David G. Green

This book examines key concepts and analytical approaches in complexity theory as it applies to landscape ecology, including complex networks, connectivity, criticality, feedback, and self-organisation. It then reviews the ways that these ideas have led to new insights into the nature of ecosystems and the role of processes in landscapes. The updated edition explores innovations in ecotechnology, including automated monitoring, big data, simulation and machine learning, and shows how they are revolutionizing ecology by making it possible to deal more effectively with complexity. Addressing the topic in a progression of ideas from small to large, and from simple to sophisticated, the book examines the implications of complexity for major environmental issues of our time, particularly the urgencies of climate change and loss of biodiversity. Understanding ecological complexity is crucial in today’s globalized and interconnected world. Successful management of the world’s ecosystems must combine models of ecosystem complexity with biodiversity, environmental, geographic, and socioeconomic data. The book examines the impact of humans on landscapes and ecosystems, as well as efforts to embed sustainability, commerce and industrial development in the larger context of ecosystem services and ecological economics. Well-established as researchers in the field, the authors provide a new perspective on current and future understanding of complexity in landscape ecology. The new edition offers a non-technical account of the topic, so it is both accessible and informative for general readers. For students of ecology, it provides a fresh approach to classical ideas.

This book examines key concepts and analytical approaches in complexity theory as it applies to landscape ecology, including complex networks, connectivity, criticality, feedback, and self-organisation. It then reviews the ways that these ideas have led to new insights into the nature of ecosystems and the role of processes in landscapes. The updated edition explores innovations in ecotechnology, including automated monitoring, big data, simulation and machine learning, and shows how they are revolutionizing ecology by making it possible to deal more effectively with complexity. Addressing the topic in a progression of ideas from small to large, and from simple to sophisticated, the book examines the implications of complexity for major environmental issues of our time, particularly the urgencies of climate change and loss of biodiversity. Understanding ecological complexity is crucial in today’s globalized and interconnected world. Successful management of the world’s ecosystems must combine models of ecosystem complexity with biodiversity, environmental, geographic, and socioeconomic data. The book examines the impact of humans on landscapes and ecosystems, as well as efforts to embed sustainability, commerce and industrial development in the larger context of ecosystem services and ecological economics. Well-established as researchers in the field, the authors provide a new perspective on current and future understanding of complexity in landscape ecology. The new edition offers a non-technical account of the topic, so it is both accessible and informative for general readers. For students of ecology, it provides a fresh approach to classical ideas.

The aim of the book is to lay out the foundations and provide a detailed treatment of the subject. It will focus on two main elements in dual phase evolution: the relationship between dual phase evolution and other phase transition phenomena and the advantages of dual phase evolution in evolutionary computation and complex adaptive systems. The book will provide a coherent picture of dual phase evolution that encompasses these two elements and frameworks, methods and techniques to use this concept for problem solving.

Why do things go wrong? Why, despite all the planning and care in the world, do things go from bad to worse? This book argues that it is because we are like the ants. Just as ants create an anthill without being aware of it, unintended side effects of human activity create all manner of social trends and crises. The book traces the way these trends emerge and the role they play in some of the major issues of our time. One of the greatest challenges today is the complexity of our social and economic systems. Every action has side effects that people often ignore or fail to see. The book examines the ways in which limitations in our thinking and behaviour lead to unintended side effects. It looks at the role played by complex networks of interactions. Finally, it looks at the way side effects of new technologies, especially computers and communication, have created an Information Revolution, the full repercussions of which are yet to be seen. In our race to create new technologies and sustain indefinite economic growth, we are at best dimly aware of the ways in which we are transforming society and threatening our environment.

The aim of the book is to lay out the foundations and provide a detailed treatment of the subject. It will focus on two main elements in dual phase evolution: the relationship between dual phase evolution and other phase transition phenomena and the advantages of dual phase evolution in evolutionary computation and complex adaptive systems. The book will provide a coherent picture of dual phase evolution that encompasses these two elements and frameworks, methods and techniques to use this concept for problem solving.

Power and Party in an English City provides an account of how decisions are taken by the state at the level of locality. More specifically, it is an account of the private policy-making activities of a ruling Labour group of councillors in the major English city of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Despite the fact that local government in most of the towns and cities of England is one-party government, very little is known abotu the private behaviour of ruling party groups. In this book David Green provides a penetrating empirical study of the realities of local government.The author seeks to examine and analyse the importance of party discipline, the relationship between the Labour group of councillors and the party outside the council, the power of the committee chairmen, the role of local patronage and the openness of the local policy-making process. The government of Newcastle is perhaps the most closely association in the public mind with T. Dan Smith, the corrupt local politician. In fact, Smith had left local politics in Newcastle in teh mid-1960s. How was the city being run a decade or so later?This study is however much more than an inside view of the affairs of a single authority. The last part of the book is devoted to a discussion of aspects of some traditional and modern theories of democracy and specifically to what author sees as the inadequate advocacy of participatory democracy in recent years. Green makes a major contribution to our thinking about the kind of democracy that is possible in modern large-scale societies, explores weaknesses of moder theories and puts forward some original modifications to modern democratic theory, in the light of a theory of knowledge which is seen as more appropriate for modern natural and social scientific activity.This book was first published in 1981.

Interactions matter. To understand the distributions of plants and animals in a landscape you need to understand how they interact with each other, and with their environment. The resulting networks of interactions make ecosystems highly complex. Recent research on complexity and artificial life provides many new insights about patterns and processes in landscapes and ecosystems. This book provides the first overview of that work for general readers. It covers such topics as connectivity, criticality, feedback, and networks, as well as their impact on the stability and predictability of ecosystem dynamics. With over 60 years of research experience of both ecology and complexity, the authors are uniquely qualified to provide a new perspective on traditional ecology. They argue that understanding ecological complexity is crucial in today’s globalized and interconnected world. Successful management of the world's ecosystems needs to combine models of ecosystem complexity with biodiversity, environmental, geographic and socioeconomic information.

Power and Party in an English City provides an account of how decisions are taken by the state at the level of locality. More specifically, it is an account of the private policy-making activities of a ruling Labour group of councillors in the major English city of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Despite the fact that local government in most of the towns and cities of England is one-party government, very little is known abotu the private behaviour of ruling party groups. In this book David Green provides a penetrating empirical study of the realities of local government.The author seeks to examine and analyse the importance of party discipline, the relationship between the Labour group of councillors and the party outside the council, the power of the committee chairmen, the role of local patronage and the openness of the local policy-making process. The government of Newcastle is perhaps the most closely association in the public mind with T. Dan Smith, the corrupt local politician. In fact, Smith had left local politics in Newcastle in teh mid-1960s. How was the city being run a decade or so later?This study is however much more than an inside view of the affairs of a single authority. The last part of the book is devoted to a discussion of aspects of some traditional and modern theories of democracy and specifically to what author sees as the inadequate advocacy of participatory democracy in recent years. Green makes a major contribution to our thinking about the kind of democracy that is possible in modern large-scale societies, explores weaknesses of moder theories and puts forward some original modifications to modern democratic theory, in the light of a theory of knowledge which is seen as more appropriate for modern natural and social scientific activity.This book was first published in 1981.