Background to the Science of Environmental Change

Abstract

This chapter has two main aims. First, it sets the scene for the Handbook by addressing three fundamental questions about environmental change. (1) What exactly is meant by the term ‘environmental change’? (2) Why precisely is knowledge and understanding of environmental change so important to science and to society? And (3) what have been the main milestones and paradigms in the development of the field? The second aim is to outline the organisation of the Handbook, which attempts to provide, in two volumes, comprehensive coverage of the present state of scientific knowledge and understanding of environmental change while emphasising current priorities and trajectories of research. Show more