ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides many illustrative examples of actual research projects undertaken recently by environmental researchers on a number of environmental issues. Understanding environmental problems requires knowledge that has been produced by a number of academic disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. The book refers to any research that combines multiple disciplines as "interdisciplinary". It turns out that interdisciplinary research is extremely important in the social science approach to environmental studies. The book focuses on research methods used by social scientists, as opposed to the methods of natural scientists such as Fourier, Arrhenius, and others who studied climate change. It discusses quantitative approach and the qualitative approach. The book explains how one can bring the two approaches together in the mixed methods approach.
