This open textbook covers the most salient environmental issues, from a biological perspective. The text is designed for an introductory-level college science course. Topics include the fundamentals of ecology, biodiversity, pollution, climate change, food production, and human population growth.

Lecture slides for each chapter are available from https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/119oj6XXHnQMpwu_rCgczDFrZPMbqGN8W

With “Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation”, first and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowledge – including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.

Table of Contents
1 Foreword
2 Preface
3 Introduction to Sustainability: Humanity and the Environment
4 The Evolution of Environmental Policy in the United States
5 Climate and Global Change
6 Biosphere
7 Physical Resources: Water, Pollution, and Minerals
8 Environmental and Resource Economics
9 Modern Environmental Management
10 Sustainable Energy Systems
11 Problem-Solving, Metrics, and Tools for Sustainability
12 Sustainability: Ethics, Culture, and History
13 Sustainable Infrastructure