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Intended for students in environmental chemistry and engineering, this book provides a careful and rigorous review of physical organic chemistry as needed to gain insight into the transformations and fate of synthetic organic substances introduced into the aquatic environment. The discussion is strongly focused on reactions in aqueous solutions. Adsorption on solids is discussed, but not atmospheric chemistry except at the interface with condensed phases. Photochemistry is confined to aquatic settings. The very important realm of biotic mediation of reactions is given a chapter. Readers will need at least two years of college-level chemistry to profit from the introductory material provided; very curious or responsible general readers may profit from some of the applications. Theoretical discussions are illustrated by studies on real lakes, but the latter are almost entirely confined to Swiss examples: Greifensee, a small eutrophic body located a few kilometers from the authors' home institution, receives eight index entries; Lake Superior but two, and Lake Baikal, the largest and most threatened freshwater body in the world, none. The authors would be the first to agree that individual lakes have unique attributes. Recommended, in spite of these limitations, for serious students of environmental chemistry. Advanced undergraduate through professional. T. R. Blackburn; American Chemical Society