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conference papers have been published in Earth SurfaceProcesses and Landforms and other geomorphologicaljournals.

The 14 chapters from 17 authors (six each from USAand UK, two each from Australia and Canada, one fromIndia) result in an interesting melange: a state-of-the-art review which complements and adds detail to therecent multi-authored dryland geomorphology texts (e.g.Abrahams and Parsons, 1994; Thomas, 1997) whilst offer-ing a wider range of perspectives to the purely aeolianbooks produced by smaller teams of authors (e.g. Living-stone and Warren, 1996). Although some of the chaptersare geographically parochial, such as John Ley’s contribu-tion on wind erosion on agricultural land in Australia, thecontent is sufficiently wide-ranging to stimulate interestin the subject as a whole. Therein lies the strength of thebook. It gives a clear view of the state of aeolian researchand the directions that it will (or should) take in comingyears, reinforced through a set of bullet-point conclusionsat the end of every chapter.

The volume opens with a succinct overview of thehistory of desert dune studies from Andrew Goudie. Con-centrating as it does on the contributions from the Saharantheatre it sets the scene for the remainder of the bookand reminds us that Bagnold was not alone in devel-oping the science. Given the scholarship and interest ofthe author in the historical context the chapter is brief,suggesting that strict editorial control has been appliedthroughout the volume. Thereafter contributions vary inflavour and style. Reviews of recent work on aeolianphysics are provided in a rather abrupt chapter by Gillette,and, more comprehensively, on airflow dynamics by Nick-ling and McKenna Neuman. Sand seas of the present andthe rock record are covered by Lancaster and Kocurekrespectively, the latter chapter very useful as a synthe-sis of the novel ideas that Gary has put forward overthe past decade. Coastal dune dynamics and managementare discussed by Bauer and Sherman, and David Thomas,both with an emphasis on the holistic approach necessaryto encompass the complexities of the sea–land interface.Goudie looks (again briefly) at wind erosion forms suchas yardangs and pans, in this case leaving the impres-sion that science has not advanced much in this area overthe last decade. McTainsh, and Pye and Sherwin, summa-rize recent work on dust transport and loess respectively.At the end of the book Vatche Tchakerian reprises his

contribution to Abrahams and Parsons (1994) by review-ing dune palaeoenvironments, and Sighvi and Wintle lookat recent advances in the application of luminescence dat-ing to aeolian sediments.

Despite its wide range the book is not comprehensivein coverage. The coastal dune coverage is, of necessity,brief within the context of the book, and it would per-haps benefit from a review of recent work on cold aeolianenvironments. On the other hand, not approaching aeoliangeomorphology through the morphology and classifica-tion of individual dune shapes, as is often the case inundergraduate texts, allows a better perspective on large-scale aeolian processes and forms. The subliminal ques-tion shifts from why is the dune that shape to what isall that sand doing there in the first place, and that is aninteresting perspective.

There are a few minor niggles. Sarnthein’s (1978) mapof the global distribution of sand seas appears in Tchake-rian’s chapter – two decades of Quaternary research haveput this one well beyond its sell-by date. This chapter alsocontains more typographic errors than the rest of the bookput together, though none of the quality of that on page66, where ‘climatic chaos’ has been substituted for ‘cli-matic change’. This aside, it is a well produced volume,and for a reader with a fair grasp of aeolian geomorphol-ogy it is a clear guide of where the subject is now, andwhere it will go next.

REFERENCES

Abrahams AD, Parsons AJ. 1994. Geomorphology of DesertEnvironments . Chapman & Hall: London.

Livingstone I, Warren A. 1996. Aeolian Geomorphology: anIntroduction . Longman: Harlow.

Sarnthein M. 1978. Neogene sand layers off northwest Africa:composition and source environment. In Initial Reports of theDeep Sea Drilling Project , Lancelot Y, Seibold E (eds). USGovernment Printing Office: Washington, DC; 41: 939–959.

Thomas DSG. 1997. Arid Zone Geomorphology: Process, Formand Change in Drylands (second edn). John Wiley: Chichester.

PAUL SHAW

Centre for Environmental Change,University of Luton

DOI: 10.1002/esp.268

THE ROLE OF EROSION AND SEDIMENT TRANS-PORT IN NUTRIENT AND CONTAMINANT TRANS-FER edited by M. Stone, International Association ofHydrological Sciences Publication 263, IAHS Press, Wall-ingford, 2000. No. of pages: 307. Price: £48.00. ISBN 1901502 26 0.

IAHS ‘red books’ invariably comprise a wide range ofuseful material, and Volume 263 is no exception. Of

course, any pre-conference publication will inevitably in-clude some weaker papers, but on the whole the qualityhere is very good. The symposium at which the paperswere presented was held at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

The 34 papers in this volume are concerned with theprocesses of erosion and sediment transport in relationto chemical transfer at a range of spatial and temporalscales. There are five sections. The four papers on ‘Vari-ability in nutrient, contaminant and sediment transfer’ areconcerned with fluxes and yields of suspended sediment in

Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 26, 1361–1363 (2001)

BOOK REVIEWS 1363

large rivers and their role in chemical transport. Horowitzdescribes the USGS NASQAN programme: running since1966, this is a rich source of information on sediment-bound chemical transfer and results from four basins areincluded. Conrad and Saunderson continue this theme.Higgitt and Lu discuss controls of sediment yield in theUpper Yangtze, emphasizing the importance of within-basin storages and transfers. Tattari and Barlund discusssensitivity analysis in sediment yield modelling. A groupof papers on ‘Terrestrial transfer processes’ link soil ero-sion processes and nutrient and contaminant delivery fromterrestrial to aquatic systems. Themes include tracer stud-ies (caesium-137, phosphorus), buffer zone effectivenessand the spatial pattern of erosional activity. Of partic-ular interest were discussions of sediment trapping bybuffer zones (Kronvang et al.) and soil aggregate transport(Beuselinck et al.).

Nine papers on ‘Suspended sediment characteristics andtransport processes’ provide information about the phys-ical, chemical and transport characteristics of suspendedsediment in a range of river systems. Several paperscontinue the theme of the particle size characteristics ofsuspended sediment and there is discussion of new fieldequipment and sampling strategies, and of methods of lab-oratory analysis. Des Walling’s important influence per-vades this section (as well as elsewhere in the volume).Two papers discuss bed-sediment chemistry, the channelbed being both an important source and a sink for sus-pended sediment. This theme is continued in the section‘Sinks and sources of nutrients and contaminants’. A par-ticular emphasis here is floodplains as sediment sinks. A

wide range of contaminants is described, notably nutrientsand heavy metals. The final section, ‘Modelling nutri-ent and contaminant transfer’, seeks to extend the studyof suspended sediment transport beyond the case studyapproach. Methods include physically based modellingof soil erosion and sediment transport (De Sutter et al.,Krishnappan, Scherer), a GIS-based model of caesium-137 redistribution based on the LISEM model (Van derPerk et al.), and an end-member mixing model of particle-bound contaminant transport (Haag et al.). Some of thesethemes combine in Schmidt and von Werner’s descriptionof the EROSION 3D model.

IAHS ‘red books’ seem usually to be dominated byempirical research and this one is no exception. A richvariety of river basins is described, mainly from Europeand North America. The final section indicates that someattempt is now being made to develop theoretical appro-aches, but the science of sediment transport is still rel-atively young, and remains dominated by discussions ofmethodology and field data. This volume is no less inter-esting for that, but one would hope and expect to seeincreasing emphasis on modelling over the next decade.As data sets lengthen, we might expect more analysis oflong-term changes too, a theme only briefly covered herein relation to the USGS monitoring programme.

TIM BURT

Department of Geography,University of Durham

DOI: 10.1002/esp.270

Copyright 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms 26, 1361–1363 (2001)