Many applications of environmental physics principles are reviewed, including the roles of surface albedo and atmospheric aerosols in modifying microclimate and climate, remote sensing of vegetation properties, wind forces on trees and crops, dispersion of pathogens and aerosols, controls of evaporation from vegetation and soil including implications of changing weather and climate , and interpretation of micrometeorological measurements of carbon dioxide and other trace gas fluxes.
Presents a unique synthesis of micrometeorology and ecology in its widest sense Deals quantitatively with the impact of weather on living systems but also with the interactions between organisms and the atmosphere that are a central feature of life on earth Offers numerous worked examples and problems with solutions Provides many examples of laboratory and field measurements and their interpretation Includes an up-to-date bibliography and review of recent micrometeorological applications in forestry, ecology, hydrology, and agriculture.
It covers a range of topics from the laboratory to the field, including the analysis of thermodynamic diagrams and dispersion of pollutants, simple micrometeorological experiments on a sports field, as well as a detailed study on the measurement of carbon dioxide exchange between the atmosphere and tropical rainforests.
Straightforward, simple models and short arguments are used wherever possible to promote physical understanding, for example, in the discussion of the greenhouse effect. The aim is to bring the reader to the point where he or she is able to understand and analyze weather charts in daily use around the world; obtain an appreciation of current experimental techniques; and also make informed, quantitative estimates in relation to current issues surrounding the current debate on climate change.
The scope of environmental physics. Basic physics. The radiation environment. Radiation geometry. Radiation balance. Momentum transfer. Heat transfer - i convection; ii conduction. Mass transfer. Partitioning of heat - i dry systems; ii wet systems. The micrometeorology of crops. The emphasis of this text is on physics, i. Extra attention is given to photosynthesis due to its importance in the field of renewable energy. This thoroughly revised and updated third edition focuses on the utilization of sustainable energy and mitigating climate change.
The text explains the physical mechanisms behind climate change and discusses the physics of renewable energy options. Nuclear power is treated in a separate chapter because of its social and political importance.
A distinguishing feature of the text is the discussion of spectroscopy and spectroscopic methods, again from basic concepts, as a crucial means to quantitatively analyze and monitor the condition of the environment, the factors determining climate change and all aspects of energy conversion. This textbook will be invaluable to students in physics and related subjects such as physical chemistry and geophysics.
However, several part of the content needs immediate up-gradation with current status. Environment is dynamic science and issues are being updated on regular basis. Narratives are often complicated on different issues. Such as in energy section figure 5. For freshman level class the content should presented in lucid form and easily understandable.
The inter-related connection of content should be maintained with lesser numbers of subheading. Realigned with piece meal sub units. As mentioned before some images are confusing and do not illustrate relevancy. For example, IPAT equation after sustainability looks misplaced. I am not quite if this text book provides comprehensive information in major aspects of environmental issues. Lot of issues are not covered in this text book as opposed to other books in market place.
This would a disservice to students who use OER sources for not having complete knowledge,. The textbook did not provide any glossary or index. It however, provided a list of key terms at the end of every chapter that were often defined in the chapters themselves. A good introductory environmental textbook should address environmental A good introductory environmental textbook should address environmental science from the biological, social and economic dimensions.
This textbook mostly focuses on the biological and physical dimensions of environmental science and inadequately addresses the social and economic dimensions. Some of the areas that were left out include: history of environmental science, saltwater resources, forestry and land management, waste management and conservation. In general, the materials presented are accurate but a number of graphs, tables and figures, were not properly referenced.
Some of the materials are a little dated so there is room for improvement here. In addition, at least one of the links provided for further reference at the end of Chapter 8, was not working.
What is covered in the book is relevant to an introductory course in environmental science. In the earlier chapters the book focuses on fundamental concepts in physical science and later it addresses the fundamental concepts of air pollution and climate change.
Notwithstanding, by focusing on a fundamental concepts approach, the book should be able to provide useful information to its general readers for a long time. The technical language used in the book is clear and appropriate for an introductory course in environmental science. Notwithstanding, a glossary of key technical terms could assist in making the book more user friendly.
There were significant inconsistencies throughout the textbook. While I understand, that the numbering system of each chapter increases the modularity of the textbook, this system was often confusing since there was no header or footer on individual pages to let you know which chapter you were reading at any particular time. Also, chapters were also structured differently.
There were inconsistencies with the list of objectives and acknowledgements for example, from chapter to chapter. The book is broken down into sections that would easily allow for additions and updates to the information covered. The page numbering is restarted in every chapter. Notwithstanding, it could be helpful if a header or footer is placed on each page indicating the name of the chapter. This will allow the reader to be more aware of his location in the textbook at any one time.
The textbook is sufficiently organized for the various topics it covers. However, a more comprehensive textbook will also cover the major resources of the world after the section on climate change. Also, renewable and non-renewable resources should probably be placed after the climate change section. Navigating through the book is not particularly difficult except that a header or footer making chapters could help with ease of navigation since all chapters restart with a new numbering system.
There was no distortion of images or charts in this book. No grammatical errors were found in the book and the technical language used was appropriate for a book at this level.
Because of the books focus on the biological and physiological aspects of environmental science the diversity of cultural examples is limited. Including the cultural, and economic aspects of environmental science would have allowed for a greater diversity of examples from around the world and the incorporation of different disciplines. My most significant issue with this textbook is its lack of comprehensiveness. Unfortunately, this textbook hardly touches on many of the resource challenges of the world.
Even if I were to use this book, I will also have to use a supplementary textbook that covers some of the key dimensions of environmental science that are not in this book. The book touched on many of the topics in Environmental Science, but some of them were very superficial.
For example, there is little on the topic of environmental health and toxicity, other than a quick discussion of the Precautionary Principle For example, there is little on the topic of environmental health and toxicity, other than a quick discussion of the Precautionary Principle. There is little on the environmental aspects of modern agriculture. This seems to cover some of the environmental science topics, but shallowly and incompletely.
What is in there is accurate from information a decade or more ago. Many of the graphs and figures and data are from more than ten years ago, and in a quickly progressing area of study, this seems like an easy update that has not been made.
For example, there are pictures of glacial melt from the McCall Glacier from to - why not an update within the last 16 years? What is there is good - but probably needs to be updated and improved upon.
It is clear - but boring. Compared with other texts that help the non-major reader engage with the environmental science and help connect the issues to their lives, this book is dry. More case studies and stories that students can relate to to help understand the material would be helpful. It is consistent - but a bit unremarkable.
Why are there new page numbers for each chapter? It is very dry and clinical in the reporting of information, but is not engaging to want the reader to keep exploring these issues. There are a lack of graphs and data and images to help the reader connect with the fairly lengthy, dry reading sections. The topic of Environmental Science easily leads to connections between the reader and the subject, regardless of their chosen interests - but this text does not encourage engagement.
It is organized. It is based heavily on chemistry and the molecular makeup of the environment right from the beginning, which can cause readers to be turned-off to the material before they have a chance to engage with the topics. It was politically-correctly written. More examples and case studies from other regions of the world would help on many levels - global perspective, interest, etc. I love the idea of Open Resource texts - however, this is not up to par with an introductory Environmental Science college level course, unless it is HIGHLY supplemented with outside material.
Keep improving and more will use it! The book has many standard topics in Environmental Science, but is missing or gives cursory attention to agriculture, biodiversity, and conservation. Also, the book includes only cursory discussion of human livelihoods across the word, which are Also, the book includes only cursory discussion of human livelihoods across the word, which are inexorably tied to environmental change.
The book doesn't do justice to the 'big debates' in environmental science and presents many topics superficially. This book could have been written 20 years ago, and does not include the latest science and thinking on these topics. Many figures are a little old - for example figure 7. Updates would be fairly easy. The book is overly modular.
The authors lose opportunities to connect to concepts presented earlier in the text. Environmental science is integrated - you can't just have chapters that are designed to stand entirely alone. The book has very few examples at all, so there is little possibility for offense. I rated this poorly because the should discuss culture and how it intersects with the environment.
The book is too short and superficial for a college level course. Except for a cursory description of the scientific method, the book does not convey what do scientists do, how do they operate. The book misses the opportunity to present environmental issues in a compelling, relevant way to students.
There are few fully developed case studies or real-world applications. From what I can tell, the book's approach is to define a bunch of concepts. As a book that introduces Environment Science to readers that have little prior knowledge in this subject, this book has successfully covered most important areas of Environment Science, including some core concepts and definitions in this As a book that introduces Environment Science to readers that have little prior knowledge in this subject, this book has successfully covered most important areas of Environment Science, including some core concepts and definitions in this subject, population ecology, human demography, non-renewable energy, alternative energy, air pollution, climate change, and water.
The selected topics in this book are able to provide a rough idea of what Environmental Science is mainly about. However, some important areas have not been mentioned or comprehensively discussed.
For example, this book has discussed air and water pollution, but soil pollution has not been mentioned. Also, sustainability is a very critical area of Environmental Science. This book has briefly discussed this topic in the Introduction chapter but did extend relevant discussion.
I suggest that the authors add a chapter focusing on sustainability, including its social, economic and environment aspects. In addition to comprehensiveness, this book is also weak in its overall depth of discussion. Most of the contents are not really thought-provoking, which is good as a pop science reading material whose readers who are simply interested in Environmental Science.
However, this book may need more in-depth contents to meet probably most teachers' expectation as a university-level textbook. What I like about this book is that each chapter has clearly stated out its objectives at its beginning, as well as the questions at the end of each chapter except Chapter viii.
But again, the questions can be a little more challenging for university students. Overall speaking, the chapters in this book have been well written. It is not easy to write introductory texts that are rigorous and technically sound yet accessible to general readers.
The book is accurate overall, but some paragraphs and concepts would benefit from a more rigorous and technical coverage in addition to the general introduction of the concepts provided. Only a few chapters have acknowledged their references, but most chapters did not do so.
For example, appropriate citations are missing throughout Chapter i. However, even in those chapters that have provided a list of references, the references are not linked to the contents in this book. The contents that are presented in this book are closely relevant to the subject of Environmental Science.
Because most of the contents are fundamental sciences, the book should be able to provide useful information to its general readers unless there are significant game-changing breakthroughs in the covered areas.
However, some chapters that should have up-to-date information have not use the most recent references. For example, Chapter v. Alternative Energy should have shown more modern technologies for renewable energy. As a book that is written in , such contents will quickly make the text obsolete within a short period of time.
I believe that any high school students can easily learn something about Environment Science with this book. However, the downside is that this book has not provided in-depth information to allow its readers to fully understand some complex concepts.
The style of writing was not consistent throughout the book. Each chapter has its own page numbers. Structures in different chapters are also different sometimes. For example, some chapters have a list of objectives while some others do not; some chapters have acknowledge the references while some others do not; some chapters use "resources" for the list of references while some others use "bibliographies" for the same.
With these inconsistencies, this book seems like a collection of review articles from different authors. To solve this problem, this book need professional editing to improve its consistency. Overall, the text is easily and readily divided into small reading sections with clear titles. But it seems like the Introduction section is broken down into too many small sections that have ambiguous inherent links.
The overall organization is good but can be improved. The places of some sections can be rearranged. For example, Chapter viii.
Climate Change Chapter vii can be placed after the two chapters about energy, because the use fossil energy is one main reason for climate change.
The interface is pleasant and professional, except that the resolution of some images can be improved. Conclusively, this book can serve as a good introductory reading material for self-teaching readers, but many aspects of this book must be improved before it can be used as an Environmental Science textbook in universities and colleges.
This course uses the basic principles of biology and earth science as a context for understanding environmental policies and resource management practices. Our planet is facing unprecedented environmental challenges, from oil spills to global climate change.
In ENSC , you will learn about the science behind these problems; preparing you to make an informed, invaluable contribution to Earth's future. I hope that each of you is engaged by the material presented and participates fully in the search for, acquisition of, and sharing of information within our class.
Content Accuracy rating: 2 Accuracy here is related to how quickly the information becomes outdated in this particular field. Clarity rating: 3 The writing is fine. Consistency rating: 2 Some of the headings are missing, which affects the searchability index. Modularity rating: 2 In summary, my current textbook covers 25 chapters and this one contains 8. Grammatical Errors rating: 4 I did not notice grammatical errors but see format issues above.
Cultural Relevance rating: 2 I did not notice instances of insensitivity, but the book is notably lacking in some of the most important key concepts that I emphasize in my class, such as environmental refugees, environmental justice, and environmental racism. Comments The exercise of reviewing this book has made me come to understand why environmental science textbooks are difficult to find in the open source format. Content Accuracy rating: 4 Missing some aspects of standard Demographic Transition theory.
Clarity rating: 4 A fairly easy read. Consistency rating: 5 Very little analysis in the book; this made internal consistency relatively easy because definitions do not contradict. Modularity rating: 4 Fine. Interface rating: 3 Nice images; a bit cumbersome to scroll few links. Grammatical Errors rating: 5 Fine. Cultural Relevance rating: 4 Not insensitive, but not particularly inclusive either.
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Downloaded from buylocal. Soil Physics-William A. Early notions in soil physics that this process is represented best by a convection-dispersion
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