An Introduction to Environmental Biophysics

Contents: Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Temperature. 3. Water vapor and other gases. 4. Liquid water in organisms and their environment. 5. Wind. 6. Heat and mass transport. 7. Conductances for heat and mass transfer. 8. Heat flow in the soil. 9. Water flow in soil. 10. Radiation basics. 11. Radiation fluxes in natural environments. 12. Animals and their environment. 13. Humans and their environment. 14. Plants and plant communities. 15. The light environment of plant canopies. Appendix. Index.

"An Introduction to Environmental Biophysics describes the physical microenvironment in which organisms live and the processes of energy and mass exchange between organisms and their environment. The first part of the book describes the components of the physical environment that have strong influences on organisms: temperature, water, and wind. The second part presents equations for computing heat, mass, and radiative transport. The final part applies these biophysical results to animals, plants, and plant communities. Applications include thermoregulation and energy balance calculations for animal and human survival in hot and cold environments, leaf and plant community temperature, evapo-transpiration and gas exchange, radiative transfer in plant communities and remote sensing. The second edition of An Introduction to Environmental Biophysics is completely revised, with added chapters on heat and water flow in soil, transport processes and radiative transport. Applications in remote sensing have also been added. Each chapter has many worked examples in the text and new problems have been added at the end of chapters. An Introduction to Environmental Biophysics will be a useful text in the plant, animal and natural resource sciences, in biometeorology and in ecology. It will also be an excellent reference for scientists in these fields." (jacket)