Springer Book Archives

1 Introduction.- 1.1 Man and Environment.- 1.2 Technical Chemistry and Ecology.- 2 Basic Chemical and Ecological Principles.- 2.1 Exposure and Effect Criteria of Chemicals.- 2.2 Stability of Ecosystems.- 2.3 Biota Resilience Versus Chemical Persistence.- 2.4 Model Ecosystems and Related Definitions of Environmental Toxicity of Chemicals.- 3 Fluxes of Anthropogenic Chemicals in the Atmosphere.- 3.1 Natural and Anthropogenic Sources of Potential Pollutants.- 3.2 Transport and Dispersion.- 3.3 Physical Transformation Processes.- 3.4 Chemical Transformation Processes.- 3.5 Deposition.- 4 Fluxes of Chemicals in the Soil-Vegetation Complex.- 4.1 Energy and Water Balances as Boundary Conditions of Chemical Fluxes.- 4.2 Impact of Environmental Chemicals on Vegetation.- 4.3 Pollutant Impact on Materials.- 4.4 Interactions of Environmental Chemicals with Soil and Subsoil.- References.

Defining ecology as a system-theory oriented synthesis ofboth earth and life sciences, the book aims at a novel co-herent understanding of chemicalimpact on the lower at-mosphere and characteristic types of terrestrial ecosystems.To this end comprehensive flux-analytical and hierarchicalmodelling approaches were developed and consulted, which in-clude a thorough consideration of the specific physical andgeographic boundary conditions of the processes involved.The first part is devoted to fundamentals of environmentalchemistry and ecology, while the second deals with the com-plex atmospheric pathways of anthropogenic chemicals. In thelast part, the manifold interactions of these compounds ortheir metabolites with the soil-vegetation complex of eco-systems are described. Chapters on pollutant impact on mate-rials and a review of chemical fate modelling are included.Thus scientists and practitioners facing ecological projectsmay expect to obtain a deeper insight into landscape ecologyfrom the impact point of view owing to the concise presenta-tion of complex mechanisms and the generalized modelling ap-proach.