Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I used this as the text for a course in Mathematical Models and Applications, and I do not recommend that other teachers use it. I spent an average of somewhere between 5 and 10 hours per presentation (the class met three times per week) and that wasn't enough. The book's background information on groundwater, air quality, and hazardous materials was enough to get me started, but I found I had to spend a lot of time learning environmental information not covered in the book. I also spent an incredible amount of time constructing homework and exam problems. The book really isn't all that bad, and can serve well as an introduction to the subject for a college teacher who wants to learn something about this, but as a primary text it requires way too much preparation time on the part of the teacher, especially at an institution with a heavy teaching load. (I had an 11-hour teaching load.) By the way, the hazardous materials program used by the authors of the text, ARCHIE, is being phased out, and information about it is hard to obtain. (It doesn't even run on some modern computer systems.) Its replacement, CAMEO, currently has serious installation problems. It isn't all that hard to get around them on your own computer, but installation on computers in a lab may be a different story. Dave Trautman, The Citadel, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science
Click Here to see more reviews about: Mathematical Modeling in the Environment (Mathematical Association of America Textbooks)
This book has a dual objective: first to introduce the reader to some of the most important and widespread environmental issues of the day; and second to illustrate the vital role played by mathematical models in investigating these issues. The subjects covered are ground water contamination, air pollution, and hazardous materials emergencies. These issues are presented in their full real-world context and are used to develop important classical mathematical themes. The emphasis throughout is on fundamental principles and concepts, not on achieving technical mastery of state-of-the-art models.
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