Book review: Climate change and global warming in inland waters

Climate change and global warming in inland waters

Wiley-Blackwell / Hardback £75 / ISBN 978-1-119-96866-5

This book is not for the casual reader; it tackles its subject in great technical depth. Twenty of the 26 chapters address impacts on physical, chemical and biological processes, such as deoxygenation and the invasion of alien species.

The difficulty of dissociating eutrophication impacts from those driven by a warming world is flagged throughout, along with the synergies between the two – though not all chapters are as diligent about teasing out the synergistic impacts.

Nevertheless, the evidence base for the range, depth and global extent of impacts is compelling. Social impacts, potential management responses and approaches to mitigation are all touched on lightly.

Potential solutions examined range from the technocentric (hydrolysis to improve oxygen concentrations, for example) to the ecological (reforestation, wood storage in deep water).

For its wealth of detail, the book deserves a far more comprehensive conclusion: the six pages (including references) of the final chapter draw out some threads, but do not critically or adequately inform response options. However, the pressing need to proactively control carbon emissions runs throughout.

Review by Dr Mark Everard, visiting research fellow at University of the West of England