The state of our planet continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate. We have arrived at a situation where we need to determine urgent solutions before we reach a point of irreversible damage.

This book contains papers presented at the First International Conference on Management of Natural Resources, Sustainable Development and Ecological Hazards , which was held in Patagonia, Argentina. The Conference name was shortened to ‘The Ravage of the Planet’ to emphasize the urgency of the problems under discussion.

Much has been written in different contexts about attaining sustainability but the concept itself needs to be defined within a framework of many different disciplines in order to arrive at optimal solutions. This book is therefore essentially trans-disciplinary and it is hoped that it will encourage research into appropriate sustainable solutions, i.e. those involving collaboration across a wide range of disciplines.

The following topic areas are discussed: The re-encounter; Political and social issues; Planning and development; Ecology; Design and sustainability; Safety; Water resources; Management of complex systems under extreme conditions; Air; Soil; Energy.