Review of Hydrodynamics and Water Quality by Zhen-Gang Ji: Wiley-Interscience, Hoboken, N.J.; 2008; 676 pp.

Hydrodynamics and Water Quality is divided into 10 chapters that cover virtually every aspect of numerical modeling of lakes, rivers, and coastal waters. Subjects include hydrodynamics, sediment transport, toxicants, and statistical analysis. An accompanying CD-ROM contains the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Code (EFDC) and a number of useful utility programs.

The book describes numerous case studies that span various receiving waters and pollutant types. These are exclusively EFDC applications. Probably the greatest value of these descriptions derives from the references, which advise the reader where to go for further information. Statistical summaries of computed results are provided for most case studies. These are useful benchmarks for the reader to compare with results of his or her own studies.

The greatest shortcoming of this text is its attempt to be encyclopedic. Superfluous topics are continuously introduced and dispensed with. Subjects of extreme complexity are given brief descriptions that will be of no use to the reader who is not already familiar with these topics. The use of statistics in model evaluation, correlation and regression, spectral analysis, empirical orthogonal functions, and a case study are all described in a mere 10 pages. The topics of hydrodynamics and sediment transport are given their own chapters, at least, but these subjects merit entire books, college courses, and lifetimes elsewhere.

The EFDC-centered approach to every problem is both a strength and a weakness. The user of EFDC will be delighted to read the descriptions of model processes and to see the potential breadth of the applications. The reader seeking general illumination will be limited to viewing the world through EFDC-colored glasses, however. The chapter on water quality and eutrophication is especially biased toward the EFDC world view. The reader should keep in mind that he or she is studying nutrient cycling as modeled, not as viewed in fundamental biology or geochemistry.

This text will be most useful to the beginning- or intermediate-level employer of EFDC. The book conveniently summarizes the model formulations and capabilities. More advanced practitioners no doubt already have at hand the material contained in this book. Academics will prefer more fundamental, process-oriented texts to this applied reference.

The book includes a CD-ROM on which are inscribed the EFDC source code and applications to an open channel, the St. Lucie Estuary, and Lake Okeechobee. A set of utilities to generate grids and perform harmonic analyses will be useful to anyone who has to perform these tasks.

Hydrodynamics and Water Quality is clearly a labor of love on the part of the author, Zhen-Gang Ji, who shares with the reader his extensive experience in modeling hydrodynamics and water quality. The book is illuminated with personal anecdotes, opinions, and philosophies. Anyone who employs, or plans to employ, EFDC will find this book a valuable supplement to available model documentation.