Book Reviews

The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting, Second Edition (C. H. Scholz) Review by: Jeffrey R. Keaton AMEC Earth & Enviromental Inc., 1290 North Hancock Street, Suite 102, Anaheim, CA 92807

Have you wondered why those short, en echelon, calcite-lled fractures that all geologists have seen have a mild S shape? Why are the en echelon fractures oriented at an angle to the trend of the fracture zone? Which came rst, the fault or the shear zone? Why are map traces of strike-slip faults straighter than dip-slip faults? How are tension cracks and shear cracks related? Why are fault-bend folds more pronounced on thrust faults than on other fault types? The answers to these and other questions can be found in Christopher Scholzs 2003 book, The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting, published by Cambridge University Press. The 2002 second edition was reprinted with corrections in 2003. This upper-division/graduate-level reference book is organized into seven chapters. Chapter 1 addresses brittle fracture of rock, including pore-uid effects on fracture and brittle-plastic transitions caused by pressure and temperature, and extrapolates laboratory results to geological conditions. The three modes of crack propagation from fracture mechanics are described early in the chapter. These modes should be understood by all geologists working on ground-deformation problems, including landslides and subsidence, where the distribution and nature of cracks are fundamental to interpretation of process. Rock friction, the subject of Chapter 2, is a contact property of faults that already exists; it is not a bulk property. This chapter sets the stage for an understanding that seismic or aseismic fault motion is governed by the stability of friction. Fault surfaces have topography and touch only at asperities. Asperity area increases as shearing occurs, but other aspects of interaction contribute to actual friction: ploughing, riding up, and interlocking. Regular stick slip is a dynamic instability with all sliding occurring during the instability. A mechanism proposed for earthquakes is recurring slip instability on preexisting faults that remain stationary between earthquakes. Unstable sliding may be associated with slip weakening or velocity weakening. Velocity dependence on shear strength may be caused by a form of thermally activated anelastic-shear creep at the contact junctions on the fault surface, in which the strain rate depends exponentially on stress, implying that some slip occurs in response to applied stress at any level. Two effects interact to control the velocity dependence of the junction

shear strength: 1) healing under quasi-stationary contact resulting from growth in the real contact area, and 2) direct velocity dependence. Total slip and particle velocity and acceleration are proportional to friction drop. During dynamic slip, rupture velocity approaches the shear-wave velocity of the rock mass through which the fault passes. Mechanics of faulting, addressed in Chapter 3, must be considered on two timescales: short, for earthquakes; and long, for faulting. Faults, after all, grow and develop by the cumulative action of earthquakes and thereby contain the history of past earthquakes. Scholz starts by considering a fault as a quasi-static crack with friction and discusses theories developed by Anderson (brittle fracture and Coulomb criteria) and by Hubbert and Rubey (role of uid pressure in low-angle over-thrusting). Detachment is a term commonly applied to nearhorizontal ductile faults in crystalline basement rocks. Andersons theory does not apply because 1) ductile shear occurs only on planes of maximum shear stress rather than at the Coulomb orientation, and 2) at crystalline-basement depths, the near-surface boundary condition requiring one principal stress direction to be vertical need not apply. Furthermore, fully plastic ow would not be explained by Hubbert and Rubeys theory because strength for plastic deformation would be independent of pressure. Scholz explains that the frictional strength of faults is less than the stress necessary to form them, and once formed, they constitute planes of weakness that may be reactivated in stress elds that are not optimally oriented, leading to ambiguity in inferring stress-eld orientation for orientation of active faults or earthquake focal mechanisms. Scholz demonstrates that faults are not perfectly planar at any scale. He notes that the anisotropy of fault surfaces reects the anisotropy of fault wear, which modies the fault surfaces once they have formed, making them smoother in the slip direction. Irregular features appearing on fault-surface topography appear at all scales. Features forming a fractal set will have appropriate power-law distributions. However, features formed by brittle processes should have distinctive forms governed by the mechanics of brittle fracture. Here, Scholz notes that geologists over the years have introduced a broad collection of terms that vary regionally and by style of

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faulting. He uses descriptive terms from dislocation mechanics (slip plane, jog, and step). A rupture will encounter a jog as a Mode II crack and a step as a Mode III crack. Pull-apart basins form along strike-slip faults in regions of extensional jogs, whereas push-ups form in regions of compressional jogs. Understanding the mechanics of earthquakes (Chapter 4) is a relatively recent development. The connection between faults and earthquakes was theoretical until global measurements became common in the early 1960s as a result of the Worldwide Standardized Seismic Network. Idealized models of dynamic rupture described in this chapter provide an understanding of the physics of the earthquake mechanism, but real earthquakes are complex, and ruptures are not planar, so all relevant dynamic rupture propagation parameters are likely to be heterogeneous at all scales. Scholz provides an excellent, succinct discussion of seismic moment and explains why surface-wave magnitude saturates at about magnitude 7.5 and body-wave magnitudes saturate at lower magnitudes. He shows power-law relations between seismic moment and rupture area that provide a strong argument for the self-similarity (fractal character) of earthquakes. Earthquake slip and moment-scaling relations are dened in three size regimes expressed in terms of rupture length and rupture width. Scholz notes that the commonly used empirical relations between rupture parameters (rupture length, slip, area) and earthquake magnitude do not reect the existence of the three regimes. Detailed discussions are provided for the 1992 Landers, 1989 Loma Prieta, 1994 Northridge, and 1983 Borah Peak earthquakes. Three types of earthquake sequences have been identied: 1) mainshockaftershock, 2) foreshockmainshockaftershock, and 3) swarms. He notes that the Coulomb failure stress in the vicinity of the future 1992 Landers earthquake was progressively increased by about 1 bar by four M . 5 earthquakes from 1975 to 1992. Recurrence of earthquakes in the seismic cycle is discussed in Chapter 5. The observations leading to the elastic-rebound theory are briey presented. A fourfold structure of crustal deformation, pre-seismic, co-seismic, post-seismic, and inter-seismic, is based on geodetic observations at many places because it has not been observed at any one location. Co-seismic deformation has been measured in a large number of earthquakes, but recognition of pre-seismic deformation has remained elusive. Strain accumulation is dominant in the postseismic and inter-seismic phases. Simple earthquake recurrence models are described (perfectly periodic, time-predictable, and slip-predictable). The Parkeld, California, location on the San Andreas fault is discussed. An interesting example of aseismic creep is described in which the creep rate was steady for about 10 years with a pre-seismic creep rate increase for

about 2 years in advance of an earthquake causing a small amount of slip at the measurement location. Creep ceased for about 2 years following the earthquake and resumed at the initial rate, presumably when the strain had reaccumulated to restore stress to the previous level. Geologic examples of earthquake recurrence from California, Utah, and New Zealand are included, along with discussions of the variable slip model, the uniform slip model, and the characteristic earthquake model. Recurrence examples and seismic gaps are discussed with examples from the circum-Pacic zone and the Nevada seismic belt. Earthquake recurrence, explained with mechanical systems and mathematical models, has the property of evolving to a self-organized critical state that is characterized by a power-law size distribution. This mathematical model is the rst one that predicted a fractal distribution without a built-in assumption. Seismotectonics is the subject of Chapter 6. The focal mechanism or fault-plane solution is discussed in qualitative terms. Also covered is the distribution of compressional and dilational rst motions of the P wave for the familiar quatrefoil shape, with the four lobes separated by two planes; one has the orientation of the fault plane, and the other, the auxiliary plane, has the slip vector as its normal. The principal axes of the seismicmoment tensor bisect the dilational and compressional lobes and are also the principal axes of the stress-drop tensor, which correspond to the directions of tension and compression. Scholz is quick to point out that the stressdrop tensor is not the same as the stress tensor because the stress-drop tensor contains only shear stresses. Subduction-zone earthquakes are discussed, along with reservoir-induced seismicity. The nal chapter of Scholzs book (Chapter 7) addresses earthquake prediction and hazard analysis. Earthquake prediction means accurate forecasting of the place, size, and time of an impending earthquake. To be meaningful, a prediction must be specic enough so that, when an earthquake occurs, no doubt exists that it was actually predicted. Long-term predictions are based on recurrence intervals of earthquakes on specic fault segments and a forecast of the approximate time of the next earthquake from the known date of the previous one. Intermediate- and short-term predictions both depend on identication and quantication of secondary processes that indicate a threshold in the loading cycle is being approached or has been reached. A philosophical discussion of the possibility of earthquake prediction is presented, primarily, it seems, to dispel a few naysayers and to moderate expectations for realistic and useful results. Precursory phenomena are described from the perspective of pre-instrumental observations, such as land-level changes and ground fog in Japan, seismicity patterns, crustal deformation, seismic-wave propagation, hydrological and geochemical changes, and electrical and

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magnetic changes are described as intermediate-term precursors. Seismicity and crustal deformation are described as short-term precursors. Possible mechanisms of precursory phenomena are described in some detail. Estimation of earthquake hazards is a straightforward goal of earthquake prediction research. Seismic hazard maps have been produced for many years and such maps assume that future seismicity will be more or less the same as past activity. Usually a complete record of damaging earthquakes is available only for the most recent 100 or 200 years, which is shorter, usually much shorter, than the seismic cycle of potentially damaging faults in a given region. Therefore, hazard maps based on the distribution of past historical seismicity might indicate low hazard where a seismic gap and, therefore, high hazard actually exists. Extrapolation of the rate of small to moderate earthquakes in a region to represent large earthquake rates is useful only in large regions with numerous active faults because the large earthquakes belong to a different fractal set than small earthquakes. Long-term hazard analysis is described with examples from Japan and California. Instantaneous hazard analysis is described as being potentially more valuable than simple long-term hazard expressions in mitigating damage from future earthquakes, and the well-known example of the San Andreas fault is presented. Scholz notes that the current instantaneous hazard model for the San Andreas fault produces the approximate rupture time, the focal mechanism, and moment of each segment-breaking earthquake. Therefore, ground motion produced by each earthquake also could be calculated, and micro-zonation maps of soil and bedrock conditions for site response of the predicted ground motion could be prepared. Directivity effects of rupture propagation directions and heterogeneity can be treated in a statistical manner, which is not discussed further. Scholz makes a bold statement that the instantaneous seismic hazard analysis process provides

a basis for all the activities that can lead to the mitigation of seismic hazard to society. Issues related to surfacefault rupture and shaking-induced landslides and liquefaction processes, however, are not mentioned in the book. Scholz is a professor of earth science and applied mathematics at LamontDoherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University. His background in rock mechanics leads him to study brittle, deformation processes using eld observations and laboratory measurements, in addition to theory. The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting contains 41 pages of references. It has extensive well-written descriptions of examples, but parts of it are necessarily mathematical. The preface to the rst edition (1989) notes that the study of earthquakes is seismology, whereas the study of faulting is geology, and disciplinebased treatments of multidisciplinary topics is a piecemeal approach. A general lack of communication between seismology and geology disciplines fosters misunderstanding and promotes schools of thought. Scholz recognizes that rock mechanics is not part of earth science programs in most cases. He included the chapters on brittle fracture and rock friction to provide geologists a foundation for understanding the subsequent discussions on fault and earthquake mechanics. The second edition (2002) required some important new sections because of well-studied earthquakes that occurred after the rst edition was published (e.g., Loma Prieta, Landers, and Northridge) and because new technologies came about (e.g., space-based geodesy with globalpositioning system receivers and synthetic-aperture radar interferometry). REFERENCE
SCHOLZ, C. H., 2003, The Mechanics of Earthquakes and Faulting, 2nd ed.: Cambridge University Press, New York, 471 p.

Stereographic Projection Techniques for Geologists and Civil Engineers, Second Edition (Richard J. Lisle and Peter R. Leyshon) Review by: Richard E. Jackson INTERA Inc., 137 Second Street, Suite 200, P.O. Box 818, Niwot, CO 80544

It is likely that many readers of this journal learned to use stereographic projection in the geometric description of rocks, their structural elements, and their discontinuities

from Hoek and Brays Rock Slope Engineering (1981) or from a textbook on structural geology. More recent texts on rock mechanics (e.g., Goodmans Introduction to Rock

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Mechanics, 1989; or Brady and Browns Rock Mechanics for Underground Mining, 1993; or Wyllies Foundations on Rock, 1999) contain detailed reviews of this aspect of structural geology in the early pages of their textbooks. Therefore, we can conclude that the use of stereonets is of importance in geological engineering practice and, by inference, to the education and training of engineering geologists, as well as those hydrogeologists whose work involves the analysis of fractures in rocks. Lisle and Leyshons second edition is written for those wanting a readable, inexpensive ($34.99 in paperback), and well-illustrated introduction to the topic. In the authors words: The book is written for undergraduate geology students following courses in structural geology. It will also be useful to students of civil engineering following courses in geotechnics. It is highly recommended to the readers of this journal, either as a reference text for the practicing engineering geologist or as a supplement for courses in engineering geology or the hydrogeology of fractured rocks. The books format is that of pairs of pages addressing over 40 topics that become progressively advanced in their content. The left-hand page is text that outlines the manner by which a particular stereonet is drawn for a particular purpose, e.g., the intersection of two planes or the geometrical analysis of folds. The right-hand page of the pair illustrates the method of geometrical construction. Most of the examples use the Wulff or equal-angle stereonets, which appear standard among structural geologists. But Lisle and Leyshon provide a very readable account of when and why it is necessary to use equal-area nets (i.e., Lambert or Schmidt nets) that are more commonly used in rock mechanics because of their ability to more accurately portray the statistical distribution of joints, etc. The style of writing of Lisle and Leyshon is remarkably good and free of the jargon of structural geology; this is important the longer one has been in practice and absent from university courses. Thus, the authors provide simple and elegant denitions when the

occasion calls for them. For example, on page 58, Lisle and Leyshon consider the issue of estimating the stress distributions in conjugate faults that daylight. This reviewer has long forgotten what a conjugate fault is and reached for the AGIs Dictionary of Geologic Terms, which (p. 107) speaks of faults that are of the same age and depositional episode. The AGIs denition, however, lacks the geomechanical relevance of Lisle and Leyshons denition (p. 58): Conjugate faults are broadly contemporaneous faults which formed under similar stress conditions. Nicely put. A number of particularly useful issues are addressed. One pair of pages illustrates the calculation of the net slip in a fault plane; the next pair estimates the direction of principal stresses for a conjugate fault. Statistical contouring of joints is demonstrated with an example from rocks along the coast of South Wales. The last four topics addressed by Lisle and Leyshon specically consider issues of geotechnical relevance: rock slope stability, plane failure and frictional resistance, daylighting, and wedge failures. These are informative and well written. The Appendices contain copies of stereographic and equal-area equatorial nets, an equal-area polar net, a Kalsbeek counting net, a classication chart to identify the magnitude of fold orientations, and formulae for use in both stereographic and equal-area projections. Also included is a list of web sites providing software for plotting stereonets. Lisle and Leyshon have written a ne and comprehensive introduction to a difcult topic. The visualization of three-dimensional structures and orientations of planes and lines within those structures are well described, and the book is well worth its modest price. REFERENCE
LISLE, R. J. AND P. R. LEYSHON, 2004. Stereographic Projection Techniques for Geologists and Civil Engineers. 2nd ed.; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 120 p.

Ancient Floods, Modern Hazards: Principles and Applications of Paleoood Hydrology (Edited by P. K. House, R. H. Webb, V. R. Baker, and D. R. Levish) Review by: Richard E. Jackson, INTERA Inc., 137 Second Street, Suite 200, PO Box 818, Niwot, CO 80544

Paleoood hydrology, as it developed in the 1970s, identied slackwater ood deposits (SWD) as the primary

indicator of a historically high stage of a river, i.e., a paleostage indicator. Such SWDs are believed to have

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formed in eddies at the mouths of tributaries of rivers that caused sedimentation of sands and silts in topographically elevated locales relative to the present position of such rivers. If undisturbed by even larger oods, there is a reasonable likelihood that pedogenic processes will create a soil horizon within the SWD that can be age-dated using 14C. Thus an approximate age of the paleoood can be estimated as well as the paleostage, i.e., the maximum ood stage. Using one-dimensional hydraulic models of bedrock channels and estimates of bed roughness described by Mannings coefcient, the paleoood hydrologist employs the same tools as used by engineering hydrologists to estimate peak ood discharges, e.g., the step-backwater method. Consequently, geomorphologists and paleoood hydrologists have been able to contribute their insight to ood-frequency analysis, previously the sole domain of engineering hydrologists. Some years have past since Environmental & Engineering Geoscience published a research paper on lowprobability oods and their estimation (Malamud et al., 1996). Paleoood hydrology is, however, a vibrant area of scientic research that has particular signicance to dam safety and oodplain protection of critical structures, such as nuclear reactors, and to engineering geology and uvial geomorphology in general. This monograph, by the principal actors in paleoood hydrology, is rich in detail, denitive in scope, and of moderate cost ($75 hardback). Ancient Floods, Modern Hazards is published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU). It begins with Background papers by Baker and his former students at the University of Arizona on The Scientic and Societal Value of Paleoood Hydrology and by Redmond and colleagues on Climate Variability and Flood Frequency at Decadal to Millennial Time Scales. This is followed by a set of nine chapters on Principles and Methods that consider such topics as the use of geophysical survey data and dendrochronology in reconstructing paleooods and the reliability of historic high-water marks and their operational use for ood hazard assessment. Nine chapters of Applications follow, and the monograph ends with a Perspective article on the Geology and Geography of Floods. It is possible to trace paleoood hydrology back to the late 1930s when the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) published Water Supply Paper 838 by G. R. Manseld on the Ohio River ood deposits of 1937. Ten years later, the USGS released Water Supply Paper 996 by R. H. Jahns on the then-recent ooding in the Connecticut Valley. Jahns was later to join Stanford University and teach engineering geology. But it was not until the 1970s that our present understanding of the importance of paleooods developed through the work of V. R. Baker on the ood deposits in western Texas. Baker then investigated paleoooding in eastern Washingtonwhere J. H. Bretz had identied the Lake Missoula oods in the 1920s, for

which he suffered such scorn from his contemporaries and on Mars for NASA. J. Harlen Bretzs story is legendary (Allen et al., 1986); this handsome volume from the AGU denes the subject in terms of its scientic basis and its operational implementation. The introductory paper by Baker, Webb, and House addresses the criticisms that engineering hydrologists have directed towards paleoood hydrology and, as might be expected, explains them away with facility. Of course, this dismissal is much more easily done in the rst few years of this new century than it was in the 1970s. There can be no doubt, however, that improvements in geochronology and hydraulic modeling and the application of Bayesian statistics have provided paleoood hydrology with the tools to gain it considerable acceptance even in the skeptical engineering hydrology community. This acceptance is implicit in a report by Harris et al. (2002) of the Corps of Engineers Hydrologic Engineering Center, Davis, California, on a workshop organized by the Federal Emergency Management Agency titled Hydrologic Research Needs for Dam Safety. Citing the results of this workshop, these engineers discussed the estimation of the probable maximum ood (PMF) generated by the probable maximum precipitation that is used to place an upper bound on the maximum runoff volume and discharge for a particular watershed. This has become a critical and controversial subject in recent years because many of the dams built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR) are unable to accommodate the PMF; this may also apply to dams built by the Corps of Engineers. Retrotting such dams would be enormously expensive. But Harris and colleagues point out that recent paleoood evidence in the western United States indicates that the largest oods occurring during the past 10,000 years are signicantly smaller than PMF estimates. This evidence was recently reported in Water Resources Research for two watersheds in California and Idaho by OConnell and colleagues (2002) with the USBR in Denver, Colo. Using Bayesian ood-frequency analysis, the USBR hydrologists showed that the paleohydrologic data set rm limits on maximum ood discharges associated with annual exceedance probabilities in the range 102 to 104, i.e., oods with return periods of 1 in 100 to 1 in 10,000 years. In the Californian example, the Bayesian ood-frequency analysis indicated that peak discharges associated with annual exceedance probabilities as low as 104 would not exceed the spillway capacity of a nearby dam. Thus, the economic benets of paleoood hydrology are signicant. The advance in paleoood hydrology that permitted this conclusionthe concept of paleohydrologic boundscan be traced back to the USGS Water Supply Papers of Manseld and Jahns. In the words of Daniel Levish of the USBR, Manseld and Jahns recognized

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that historic oods had overtopped sites not previously inundated in hundreds or thousands of years. This has led to the identication of stable geomorphic surfaces that have not been modied by erosion or sedimentation and thus can be age dated to yield a minimum return period of a ood that could signicantly alter that surface (Levish, Paleohydrologic Bounds: Non-Exceedance Information for Flood Hazard Assessment, in Ancient Floods, Modern Hazards, page 177). Thus, Levish concludes his fascinating article that the most reliable way to obtain probability estimates of extreme oods is to study their geomorphic and stratigraphic record. One particularly important theme that runs through Ancient Floods, Modern Hazards is that of climate and its effects on ooding. This issue is explicitly addressed by Redmond of the Western Regional Climate Center of the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, and his colleagues in Israel and Nevada. They point out that most of paleoood hydrology has been undertaken in arid climates where paleostage indicators are better preserved and cleaner. This point is reiterated by Steven Kite (Associate Editor of Environmental and Engineering Geoscience) in his study of paleostage indicators in the canyons of central Appalachia where post-ood modication can obscure the historic record. Also, climate change gures prominently in the monograph. The U.S. federal guidelines for oodfrequency analysis dating back to 1981 assure us that . . . ood ows are not affected by climatic trends or cycles, therefore, annual maximum peak ows may be considered a sample of random and independent events.

With our new knowledge of oceanatmosphere interac tion, e.g., the El NinoSouthern Oscillation phenomenon, we now know that this assumption of stationarity in hydrologic variables is false. Redmond and colleagues present a useful discussion of this topic that reinforces the need for paleohydrologic studies in risk assessment for dams and other critical structures. This is a most informative monograph that makes for fascinating reading. J. Harlen Bretz would surely relish the growing recognition of paleoood hydrology given the skepticism he faced in the 1920s. REFERENCES
ALLEN, J. E.; BURNS, M.; AND SARGENT, S. C., 1986, Cataclysms on the Columbia: A Laymans Guide to the Features Produced by the Catastrophic Bretz Floods in the Pacic Northwest: Timber Press, Portland, OR, 221 p. HARRIS, J.; FELDMAN, A.; AND GOLDMAN, D., 2002, Hydrologic research needs for dam safety. In Proceedings of Dam Safety 2002, Tampa, Florida: Association of State Dam Safety Ofcials, Lexington, KY. HOUSE, P. K.; WEBB, R. H.; BAKER, V. R.; AND LEVISH, D. R. (Editors), 2002, Ancient Floods, Modern Hazards: Principles and Applications of Paleoood Hydrology, American Geophysical Union, Washington DC, 385 p. MALAMUD, B. D.; TURCOTTE, D. L.; AND BARTON, C. C., 1996. The 1993 Mississippi River ood: A one hundred or a one thousand year event? Environmental Engineering Geoscience, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 479486. OCONNELL, D. R. H.; OSTENAA, D. A.; LEVISH, D. R.; AND KLINGER, R. E., 2002, Bayesian ood-frequency analysis with paleohydrologic bound data. Water Resources Research, Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 16-1,14.

Designing for Effective Sediment and Erosion Control on Construction Sites (Jerald S. Field) Field Manual on Sediment and Erosion Control Best Management Practices for Contractors and Inspectors (Jerald S. Field) Review by: James A. Jacobs Environmental Bio-Systems, Inc., 707 View Point Road Mill Valley, CA 94941

Surface-water and groundwater impact from non-point pollution sources is a major regulatory challenge. Construction sites, including environmental remediation activities and redevelopment, can contain a variety of natural and man-made contaminants that might exceed

regulatory levels. These sites are locations where special erosion-control measures may be needed to prevent storm-water runoff and sediment buildup in nearby waterways and groundwater recharge areas. The sediment volume from construction projects on

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a national scale lls our streams, rivers, and lakes. These unintended consequences of construction and re-development can be controlled with effective erosion-control methods. For a lot of construction projects, erosion control does not always get the focus it should. There are two new books that will make sediment- and erosion-control challenges a little less daunting. The history of erosion control is one written not only by engineers and scientists but also by contractors who are out in the eld, testing out the ideas of the former. It is from these skeptical contractors that the limited practicality of some of the industrys standard procedures and practices were evaluated over a period of many years. As many contractors know, great erosion-control designs on paper do not always translate into terric sediment- and erosion-control systems in the eld. Design professionals know all too well that incorrect installation or poor maintenance practices by others doom even the most innovative erosion-control solutions. The cooperation of the innovative erosion-control professional with the practical contractor has the greatest chance for success. It is from this perspective that these two books on sediment and erosion control were written. Written for a wide audience, including contractors, engineers, soil scientists and geologists, designers, students, and regulatory personnel, these books provide the technical explanations and recommended guidelines to demonstrate effective erosion control on building sites. The two companion books were written by Jerald Field, a hydrologist with much eld experience in sediment and erosion control in California. The books were designed to make construction site sediment and erosion control more effective and easier for the variety of design professionals, contractors, and others who are involved with construction projects. In the process, these books do help to make what could be a complicated subject more accessible. Designing for Effective Sediment and Erosion Control on Construction Sites is a workbook and eld reference. It has nine chapters. The book is written in clear and concise language that is augmented with numerous drawings, maps and charts. Each chapter includes a preview and chapter summary, chapter test questions, and test answers. The book starts off describing water-quality impacts from non-point sources and many of the regulations and statutory requirements that attempt to ensure that construction projects are performed in a way that minimizes potential damage to the environment. Turbidity, naturally occurring heavy metals, as well as pesticides, hydrocarbons, and other organic contaminants can be major

sources of non-point pollution during construction. Regulatory requirements and various agency permits are discussed in detail. There are even blank copies of various permits in the book. Physical characteristics of both air and water erosion and the mechanics of sediment transport and deposition are thoroughly described. Most sediment-containment systems described use commonly available materials or engineered systems that have been proven. An important chapter on inspection and maintenance of sediment- and erosion-control measures adds practical value to eld personnel who are required to ensure continued success of the eld systems and procedures. This chapter provides the list of commonly asked regulatory questions and makes recommendations for common problems that might be detected during the site inspections. For those designers, engineers, and scientists taking professional responsibility for erosion control on a property, there is a chapter for performance goals and effectiveness of sediment- and erosion-control plans. Field Manual on Sediment and Erosion Control Best Management Practices for Contractors and Inspectors is a smaller, more portable version for eld personnel of the main points of the larger Designing for Effective Sediment and Erosion Control on Construction Sites. These books are hands-on, easy-to-use manuals for realworld eld applications of erosion and sediment control. Only the most practical best management practices (BMPs) are dened and described in detail in the two books. Erosion control tends to be one of the parts of development and building projects that is not well planned and is redone at signicantly more time and cost than if it was planned and executed properly from the beginning. It is with focus on practical solutions that these two books provide real value and guidance. The technical changes in the erosion-control industry have advanced rapidly over the past few years. Not all the erosion-control contractors or design professionals have kept up with these updates and improvements. These books are a worthy edition in the libraries of those involved with erosion-control and construction projects. REFERENCES
FIFIELD, J. S., 2004, Designing for Effective Sediment and Erosion Control on Construction Sites: Forester Communications Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, 336 p. FIFIELD, J. S., 2004, Field Manual on Sediment and Erosion Control Best Management Practices for Contractors and Inspectors: Forester Communications Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, 160 p.

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