Ann. occup. Hyg., Vol. 47, No. 4, pp. 339, 2003
© 2003 British Occupational Hygiene Society
Published by Oxford University Press
Review |
Introduction to Environmental Forensics
Department of Environmental Science, University of Bradford, UK
Introduction to Environmental Forensics. B. L. Murphy, R. D. Morrison (Eds). 2002, Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-511355-2
This is a substantial work containing comprehensive, authoritative and well-referenced chapters that focus on topics of relevance to the field of environmental forensics. At the time this book was sent to us for review, we were working with oil-contaminated land. The book’s arrival was timely, as this text has an excellent chapter on hydrocarbons in soil. Besides the basics, this chapter provided very useful and interesting models of how oils in soils are degraded and naturally attenuated with time—essentially allowing the investigator to date the original soil contamination given its general chemical signature. This chapter also includes a summary of analytical methods that can be used to assay oils in soils and sediments. A most comprehensive chapter that is far from being simply an introduction to this topic, though it is this as well. Our compliments to the authors of Chapter 6.
The other 11 chapters cover diverse topics, including general applications to environmental forensics, site history, photo-interpretation (including a pair of 3-D glasses for topographical map interpretation), interpreting groundwater data, isotopes and chemical fingerprinting, chlorinated solvents (source identification and age dating), general methods of statistical interpretation as well as wider discussions of the applications of the discipline of environmental forensics.
The book is 560 pages long and extremely well referenced with many useful tables and figures. One obvious criticism of this book is that its authorship is entirely made up of American authors, its relevant quoted legislation is US, though thankfully metric units are often used. The next edition of the work would usefully benefit by extending chapter authorship and content outside the narrow shores of the USA.
In all, this is an interesting book that responsibly addresses challenging topics in the field of environmental forensics. The book is titled as an introductory text. Although each chapter does introduce its own area(s), each then proceeds to address more complex issues. This is a textbook that would prove a useful resource to a range of disciplines, including environmental scientists involved in water and air pollution, contaminated land and geographical information systems; and archaeologists, hydrochemists and geochemists interested in dating sources of pollution. For students studying advanced courses in environmental pollution the £54 price is expensive, but worth it.
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