Introduction to Environmental Geology (4th Edition)

As the human population increases, many decisions concerning our use of natural resources will determine our standard of living and the quality of our environment. This reader-friendly book helps readers develop an understanding of how geology interacts with major environmental problems facing society. Included with every text, the Hazard City CD-ROM gives instructors meaningful, easy-to-assign, and easy-to-grade assignments based on the idealized town of Hazard City.

Focuses on five fundamental concepts of environmental geology: Human Population Growth, Sustainability, Earth as a System, Hazardous Earth Processes, and Scientific Knowledge and Values. Features new chapters on Impacts of Extraterrestrial Objects and Waste as a Resource: Waste Management. Presents new or extensively revised discussion of human population growth, Alaska earthquake of 2002, emerging global water shortage, cleaning Boston Harbor, and much more. Revises many figures to more clearly illustrate the topics under discussion, based on user feedback. An informative reference for anyone interested in learning more about the environment.

Alas, the book does not live up to its promises. My greatest disappointment is that the text is rather dry, and the Critical Thinking Questions rarely moved beyond synthesizing material from the chapter. I am also concerned that students explore environmental issues at both the local (for me, northeastern US) and global scales. Apart from a fairly thorough coverage of global warming and an occasional photo of an earthquake or volcano overseas, Keller seems content to focus on the US, especially his own home state, California. His only nod to Earth Systems Science is a few paragraphs crammed into the first chapter, along with mention of Gaia. The CD-ROM was less exciting for students than I had anticipated, and my class found the written part of the CD assignments difficult, and many answers were based upon previous ones, so if they got one wrong, they would get several wrong and do poorly as a result. Finally, I was disappointed by Keller'ss uninspired philosophical assertion in the final chapter, in which he insisted that "sustainable development" is possible and ought to be pursued. In a class discussion, the students all concluded that development and sustainability are mutually exclusive things.

The text is thorough and fairly accessable, but fails to move beyond being "like most other textbooks" despite the numerous ways it appears to do so at first glance.


Review of Environmental Geology, 4th edition   November 3, 2009
This reference is fine for the general reader who wishes to understand the basics of Environmental Geology, however, the information it contains can be found for a much less expensive cost at any online site or library. Much of the information covered is also a general topic of most high school geology courses, though it contains a good amount of information concerning human impact on natural processes. The writing style is concise, though not so dense as to defer all but the most determined reader.


Slow shipping   September 19, 2009
Library Bookworm (Ft. Worth, Texas)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

My daughter and I ordered the book on August the 17th to be used in her college Geology class. The book was received on Sept. 12. The book was in good condition, but never thought it would take almost a month receive. This was not a good purchasing experience on Amazon. I might think twice before ordering from this part of their website again.