Annual Review of Environment and Resources - Current Issue
Volume 49, 2024
- I. Integrative Themes and Emerging Concerns
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The Crisis in Oases: Research on Ecological Security and Sustainable Development in Arid Regions
Yaning Chen, Gonghuan Fang, Zhi Li, Xueqi Zhang, Lei Gao, Ahmed Elbeltagi, Hassan El Shaer, Weili Duan, Omnia Mohamed Abdou Wassif, Yupeng Li, Pingping Luo, Aida Selmi, Ruide Yu, Jinhua Yang, Yanan Hu, Chuanxiu Liu, Yunxia Long, Ireneusz Malik, Aihong Fu, Małgorzata Wistuba, Yuhai Yang, Chenggang Zhu, and Yuting GaoVol. 49 (2024), pp. 1–20More LessArid areas cover approximately 41% of Earth's land surface and support more than 38% of the global population. As an important part of drylands, oases are the main carriers of human production, socioeconomic activity, and the ecological environment. Oases typically sustain nearly all of an arid region's human population and produce nearly 95% of its gross domestic product. The ongoing intensification of global warming and human activities has resulted in water stress and water-related environmental problems in arid areas, along with land degradation and desertification. The risk of water shortage and natural disasters in these regions has also increased. The solution to mitigate these environmental issues and achieve ecological security and sustainable socioeconomic development is to accelerate the modernization of oasis ecological agriculture. This can be accomplished by coordinating the contradictions between agricultural, industrial, and domestic water use and ecological water use in arid areas, thereby improving the level of management in oases and strengthening their ability to cope with climate change.
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Uncovering the Multibiome Environmental and Earth System Legacies of Past Human Societies
Patrick Roberts, Victor L. Caetano-Andrade, Michael Fisher, Rebecca Hamilton, Rachel Rudd, Freg Stokes, Noel Amano, Mariya Antonosyan, Andrew Dugmore, David Max Findley, Verónica Zuccarelli Freire, Laura Pereira Furquim, Michael-Shawn Fletcher, George Hambrecht, Phoebe Heddell-Stevens, Victor Iminjili, Deepak Kumar Jha, Gopesh Jha, Rahab N. Kinyanjui, Shira Y. Maezumi, Kathleen D. Morrison, Jürgen Renn, Janelle Stevenson, Ricarda Winkelmann, Michael Ziegler, Vernon L. Scarborough, Sam White, Dagomar Degroot, Adam S. Green, and Christian IsendahlVol. 49 (2024), pp. 21–50More LessIt has been argued that we have now entered the Anthropocene, a proposed epoch in which humans are having a dominant impact on the Earth system. While some geologists have sought to formalize the Anthropocene as beginning in the mid-twentieth century, its social, geophysical, and environmental roots undoubtedly lie deeper in the past. In this review, we highlight the ways in which human activities across the major biomes of our planet significantly altered parts of the Earth system prior to the Industrial Age. We demonstrate ways in which novel, multidisciplinary approaches can provide detailed insights into long-term human–environment–Earth system interactions. We argue that there is clear evidence for lasting Earth system legacies of pre-Industrial human societies and that archaeology, paleoecology, and historical ecology can provide important, practical insights to help navigate current and future relationships with the planet in more equitable and sustainable ways.
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Science Fiction in the Anthropocene
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 51–71More LessThis article catalogs major recent trends in ecological science fiction (sf), focused primarily on sf published after the completion of N.K. Jemisin's paradigm-setting Broken Earth trilogy in 2017. Major subdivisions in the genre include dystopian and antiutopian narratives about climate collapse, technocratic solutionism, reckoning with climate change as a colonial project, intergenerational conflict, and posthuman formulation. Noting that sf both as literary genre and as fan community encompasses a wide range of political perspectives ranging from reactionary hypercapitalism to utopian socialism, the article does not seek to advance any particular political position but rather seeks to name the major currents of political and ethical debate within sf in this moment of ecological crisis. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the way the sf genre, in reframing the present as the history of multiple possible futures, calls on us to act to shape that future toward human thriving.
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- II. Earth's Life Support Systems
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Status of the World's Soils
Pete Smith, Rosa M. Poch, David A. Lobb, Ranjan Bhattacharyya, Ghiath Alloush, Gaius D. Eudoxie, Lúcia H.C. Anjos, Michael Castellano, Georges M. Ndzana, Claire Chenu, Ravi Naidu, Jeyanny Vijayanathan, Adele M. Muscolo, Guillermo A. Studdert, Natalia Rodriguez Eugenio, M. Costanza Calzolari, Nyambilila Amuri, and Paul HallettVol. 49 (2024), pp. 73–104More LessHealthy soils contribute to a wide range of ecosystem services and virtually all of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, but most of the world's soil resources are in only fair, poor, or very poor condition, and conditions are getting worse in more cases than they are improving. A total of 33% of all soils are moderately to highly degraded as a result of erosion, loss of organic matter, poor nutrient balance, salinization and alkalinization, contamination, acidification, loss of biodiversity, sealing, compaction, and poor water status. Best management practices are available to limit or mitigate threats to soil health, and many of them mitigate multiple soil threats. In many regions of the world, policies or initiatives to protect or enhance the status of soils are in place, and they need to be strengthened and enforced. The Food and Agriculture Organisation will publish its second comprehensive assessment of the status of the world's soils in 2025, and this review provides an interim update on world soil status and offers an accessible overview of the topic.
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Coastal Wetlands in the Anthropocene
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 105–135More LessWe review the functioning and sustainability of coastal marshes and mangroves. Urbanized humans have a 7,000-year-old enduring relationship to coastal wetlands. Wetlands include marshes, salt flats, and saline and freshwater forests. Coastal wetlands occur in all climate zones but are most abundant in deltas. Mangroves are tropical, whereas marshes occur from tropical to boreal areas. Quantification of coastal wetland areas has advanced in recent years but is still insufficiently accurate. Climate change and sea-level rise are predicted to lead to significant wetland losses and other impacts on coastal wetlands and the humans associated with them. Landward migration and coastal retreat are not expected to significantly reduce coastal wetland losses. Nitrogen watershed inputs are unlikely to alter coastal marsh stability because watershed loadings are mostly significantly lower than those in fertilization studies that show decreased belowground biomass and increased decomposition of soil organic matter. Blue carbon is not expected to significantly reduce climate impacts. The high values of ecosystem goods and services of wetlands are expected to be reduced by area losses. Humans have had strong impacts on coastal wetlands in the Holocene, and these impacts are expected to increase in the Anthropocene.
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State of the World's Rivers
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 137–162More LessIn this review, we thoroughly analyze the state of global rivers, focusing on their physical and ecological characteristics as well as management strategies. The review results have helped us generate four recommendations. Firstly, rivers should be managed under a legally binding global accord at the basin level. Secondly, challenges related to river pollution and inappropriate project implementation can be mitigated by adopting newly defined strategic environmental assessments and the United Nations System of Environmental Economic Accounting. Thirdly, we need data from the latest scientific sources, such as geospatial sources, to better understand rivers at different scales as composite systems. The last recommendation calls for taking into account climate change concerns in river management approaches. We also outline a proposition for developing a river monitoring and assessment program in order to perform comprehensive and planet-wide river assessment. The article elaborates on the strategies for achieving these recommendations.
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- III. Human Use of the Environment and Resources
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Decarbonizing the US Energy System
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 163–189More LessRecent rapid and unexpected cost reductions in decarbonization technologies have accelerated the cost-effective decarbonization of the US economy, with greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions falling by 20% from 2005 to 2020. The literature on US economy-wide decarbonization focuses on maximizing long-term GHG emissions reduction strategies that rely mostly on renewable energy expansion, electrification, and efficiency improvements to achieve net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. While these studies provide a valuable foundation, further research is needed to properly support decarbonization policy development and implementation. In this review, we identify key decarbonization analysis gaps and opportunities, including issues related to cross-sectoral linkages, spatial and temporal granularity, consumer behavior, emerging technologies, equity and environmental justice, and political economy. We conclude by discussing the implications of these analysis gaps for US decarbonization pathways and how they relate to challenges facing major global emitters.
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Shared Mobility's Role in Sustainable Mobility: Past, Present, and Future
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 191–222More LessThis article reviews shared mobility, a prominent urban transportation concept with considerable potential to contribute to more sustainable urban mobility. Shared passenger mobility spans diverse services, often leveraging technological advances and disruptions such as smartphones and data analytics to optimize transport resources. Given the broad range of services, a shared mobility taxonomy is proposed, accommodating evolving services. Key challenges for delivering efficient and effective shared mobility services with lower environmental impacts are also identified. Finally, the International Transport Forum transport demand models are used to analyze policy implications and potential effects quantitatively. This article presents a possible scenario for the global evolution of these services to 2050. Results emphasize shared mobility's role in transport decarbonization in the present and future and show that shared mobility may reduce resource use and mobility externalities (e.g., CO2, local pollutants, congestion, urban space use) but that the uptake will differ between Global South and Global North cities.
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Artistic Practices in the Anthropocene
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 223–247More LessThis article reviews Western perspectives—in a fruitful dialogue with non-Western perspectives—on the climate emergency and artistic experiences amid the ongoing debate about futures currently at stake in the climate crisis or climate emergency. Moving beyond the various ways of naming this crisis, we focus on how art can communicate, envision, and activate ways of inhabiting this problem, opening communities to an other-than-human coexistence and reconfiguring matters as we understand them in a geological, natural, or material sense. The analyses indicate that, instead of aiming at a singular solution, multiple exercises and imaginative and speculative avenues of narratives can tell different stories and envision alternative futures. If the climate crisis ignited in the Anthropocene is a shared crisis—both political and aesthetic—then art, inseparable from life and hence nature, holds a crucial role in nurturing care and the potency of imagining other possible worlds.
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Industry Transformations for High Service Provisioning with Lower Energy and Material Demand: A Review of Models and Scenarios
Dominik Wiedenhofer, Jan Streeck, Frauke Wiese, Elena Verdolini, Alessio Mastrucci, Yiyi Ju, Benigna Boza-Kiss, Jihoon Min, Jonathan Norman, Hanspeter Wieland, Nuno Bento, María Fernanda Godoy León, Leticia Magalar, Andreas Mayer, Simone Gingrich, Ayami Hayashi, Joni Jupesta, Gamze Ünlü, Leila Niamir, Tao Cao, Marianne Zanon-Zotin, Barbara Plank, Johan Vélez-Henao, Eric Masanet, Volker Krey, Keigo Akimoto, Arnulf Grubler, Bas van Ruijven, and Stefan PauliukVol. 49 (2024), pp. 249–279More LessDeveloping transformative pathways for industry's compliance with international climate targets requires model-based insights into how supply- and demand-side measures affect industry, material cycles, global supply chains, socioeconomic activities, and service provisioning that support societal well-being. We review the recent literature modeling the industrial system in low energy and material demand futures, which mitigates environmental impacts without relying on risky future negative emissions and technological fixes. We identify 77 innovative studies drawing on nine distinct industry modeling traditions. We critically assess system definitions and scopes, biophysical and thermodynamic consistency, granularity and heterogeneity, and operationalization of demand and service provisioning. We find that combined supply- and demand-side measures could reduce current economy-wide material use by 56%, energy use by 40% to 60%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 70% to net zero. We call for strengthened interdisciplinary collaborations between industry modeling traditions and demand-side research to produce more insightful scenarios, and we discuss challenges and recommendations for this emerging field.
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Nitrogen and Phosphorus Recovery from Anthropogenic Liquid Waste Streams
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 281–307More LessNutrient recovery from waste is a promising strategy to conserve inputs while reducing nutrient discharge to the natural environment. Multiple waste streams have shown promise with respect to nutrient recovery. Multiple technologies also show promise at a pilot or full scale. These technologies, however, must not exacerbate other environmental issues, with excessive energy use, unsustainable material extraction (e.g., mineral extraction, cement use), or toxin release into the environment. Such technologies must also be feasible from economic and social perspectives. Work, therefore, should focus on both improving our current suite of available technologies for nutrient recovery from waste and framing policies that blend affordability with incentives, thereby fostering an environment conducive to innovation and adoption of sustainable approaches. This review considers the issues associated with nutrient recovery from waste, including technical feasibility and economic, environmental, and social factors, and identifies current knowledge gaps and emerging opportunities for nutrient waste recovery.
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Cement and Alternatives in the Anthropocene
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 309–335More LessGlobally, the production of concrete is responsible for 5% to 8% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Cement, a primary ingredient in concrete, forms a glue that holds concrete together when combined with water. Cement embodies approximately 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with concrete production, and decarbonization methods focus primarily on cement production. But mitigation strategies can accrue throughout the concrete life cycle. Decarbonization strategies in cement manufacture, use, and disposal can be rapidly implemented to address the global challenge of equitably meeting societal needs and climate goals. This review describes (a) the development of our reliance on cement and concrete and the consequent environmental impacts, (b) pathways to decarbonization throughout the concrete value chain, and (c) alternative resources that can be leveraged to further reduce emissions while meeting global demands. We close by highlighting a research agenda to mitigate the climate damages from our continued dependence on cement.
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Solar Geoengineering: History, Methods, Governance, Prospects
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 337–366More LessSolar geoengineering, also called sunlight reflection or solar radiation modification (SRM), is a potential climate response that would cool the Earth's surface and reduce many other climate changes by scattering on order 1% of incoming sunlight back to space. SRM can only imperfectly correct for elevated greenhouse gases, but it might complement other climate responses to reduce risks, while also bringing new risks and new challenges to global governance. As climate alarm and calls for effective near-term action mount, SRM is attracting sharply increased attention and controversy, with many calls for expanded research and governance consultations along with ongoing concerns about risks, misuse, or overreliance. We review SRM's history, methods, potential uses and impacts, and governance needs, prioritizing the approach that is most prominent and promising, stratospheric aerosol injection. We identify several policy-relevant characteristics of SRM interventions and identify four narratives that capture current arguments over how SRM might be developed or used in sociopolitical context to either beneficial or destructive effect, with implications for near-term research, assessment, and governance activity.
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- IV. Management and Governance of Resources and Environment
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Communication and Deliberation for Environmental Governance
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 367–393More LessEnvironmental governance occurs through and is shaped by communication. We propose a typology of public communication, classifying it by directionality (one-way or two-way) and objective (informational or operational). We then review how communication types influence individuals’ conceptual frames, values, and environmental behaviors. Though one-way communication is common, its impact is often limited to influencing conceptual frames. Research on two-way informational communication demonstrates a greater ability to align conceptual frames and values among individuals, and research on two-way operational communication demonstrates the greatest impact on conceptual frames, values, and environmental behaviors. Factors that affect the impact of communication include the medium through which it occurs, trust, timing, and social-material context. Among these, our review considers new directions in public communication research that focus on the role of digital platforms, misinformation, and disinformation. We conclude by synthesizing research on deliberative communication, a case of communication among citizens guided by democratic ideals.
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The Many Faces of Environmental Security
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 395–418More LessThis review surveys recent evidence on environmental security, bringing diverse approaches to the subject and evidence relating to different environmental issues into conversation with one another. We focus on the five environmental issues most commonly viewed as having conflict or security effects: climate change, water, forests and deforestation, biodiversity and conservation, and mining and industrial pollution. For each issue, we consider evidence along three dimensions: the impacts of environmental variables on violent conflict, the conflict impacts of policy and development interventions vis-à-vis these environmental issues, and their global policy framing and institutionalization. Through this, we draw particular attention to the poverty and/or inconsistency of the evidence relating to environmental variations, which stands in stark contrast to the extensive evidence on policy and development interventions; noting that policymakers have been much more concerned with the former theme than the latter, we call for this imbalance to be addressed.
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Changing Human Behavior to Conserve Biodiversity
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 419–448More LessConservation of biodiversity is above all else an exercise in human persuasion. Human behavior drives all substantive threats to biodiversity; therefore, influencing it is the only path to mitigating the current extinction crisis. We review the literature across three different axes to highlight current evidence on influencing human behavior for conservation. First, we look at behavioral interventions to mitigate different threats, from pollution and climate change to invasive species and human disturbance. Next, we examine interventions focused on different stakeholders, from voters, investors, and environmental managers to consumers, producers, and extractors. Finally, we review delivery channels, ranging from mass and social media to interventions involving changes to the physical environment or carried out in person. We highlight key gaps, including the lack of scale and robust impact evaluation of most interventions, and the need to prioritize behaviors, overcome the reproducibility crisis, and deal with inequality when designing and implementing behavior change interventions.
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How Gender-Sensitive Are Environmental Institutions, Climate Adaptation, and Mitigation Actions? A Narrative from the Global South
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 449–474More LessThis review explores the relationships between gender and climate change, focusing on Africa, South Asia, and Latin America. It draws attention to the differences in how women, men, and others are impacted by climate change, emphasizing vulnerabilities due to lack of access to resources and decision-making authority. We highlight the role gender-sensitive environmental institutions have in moderating how gender relations are affected by climate change. We assess gender sensitivity in environmental institutions, climate adaptation, and mitigation initiatives through regional comparisons, considering the different roles, responsibilities, and demands of women, men, and other intersectional groups within policies and initiatives to identify opportunities and difficulties in enacting gender-sensitive policies. The analysis shows widespread recognition of the significance of tackling gender-related concerns in the context of climate change and concludes that while progress is evident, there is room for improvement in addressing biases, stereotypes, and specific challenges, especially concerning climate change.
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Multistakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Promises and Pitfalls
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 475–500More LessThis review examines the promises and pitfalls of multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) for sustainable development. We take stock of the literature on the creation, effectiveness, and legitimacy of MSPs and focus on recent research on MSPs committed to achieving the 2030 Agenda and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2030 Agenda conceives of MSPs as vehicles to achieve large-scale sustainability transformations. Yet, research on MSPs under earlier sustainable development initiatives found that they had limited effectiveness and significant legitimacy deficits. We show that recent research on SDG partnerships suggests they reproduce many of the shortcomings of their predecessors and so are unlikely to foster synergies and minimize trade-offs between areas of sustainable development to deliver transformations on a global scale. We also examine recent research on the prospects of governing MSPs to enhance accountability and ensure better institutional designs for achieving transformations, highlighting challenges arising from international political contestation.
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Nexus Framing of Sustainability Issues: Feasibility, Synergies, and Trade-Offs in Terms of Water-Energy-Food
Vol. 49 (2024), pp. 501–518More LessMultisectoral integration has been at the core of sustainability debates and is continuously rearticulated through different concepts. Following the 2007–2008 financial, food, and energy crises, a new concept, the water–energy–food nexus, gained prominence to identify trade-offs and synergies between water, energy, and food systems and guide the development of cross-sectoral policies. The nexus is essentially a systems-based perspective that explicitly recognizes these three systems as both interconnected and interdependent, and thus integrated approaches are required that move beyond sectoral, policy, and disciplinary silos. The nexus is also a political process, one in which the interplay of different types of power, as well as the actors wielding them, is not just a procedurally technical one. This tension between the nexus as a complex system and the nexus as a political process constitutes the core debating idea, in terms of feasibility, methods, and theory, in this article.
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Previous Volumes
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Volume 49 (2024)
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Volume 48 (2023)
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Volume 47 (2022)
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Volume 46 (2021)
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Volume 45 (2020)
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Volume 44 (2019)
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Volume 43 (2018)
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Volume 42 (2017)
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Volume 41 (2016)
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Volume 40 (2015)
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Volume 39 (2014)
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Volume 38 (2013)
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Volume 37 (2012)
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Volume 36 (2011)
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Volume 35 (2010)
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Volume 34 (2009)
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Volume 33 (2008)
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Volume 32 (2007)
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Volume 31 (2006)
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Volume 30 (2005)
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Volume 29 (2004)
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Volume 28 (2003)
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Volume 27 (2002)
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Volume 26 (2001)
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Volume 25 (2000)
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Volume 24 (1999)
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Volume 23 (1998)
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Volume 22 (1997)
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Volume 21 (1996)
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Volume 20 (1995)
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Volume 19 (1994)
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Volume 18 (1993)
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Volume 17 (1992)
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Volume 16 (1991)
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Volume 15 (1990)
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Volume 14 (1989)
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Volume 13 (1988)
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Volume 12 (1987)
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Volume 11 (1986)
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Volume 10 (1985)
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Volume 9 (1984)
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Volume 8 (1983)
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Volume 7 (1982)
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Volume 6 (1981)
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Volume 5 (1980)
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Volume 4 (1979)
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Volume 3 (1978)
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Volume 2 (1977)
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Volume 1 (1976)
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Volume 0 (1932)