: enhanced consumption and accelerated degradation of quality.