Biosphere and Environmental Safety , 1st ed. 2019 Jubilee Lecture

This book analyses the state of the natural environment and the causes of its degradation using the biosphere approach. Further, those issues that must be resolved immediately on the global level are identified following the ideas defined by V.I. Vernadsky, and new principles of Man-Nature interaction are pursued.   

The modern world currently faces three global trends inducing biosphere degradation and the aggravation of ecological hazards, namely: a) rapid and uncontrolled growth of human population on the Earth and insufficient natural resources to sustain it; (b) technogenesis development; and (c) global climate change and the aggravation of natural disasters. Ecological safety and military security are becoming the crucial conditions for the survival of modern civilization. To mitigate the ecological strain on the Earth, the technogenesis strategy should be changed and many other pressing issues must be resolved. These problems should be addressed using the biosphere approach, because the individual human being is the biosphere constituent, and his or her safety cannot be provided without maintaining the entire natural system on our planet.

Prof. Victor  I. OSIPOV is undoubtedly a leading Russian scientist in environmental geoscience, engineering geology, soil and rock engineering, and geodynamics, who has made a significant progress to solving engineering geological and environmental problems. V.I. Osipov has contributed to the world and Russian science with the considerable achievements in the prediction, study of mechanisms and regularities of the development of geological hazards, natural risks assessment theory, and minimization of natural disasters consequences. The field of his scientific interest also lies in soil and rock engineering, investigation of soil composition and properties, physico-chemical soil mechanics.

Victor Ivanovich Osipov was born in 1937 in Novo-Mikhailovka village, Russia. In 1959, he graduated from the Moscow State University, Geological Faculty, Department of Soil and Rock Engineering and Engineering Geology. From 1964 to 1991, he was engaged in the education of students at the Geological faculty of Moscow State University, first as an assistant and associate professor, and later, since 1977 as a full professor. V.I. Osipov delivered lectures in “Soil and Rock Engineering”, "Field Methods of Engineering Geological Study of Soils and Rocks", and "Fundamentals of Physico-Chemical Soil Mechanics", etc. About 40 PhD dissertations and a lot of MSc diploma projects were performed under his guidance.

In different years, Victor I. Osipov performed field research in the engineering geological study in a number of regions of Russia for the purpose of hydraulic power plants construction and the mineral deposits development. He obtained new results in the e

Develops a new ecological strategy based on the biosphere approach and taking into account the regularities of biosphere development

Includes supplementary material on the influence of technogenesis on global climate change, the development of natural disasters and biosphere degradation

Highlights the contradictions between the market economy and ecology

Provides new facts about the global ecological crisis to be expected in the following decades