Environmental Soil Physics: Fundamentals, Applications, and Environmental Considerations

Front Cover
Elsevier, 1998 M09 9 - 771 pages
Environmental Soil Physics is a completely updated and modified edition of the Daniel Hillels previous, successful books, Introduction to Soil Physics and Fundamentals of Soil Physics. Hillel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, one of the true leaders in the field of environmental sciences. The new version includes a chapter and problems on computational techniques, addresses current environmental concerns and trends.
  • Updates and expands the scope of Hillel's prior works, Fundamentals of Soil Physics (1980)and Applications of Soil Physics (1980)
  • Explores the wide range of interactions among the phases in the soil and the dynamic interconnections of the soil with the subterranean and atmospheric domains
  • Draws attention to historical and contemporary issues concerning the human management of soil and water resources
  • Directs readers toward solution of practical problems in terrestrial ecology, field-scale hydrology, agronomy, and civil engineering
  • Incorporates contributions by leading scientists in the areas of spatial variability, soil remediation, and the inclusion of land-surface processes in global climate models

From inside the book

Contents

THE SOLID PHASE
57
THE LIQUID PHASE
127
THE GASEOUS PHASE
275
COMPOSITE PHENOMENA
307
THE FIELD WATER CYCLE
383
SOILPLANTWATER RELATIONS
545
APPENDICES
653
BIBLIOGRAPHY
707
INDEX
757
Copyright

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Page 59 - All these things being considered, it seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties and in such proportion to space as most conduced to the end for which he formed them...
Page 108 - For to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which would proceed but lamely without them, by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants, by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure...
Page 589 - I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about and express it in numbers you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
Page 169 - From calibration of a neutron probe we know that when a soil's volumetric wetness is 1 5% we get a reading of 24,000 cpm (counts per minute), and at a wetness of 40% we get 44,000 cpm. Find the equation of the straight line defining the calibration curve (in the form of Y = mX + b, where Y is counts per minute, X is volumetric wetness, m is the slope of the line, and b is the intercept on the Y axis).
Page 309 - I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done. 22 As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease.
Page 277 - ... the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing, or next to nothing, If they are not the riddle and the untying of the riddle they are nothing, If they are not just as close as they are distant they are nothing. This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is, This is the common air that bathes the globe.
Page 243 - Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries ? either a vine, figs ? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.

About the author (1998)

Born in California and raised in Israel, Dr. Daniel Hillel acquired an early and lifelong love of the land and a commitment to understanding and protecting the natural environment. Through decades of work in some thirty countries, he has become an international authority on sustainable management of land and water resources. Dr. Hillel has served as professor of soil physics, hydrology and the environmental sciences at leading universities in the U.S. and abroad, and has been a consultant to the World Bank and the United Nations. Among the honors he has received are the Chancellor's Medal for Exemplary Service at the University of Massachusetts, a Guggenheim award, and Doctorates of Science honoris causa by Guelph University of Canada and Ohio State University. Dr. Hillel is an elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, the Soil Science Society of America, and the American Society of Agronomy and was granted the Distinguished Service Award by the latter societies. He has published well over 300 scientific papers and research reports, and authored or edited twenty two books. His definitive textbooks on environmental physics have been use by universities and research institutions throughout the world and have been translated into twelve languages.

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