Preface - 1. Introduction,- Section I Earth Systems: Cryosphere and hydrosphere -- 2. Global warming and glacier retreat - an overview -- 3. Asynchronous behaviour of glaciers of Ladakh Himalaya -- 4. Signatures and evidences of surging glaciers in Shyok valley -- 5. Antarctic climate variability durng the past few centuries -- 6. River systems and river science in India,- Section II Earth's climate system and paleoclimate -- 7. Impact of climate change on lichen and moss communities in Ny-Alesund -- 8. High resolution southwest monsoon reconstruction for the past ~ 2800 years -- 9. New record of magnetic properties of late quaternary sediments from the Easatern Arabian Sea -- 10. Anthropogenic climate change: observed facts, projected vulnerabilities and knowledge gaps -- Section III Natural Disasters -- 11. Landslide hazard analysis and management - case study from Nainital, India -- 12. Natural hazards of the Arabian peninsula: their causes and possible remediation -- 13. Influence of Young's modulus and Poisson's ration on the displacement around a circular tunnel -- Section IV Natural Resource Management -- 14. Gas hydrates - viable future and major energy resource of India -- 15. Impact cratering from an Indian perspective -- 16. Optical characterization of backscattering of total suspended matter and its correlation with phytoplankton concentration in the Arabian Sea.

One of the fundamental goals of earth system science research is to adopt a more holistic view of the earth as a ‘system’ comprising different domains. The Society of Earth Scientists has brought out this multidisciplinary publication to emphasize the need of an integrated approach to understand the Earth system. It focuses on natural disasters and, in particular, on climate change and its effects in Asia and understanding the significance of these developments within the context of the paleo-climatic record. The later sections of the book then focus on other types of natural disasters as well as those induced by human interaction with our environment.