America has more than 130,000 lakes of significant size. Ninety percent of all Americans live within fifty miles of a lake, and our 1.8 billion trips to watery places make them our top vacation choice. Yet despite this striking popularity, more than 45 percent of surveyed lakes and 80 percent of urban lakes do not meet water quality standards. For Love of Lakes weaves a delightful tapestry of history, science, emotion, and poetry for all who love lakes or enjoy nature writing. For Love of Lakes is an affectionate account documenting our species’ long relationship with lakes—their glacial origins, Thoreau and his environmental message, and the major perceptual shifts and advances in our understanding of lake ecology. This is a necessary and thoughtful book that addresses the stewardship void while providing improved understanding of our most treasured natural feature.
The geochemical processes that take place in water bodies do not stem entirely from the activity of bacteria, but are also determined by the biological activity of higher plants and animals. The Microflora of Lakes and Its Geochemical Activity, the first English translation of the work of S. I. Kuznetsov, renowned Soviet microbiologist, is a detailed description of these processes.
The Microflora of Lakes opens with a complete outline of the ecology and physical and chemical properties of water bodies and a discussion of the entire complex of hydrobionts, since these factors exert tremendous influence on the microbial population. The work then focuses on the principles of the morphology and physiology of the living cell, background knowledge essential to the understanding of the role of microorganisms in the chemical cycle. Having laid the groundwork for the discussion, Kuznetsov follows with chapters on the distribution of bacteria and transformations of organic matter in lakes. He then examines the role of bacteria in the oxygen regime, and the cycles of organic matter, nitrogen, sulfur, iron, manganese and phosphorus. The last chapter describes the role of microorganisms in sediments of calcium carbonate waters.
The Microflora of Lakes and Its Geochemical Activity provides a wealth of information on the microbial limnology of fresh-water lakes throughout the world, particularly in the Soviet Union. As a summary of the geochemical activities as related to the geographic, geological, and physical relationships of fresh-water lakes, it is a monumental study.
The Microflora of Lakes was translated for the National Science Foundation, Washington, D.C., by the Israel Program for Scientific Translations in Jerusalem.
As one of the world’s great natural treasures, the Great Lakes have also served in recent decades as an early warning system for many emerging environmental problems. In the early twenty-first century, as the Lakes face unprecedented challenges, we need to revisit both the wonder of the Lakes and the perils plaguing them, and to take action to protect this majestic ecosystem.
Dave Dempsey weaves the natural character and phenomena of the Great Lakes and stories of the schemes, calamities, and unusual human residents of the Basin with the history of their environmental exploitation and recovery. Contrasting the incomparable beauty and complexity of the Lakes, and the poetry, folklore, and citizen action they have inspired, with the disasters that short-sighted human folly has inflicted on the ecosystem, Dempsey makes this history both engaging and relevant to today’s debates and decisions.
Underlying the neglectful treatment of the Lakes are two irreconcilable and faulty human assumptions: that the Lakes are a system so big that human beings cannot do great harm to it, and that the Lakes are a resource that can be bent to the will of humankind. Dempsey finds evidence that, despite great changes in the laws governing the Lakes and public attitudes toward them in the last fifty years, government policy and institutions are still dominated by these dangerous attitudes.
A central theme of On the Brink is that citizens, who have displayed an increasing sense of commitment to the Lakes and a growing sense of place, must challenge their leaders to reform Great Lakes institutions. While everything from large-scale water exports to global climate change looms in the future of the Lakes, single-purpose solutions do not suffice—no more than a Band- aid would on a gaping wound. Dempsey shows that it is necessary to create a governing system that reflects the realities of life “on the ground” in communities and that taps into the passion and determination of citizens to protect these treasures.
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