Environmental Science : A Student's Companion

"Environmental Science students embarking on their courses in this fast changing area will find this primer to be an essential companion, for it provides a wide-ranging, up-to-date summary of all the crucial issues and concepts of which they will need to be aware."
―Andrew Goudie, University of Oxford

This unique addition to reference literature provides an introduction to the major concepts and contemporary issues that are essential for students of environmental science and environmental studies to know.

With over 200 entries authored by world-class names like Anthony Brazel, John Day and Edward Keller, this text is divided into six sections:

• Environmental Science
• Environments
• Paradigms & Concepts
• Processes & Dynamics
• Scales & Techniques
• Environmental Issues

Intended Audience:
Environmental Science: A Student′s Companion will be widely used throughout degrees in Environmental Science, Environmental Studies and Geography.


"Exhaustive but not exhausting, this primer on the environmental sciences and environmental studies is the educated layperson′s essential storehouse of knowledge for understanding the world around us and the sciences that investigate it. This compendium is the essential intellectual tool box for understanding the greatest challenge of the twenty-first century: the relationship between human society and the natural world that supports us. Written in a lively fashion that will appeal to the environmental neophyte as well as to the expert, this work appeals not to the lowest common denominator, but rather to the highest common denominator. No educated person would think of trying to live a productive life without knowing the multiplication table, and no twentieth-century citizen should try to live an environmentally responsible life without the knowledge in this classic work."
―William L. Graf, University of South Carolina

Ken Gregory obtained his BSc, PhD and DSc from the University of London, was made CBE in 2007 for services to geography and higher education, and is currently President of the British Society for Geomorphology. Research interests include river channel change and management, palaeohydrology and the development of physical geography, and he has written more than 140 papers, authored and edited 30 books including The Earth’s Land Surface (2010) and The SAGE Handbook of Geomorphology (2011). He has 3 Honorary degrees, and received the Founder’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1993), the Linton award of the BGRG (1999), and the Geographical medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (2000).

Anthony Brazel is a retired geographer and climatologist who has written over 100 professional articles and reports on climate, focusing primarily at the local and regional scale. He has served as Laboratory of Climatology Director from 1979-1988, Arizona′s governor-appointed State slimatologist from 1979-1999, geography departmental chair from 1991-1997, and manager of the Southwest Center for Environmental Research and Policy through the Center for Environmental Studies from 2001 to 2003. He is former member of the Board of Urban Environments of the American Meteorological Society and current member of the scholarship committee of the International Association on Urban Climate. He is a Fellow of American Association of the Advancement of Science and editor of the Journal of the Arizona-Nevada Academy of Science.