From The Left Bank To The Mainstream

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Yangtze River system and its water resources development and management. From the perspectives of geology, hydrology, zoology, ecology, it discusses the Yangtze River’s geological history and aquatic environments, analyses the endangered species along the river basin, and reviews the effects of human hydrolytic activities on its ecosystem. By studying the history of Yangtze River system and its water resources development, it provides insights into the effects of evolution and human activities on the ecosystem of its basin, and offers strategic thoughts on conservation and sustainable development of the Yangtze River. Written by an author with extensive experience in the field, this book is an invaluable reference resource for researchers interested in the Yangtze River.

Why was George Washington dismayed by the outcome of the American Revolution? Would slavery still exist if the South had not seceded from the Union in 1861? Might socialists rule America today if Teddy Roosevelt had not run for President and lost in 1912? History is full of contingencies. People confront problems and debate options for solving them. Then they make a choice and face the consequences of their choice. Often they wonder if a different choice might have been better. Was the American Revolution a mistake? Was racial segregation inevitable? Was the Cold War necessary? Americans have repeatedly asked these sorts of questions as they examined the consequences of their choices. This is a book about revisiting crucial choices people made in history and examining the consequences of those choices for them and for us. It demonstrates a method of teaching history that recreates events as people experienced them, and asks important questions that troubled them but that rarely appear in conventional textbooks. Unlike conventional methods that often reduce history to names, dates and factoids for students to memorize, it is a method that brings past debates to life, the losers' as well as the winners' points of view, and makes the subject exciting. In studying history as choice, students examine the problems people faced, their options for solving them, their decision-making processes, and the choices they made. Then students evaluate the consequences of those choices both for people in the past and us today. They explore what might have happened if different choices had been made. Finally, students relate the consequences of those past choices to problems we face today and the choices we need to make. History as choice is a practical and practicable method. It has been designed to satisfy the curriculum goals of the National Council for the Social Studies, and the book explains how it can be used to satisfy any state or local curriculum standards. The book also identifies and illustrates resources that can be used with this method -- from data bases to popular music -- and explains how teachers can gradually integrate it into their courses. In the first part of the book, the method of history as choice is explained using the question of whether the American Revolution was a mistake as a case in point. The second part of the book explores thirteen other questions about significant issues and events in American history as additional examples of how one might teach history as choice.

A half century ago gay men and lesbians were all but invisible in the media and, in turn, popular culture. With the lesbian and gay liberation movement came a profoundly new sense of homosexual community and empowerment and the emergence of gay people onto the media's stage. And yet even as the mass media have been shifting the terms of our public conversation toward a greater acknowledgment of diversity, does the emerging "visibility" of gay men and women do justice to the complexity and variety of their experience? Or is gay identity manipulated and contrived by media that are unwilling—and perhaps unable—to fully comprehend and honor it? While positive representations of gays and lesbians are a cautious step in the right direction, media expert Larry Gross argues that the entertainment and news media betray a lingering inability to break free from proscribed limitations in order to embrace the complex reality of gay identity. While noting major advances, like the opening of the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore—the first gay bookstore in the country—or the rise of The Advocate from small newsletter to influential national paper, Gross takes the measure of somewhat more ambiguous milestones, like the first lesbian kiss on television or the first gay character in a newspaper comic strip.

This book systematically discusses hydropower development on the Congo River. Accelerating the development of hydropower on the Congo will significantly enhance the interconnection of Africa’s cross-border, trans-regional and intercontinental power grids, ensure a clean, reliable and affordable electricity supply in Africa, and promote the electrification, industrialization, and integration of Africa. The book comprehensively assesses the hydropower resources and watershed characteristics of the Congo River, focuses on cascade hydropower development planning and design in the lower reaches of the Congo River, and analyzes the hydropower consumption market, transmission scheme, construction timing, investments and economy. Project investments, financing mechanisms and safeguard measures are also addressed. The plan presented here offers a vital resource for all those interested in hydropower development in the Congo River and sustainable development in Africa.

Sediment dynamics in fluvial systems is of great ecological, economic and human-health-related significance worldwide. Appropriate management strategies are therefore needed to limit maintenance costs as well as minimize potential hazards to the aquatic and adjacent environments. Human intervention, ranging from nutrient/pollutant release to physical modifications, has a large impact on sediment quantity and quality and thus on river morphology as well as on ecological functioning. Truly understanding sediment dynamics requires as a consequence a multidisciplinary approach.River Sedimentation contains the peer-reviewed scientific contributions presented at the 13th International Symposium on River Sedimentation (ISRS 2016, Stuttgart, Germany, 19-22 September 2016), and includes recent accomplishments in theoretical developments, numerical modelling, experimental laboratory work, field investigations and monitoring as well as management methodologies.

The Mekong is the most controversial river in Southeast Asia, and increasingly the focus of international attention. It flows through 6 counties, China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam. The 4 downstream countries have formed the Mekong River Commission to promote sustainable development of the river and many of their people depend on it for their subsistence ? it has possible the largest freshwater fishery in the world, and the Mekong waters support rice agriculture in the delta in Viet Nam (which produces about 40% of that country's food) as well as in Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. China is now building the first large mainstream dam on the river, and has proposals for several more. These dams are likely to affect the downstream countries. Several of the downstream countries also have plans for large scale hydropower and irrigation development which could also impact the river. This book will provide a solid overview of the biophysical environment of the Mekong together with a discussion of the possible impacts, biophysical, economic and social, of some possible development scenarios. It is intended to provide a technical basis which can inform the growing political and conservation debate about the future of the Mekong River, and those who depend on it. It is aimed at river ecologists, geographers, environmentalists and development specialists both in the basin and (especially) outside for whom access to this material is most difficult. This book will be the first comprehensive treatment of the Mekong system. The first comprehensive overview of all aspects of the Mekong River system Deals with a regionally critical ecosystem and one under threat The Mekong supports the world's largest freshwater fishery and provides water underpinning a major regional rice paddy system Presents the authoritative findings of the Mekong River Commission's research for a wider audience for the first time outside of limited distribution reports