The number of ways in which man and environment entwined are numerous. The history of man and the development of civilization itself, in many aspects, has been fashioned and shaped by the physical environment: the presence (or absence) of mountains, deserts, rivers, and oceans determine who settled where and how easily. The flow of Europeans westward on the American continents was determined by which mountains were easiest to cross, which soils were most fertile, or where water was to be found. Power struggles and wars were fought and, of course, will continue to be fought over natural resources like gold, oil, and water.

But man from the beginning tried to tame the environment, to control, rather than to be controlled by our physical environment. We dug and later drilled wells so we could survive in the desert. We ploughed the land, so we could use it for sedentary agriculture. We began to build dams and straighten rivers to control flooding and provide a more secure source of water. We cover the land with asphalts and concrete. We erected earthquake-proof buildings and stabilized slopes. Even the laying of the roofs changed as per the climatic equability.

And with control come challenges. As the population grows, and technology advances, natural resources are threatened. Water supplies become scarce and water quality is degraded. Home sites are frequently located in areas that are incompatible with the environment, resulting in greater efforts to control the land by engineering it. The ever-increasing use of fossil fuels result in fears of climate change. New roads must be built and new airports to accommodate increased travel. Heavy metals from abandoned computers poison landfills.

It's a complicated world with intricate problems. But the underlying root of the problems is actually pretty simple. It is overpopulationan environmental issue that isn't talked about nearly as much as it should have been. It took all of human history up to about 1860 AD for the world population to reach one billion. The second billion came in about 50 years. Then it took 30 years for the third billion. The sixth billion of population arrived in only ten years, and the seventh will come even faster.

When animal population increases beyond the carrying capacity of their environment, natural controls take over, primarily in the form of disease and starvation. Natural population controls, such as disease, flooding, famine, earthquakes and wars, worked for a time with people too, but tended to be harsh and frightening, and we devote tremendous energy to conquer them. But we are not yet successful at replacing traditional population controls with gentler techniques like birth-control.

What will happen when the human population irrevocably exceeds the carrying capacity of planet earth? That's the terrifying question that environmentalists ask themselves. And so far, the answer is .silence.

Here are some suggestions to begin that work:

Teach our children to cultivate an ethical perspective towards the environment: This means avoiding both extremes: purely secular environmentalism or over spiritualizing that undercuts good stewardship

Become informed on environmental issues: A number of books and other publications by scientists are now available. Take care of our property, e.g., unused landscapes. These pieces of the environment should be demonstration plots for our concern for God's world.

Recycle: Here is where good ecology and good economics meet.

Keeping in view the aforementioned attributes, the present issue of the journal has come up with new interpretations of environmental change together with new approaches to environmental management, leading to more integrated research agendas which encourage interdisciplinary, interrelationships between social and natural processes and connections between different scales of enquiry. It brings together perspectives from a wide range of disciplines and methodologies in both the social and natural sciences in an effort to develop integrative knowledge about the processes responsible for environmental change. This issue contains six articles.

The first article "Contaminant Source Identification Using Dating and ANN Techniques", explains the usage of conventional dating technique vs. advanced artificial neural networking techniques in identifying a contaminant source. The later technique is found to be superior in eliciting both source strength and its explicit location in a finite difference grid system.

The second article "Heavy Metal Concentrations in the Soils and Shrubs Near a Metal Processing Plant in Peninsular Malaysia", evaluates the concentrations of selected heavy metals (zinc, chromium and copper) in the soils and leaves of a shrub species, Melastoma malabathricum, around a metal processing plant of peninsular Malaysia.

The third article "Mercury Exposure in Coastal Communities of Kedah and Kelantan, Malaysia", examines the mercury concentration in the hairs of two rural communities of coastal Malaysia. The study reveals age factor and fish consumption appeared to have significant effect on hair mercury levels.

The fourth article "Studies on Surface Water Quality Evaluation and Soil Nutrient Status of Bellary Nala Catchment, Belgaum", investigates the extent of soil and water contamination in the locality caused by the prevailing adverse factors.

The fifth article "Study of Hydrological Characteristics and Level of Metals Present in Four Sites of Sewage Released into Holy River Saryu of Ayodhya-Faizabad", presents a laboratory study carried out to understand the hydrological characteristics and the level of metals in city sewage water which is released into holy Saryu River through four major discharging sites.

The sixth article "Rainwater Chemical Characteristics for Climate Change Studies", examines the rainwater chemical composition at different sites in the Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh. The study reveals that the chemical nature of rainwater is alkaline which may be due to excessive anthropogenic activities.

- G S Brahma
Consulting Editor