With contributions by numerous experts

A lake, as a body of water, is in continuous interaction with the rocks and soils in its drainage basin, the atmosphere, and surface and groundwaters. Human industrial and agricultural activities introduce new inputs and processes into lake systems. This volume is a selection of ten contributions dealing with diverse aspects of lake systems, including such subjects as the geological controls of lake basins and their histories, mixing and circulation patterns in lakes, gaseous exchange between the water and atmosphere, and human input to lakes through atmospheric precipitation and surficial runoff. This work was written with a dual goal in mind: to serve as a textbook and to provide professionals with in-depth expositions and discussions of the more important aspects of lake systems.

Reflecting the best current thinking and techniques in the field, here is a multi-disciplinary analysis of the dynamics and mechanisms of aquatic systems, using lakes as a point of departure. The contributors, all of whom are recognized world authorities, treat physical, chemical and biological processes such as transport and distribution of chemicals, aquatic surface chemistry, and geobiological cycles of trace elements, which can be applied to all-natural water systems--oceans, rivers and estuaries. Stresses explanation and dynamics rather than documentation.