Fluid mechanics of environmental interfaces

Fluid Mechanics of Environmental Interfaces presents a comprehensive overview of fluid mechanical processes at the several environmental interfaces existing in Nature. An environmental interface can be defined as a surface between two either abiotic or biotic systems that are in relative motion and exchange mass, heat and momentum through biophysical and/or chemical processes. Hence, the matter collected in the book can be considered as a part of the broader realm of Environmental Fluid Mechanics (EFM), which is the scientific study of naturally occurring fluid flows of air and water on our planet Earth, especially of those flows that affect the environmental quality of air and water. The book is organized in three parts with an introductive chapter where scope, scales, processes and systems of EFM are described and discussed together with an overview of EFM processes at environmental interfaces and of challenges to be expected in the future. Part one describes transport of desert dust, dispersion of passive substances within the atmosphere and exchange processes occurring at the interfaces between atmosphere and sea and between atmosphere and land surface. In the Part two processes at the environmental interfaces within freshwater, such as gas-transfer at free-surfaces of rivers and advective diffusion of air bubbles in turbulent water flows are extensively considered. Finally, Part three deals with EFM processes at the interface of biotic system, such as transport processes in the soil-vegetation-lower atmosphere system, turbulence and wind above and within the forest canopy, boundary layers phenomena in vegetated open channels and transport processes to and from benthic plants and animals. The book is aimed at graduate students, doctoral students as well as researchers in civil and environmental engineering, environmental sciences, atmospheric sciences, meteorology, limnology, oceanography, physics, geophysics and applied mathematics.