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The contaminants in the nordic ecosystem: The dynamics, processes and fate
.,,r.
Environmental Pollution, Vol. 95, No. 3, p. 389, 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 0269-7491/97 $17.00+0.00
ELSEVIER
BOOK REVIEW ecosystems have special conditions as regards turnover, degradation and ecological effects, no ecological or ecosystem perspective is presented--thus it is very hard to understand from the book why northern ecosystems are that special. There is no general hypothesis or model that could serve as a platform for a comprehensive description of pollution effects in these northern systems. The book confirms the basic conceptual problems associated with ecotoxicology and environmental science in particular-there are a lot of data, but very few efforts at integration and prediction. For example, the emphasis of the Canadian study is the long range transport of atmospheric pollutants, whereas the European studies are based on local communities near the pollution source. It lacks any comparison between the Palaearctic and the Nearctic regions. With some editorial effort this comparison could have been done, if the European contributions where organized in a similar way as the Hudson Bay study. I would be reluctant to recommend this book to a general reader or to graduate students in environmental science. The merit of the book is that some of the chapters are interesting in their own right and could be interesting to specialists in the field. The book raises many questions and gives very few answers.
The Contaminants in the Nordic Ecosystem: The Dynamics, Processes and Fate. Edited by M. Munawar and M. Luotola. Ecovision Series, SPB Academic Publishing bv, Amsterdam, 1995. Environmental concern has a strong tradition in the Nordic countries. The efforts to understand processes, to alarm and legislate about environmental pollutants are deeply entrenched in the research community, among nongovernmental organizations and in the political process. This has led to consciousness about old sins and the risk associated with new products and industrial enterprises. The book contains eighteen chapters from a symposium held in 1993. Its contents reflect the span from political processes and legislation to current research in areas such as toxicology and ecology that is being undertaken in the boreal and arctic regions. The book has contributions from the Nordic countries, Russia and Canada, but the majority of the contributions are from Finland (three chapters are contributions from Russia, three from Sweden, one from Norway and one from Canada). The contributions cover diverse types of ecosystems, pollutants and organisms, but the chapters vary considerably in length and quality, the shortest being only 4 pages and the longest 93 pages. The papers focus on marine and aquatic systems, although there are some dealing with forest ecosystems. Even though the main message of the book is that northern
R. Thomas Palo
389
Environmental Pollution, Vol. 95, No. 3, p. 389, 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 0269-7491/97 $17.00+0.00
ELSEVIER
BOOK REVIEW ecosystems have special conditions as regards turnover, degradation and ecological effects, no ecological or ecosystem perspective is presented--thus it is very hard to understand from the book why northern ecosystems are that special. There is no general hypothesis or model that could serve as a platform for a comprehensive description of pollution effects in these northern systems. The book confirms the basic conceptual problems associated with ecotoxicology and environmental science in particular-there are a lot of data, but very few efforts at integration and prediction. For example, the emphasis of the Canadian study is the long range transport of atmospheric pollutants, whereas the European studies are based on local communities near the pollution source. It lacks any comparison between the Palaearctic and the Nearctic regions. With some editorial effort this comparison could have been done, if the European contributions where organized in a similar way as the Hudson Bay study. I would be reluctant to recommend this book to a general reader or to graduate students in environmental science. The merit of the book is that some of the chapters are interesting in their own right and could be interesting to specialists in the field. The book raises many questions and gives very few answers.
The Contaminants in the Nordic Ecosystem: The Dynamics, Processes and Fate. Edited by M. Munawar and M. Luotola. Ecovision Series, SPB Academic Publishing bv, Amsterdam, 1995. Environmental concern has a strong tradition in the Nordic countries. The efforts to understand processes, to alarm and legislate about environmental pollutants are deeply entrenched in the research community, among nongovernmental organizations and in the political process. This has led to consciousness about old sins and the risk associated with new products and industrial enterprises. The book contains eighteen chapters from a symposium held in 1993. Its contents reflect the span from political processes and legislation to current research in areas such as toxicology and ecology that is being undertaken in the boreal and arctic regions. The book has contributions from the Nordic countries, Russia and Canada, but the majority of the contributions are from Finland (three chapters are contributions from Russia, three from Sweden, one from Norway and one from Canada). The contributions cover diverse types of ecosystems, pollutants and organisms, but the chapters vary considerably in length and quality, the shortest being only 4 pages and the longest 93 pages. The papers focus on marine and aquatic systems, although there are some dealing with forest ecosystems. Even though the main message of the book is that northern
R. Thomas Palo
389