Environmental Consequences of War and Aftermath (The Handbook of Environmental Chemistry / Anthropogenic Compounds)

War has disastrous effects on people and the physical, biological, economic, and social environment. The state of the art of research on the environmental consequences of war and its aftermath is presented in this Handbook. A broad range of topics are included, such as the prevention of war and its environmental repercussions and selected environmental and human health effects of chemical warfare agents and the atmospheric transport and deposition of pollutants under warfare with two main case studies: the Balkans and the Gulf war.

This book is of great help in bridging the gap between environmental chemists, who generally have limited experience with Chemical Warfare (CW) issues, with those who work with CW disarmament and nonproliferation issues but tend not to have scientific backgrounds. This book provides the basic background information needed to better grasp the problem of the environmental consequences of war, promotes a greater public awareness of and sensitivity to these issues, and can hopefully contribute to avoiding further wars in future.