How to Use This Book

Basics of Environmental Science will introduce you to most of the topics included under the general
heading of ‘environmental science’. In this text, these topics are arranged in six chapters: Introduction;
Earth Sciences; Physical Resources; Biosphere; Biological Resources; and Environmental Management.
Within these chapters, each individual topic is described in a short section. There are 62 of these
sections in all, numbered in sequence. All are listed on the contents pages.

You can dip into the book anywhere to read a chapter that interests you. Each is self-contained. It is not
quite possible to avoid some overlap, however. This means you may find in one section a technical
term that is not fully explained. In the section ‘ Energy from the Sun ’ (section 11), for example, you
will come across a mention of the ‘greenhouse effect’, but without a detailed explanation of what that
is. When you encounter a difficulty of this kind, refer to the contents pages. In this example you will
find a section, number 13, devoted to the ‘greenhouse effect’, in which the phenomenon is explained
fully. If there is no section specifically devoted to the term you find troublesome, look in the index.
Almost certainly the term will be explained somewhere, and the index will tell you where to look.
Some of the terms that you may find less familiar are defined in the glossary.

At the end of each chapter you will find a list of sections that contain explanations of terms you have
just encountered.

This procedure may seem cumbersome, but it would be impractical to provide a full explanation of
terms each time they occur.

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