Aquatic Chemistry

Rating:
Summary: The book all aquatic chemists should keep on reading
Review: Stumm and Morgan remains the best aquatic chemical book ever written.

It is fundamental in its approach to the processes that control the composition of natural waters, it is a pleasure to read and should be a must for any student and/or professional in the field.

After more than 20 years working in the field I still find it useful and up to date in many respects.

A pitty that there is no Spanish version of it, thousands of Spanish speaking chemists and geochemists are missing a classic.

Rating:
Summary: Reference Yes, Teaching Text, No
Review: This book is an excellent reference text for people who already know something about aquatic chemistry. It contains more material and covers more topics than any other book in the field. As a teaching text, however, it is severely lacking.

The first problem is the often convoluted writing, which lapses at times into incomprehensibility; read this book for 5 minutes and you will find at least one confusing sentence or circular explanation. The second problem is the lack of clarity about how to actually solve equlibrium problems: there are lots of examples of tableaus used to solve problems, but the explanation of how the tableau is constructed is not good, and neither is the description of how to obtain the proton condition or what it is (and it is crucial to understand this). Finally, many so-called "examples" do very little to help clarify things. Readers who find the tableau method confusing as introduced by Stumm and Morgan will find themselves consulting the aquatic chemistry text by Morel (or the later edition by Hering and Morel) to learn how to actually use the method. When they do, they will probably find that text highly preferable: clearly written, with all the examples worked out from start to finish.

These problems really make learning from this text a monumental struggle for students not already versed in the subject. However, as previously noted, as a reference for professionals, it is unequaled.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent reference book for chem. & physics of nat. systems
Review: This book is an excellent reference. It presents a thorough discussion of a complex topic. The authors provide many worked examples, with all required numeric inputs and resutls, that permit the reader to quickly verify his or her understanding of the material. The consistent and proper use of units throughout the book is refreshing.