This document is intended to provide an overview of the major components of surface and ground water quality and how these relate to ecosystem and human health. Local, regional and global assessments of water quality monitoring data are used to illustrate key features of aquatic environments, and to demonstrate how human activities on the landscape can influence water quality in both positive and negative ways. Clear and concise background knowledge on water quality can serve to support other water assessments.

Water is at the core of all life on Earth and exists as one of the main components of the human body. Because water is essential to life, addressing water pollution and sustainability issues is of great concern to environmentalists and public health specialists alike. Impact of Water Pollution on Human Health and Environmental Sustainability highlights several important water-related issues and explores a number of potential solutions to the problem of water sustainability. Focusing on research-based perspectives on water availability, industrial and agricultural pollution, water contamination, and their impacts on the human population as well as the environment, this crucial publication is a necessary addition to academic and government libraries serving graduate-level students, environmental scientists, public health workers, policy makers, and legislators seeking the latest information on sustainable and contaminant-free water resources.

The book addresses the interactions between wetlands and human health and well-being. A key feature is the linking of ecology-health and the targeting of practitioners and researchers. The environmental health problems of the 21st Century cannot be addressed by the traditional tools of ecologists or epidemiologists working in their respective disciplinary silos; this is clear from the emergence and re-emergence of public health and human well-being problems such as cholera pandemics, mosquito borne disease, and episodic events and disasters (e.g. hurricanes). To tackle these problems requires genuine cross-disciplinary collaboration; a key finding of the recently concluded Millennium Ecosystem Assessment when looking at human well-being and ecosystem health. This book brings the disciplines of ecology and health sciences closer to such a synthesis for researchers, teachers and policy makers interested in or needing information to manage wetlands and human health and well-being issues.

Approximately 60% of the benefits that the global ecosystem provides to support life on Earth (such as fresh water, clean air and a relatively stable climate) are being degraded or used unsustainably. In the report, scientists warn that harmful consequences of this degradation to human health are already being felt and could grow significantly worse over the next 50 years.

This book discusses marine pathogens, pollution, and toxic algal blooms and their impact on coastal ecosystems and human health.

Ecosystems and Human Health introduces Ecohealth as an emerging field of study, traces its evolution, and explains its applications in cross-disciplinary and holistic programs. Its integrative approach not only focuses on managing the environment to improve health, but also analyzes underlying social and economic determinants of health to develop innovative, people-centered interventions.