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Elsevier

Environmental Turbulence

From Fundamental Physics to Critical Applications

  • 1st Edition - August 1, 2026
  • Latest edition
  • Editors: Elie Bou-Zeid, Sutanu Sarkar
  • Language: English

Environmental Turbulence: From Fundamental Physics to Critical Applications explains how to understand environmental and geophysical turbulence, both at a theoretical level and… Read more

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Description

Environmental Turbulence: From Fundamental Physics to Critical Applications explains how to understand environmental and geophysical turbulence, both at a theoretical level and in engineering applications. Sections cover the effects of these new features on the fundamental flow dynamics in relatively simple domains. That is, how the turbulence statistics and structure are modified by the stabilizing or destabilizing effects of buoyancy and rotation is surveyed. Scalar transport is also described in detail. Flow in more complex domains is then described, focusing on vegetated and urban canopies, wind farms, air-sea interfaces, the upper ocean and clouds.

Turbulence in environmental media is strongly modulated by buoyancy forces at all scales and by rotation at the largest scales, in contrast to canonical turbulent flows. It is rarely steady, which can give rise to non-equilibrium effects, and the domains such as wind farms or cities are often quite complex, leading to more intricate dynamics than in classic wall-bounded or free shear flows.

Key features

  • Combines a theoretical treatment with detailed coverage of how it is extended to practice in a range of applications
  • Re-introduces the reader to the basic fluid mechanics and turbulence knowledge, and then presents their more complex environmental manifestations
  • Covers in detail six applications that are critical to the grand challenges facing humanity in the 21st century

Readership

Researchers working on turbulent environmental flows

Table of contents

1. Environmental turbulence and its fundamental equations

2. Unstable shear flows

3. Stably stratified shear flows

4. Rotating turbulent flows

5. 2D and geostrophic turbulence

6. Turbulent mixing

7. Turbulent Mixing in the Environment

8. Turbulent flows in cities

9. Turbulence in vegetation canopies

10. Turbulence in wind farms

11. Turbulence in the ocean mixed layer

12. Turbulence at the air-sea interface

13. Turbulence in clouds

Product details

  • Edition: 1
  • Latest edition
  • Published: August 1, 2026
  • Language: English

About the editors

EB

Elie Bou-Zeid

Professor Elie Bou-Zeid is the Director of the Program in Environmental Engineering and Water Resources in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Princeton University. He is also director of the Metropolis Project (https://metro.princeton.edu/) of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is an associated faculty member in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and in the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. His work focuses on the integration of theoretical, numerical and experimental approaches to flow and turbulence in environmental systems, with a particular focus on applications related to the built environment, complex and heterogeneous terrain, and wind energy. He is the recipient of the “Fondation Latsis Internationale” University Award (2009) and the E. Lawrence Keyes Jr. / Emerson Electric Co. Faculty Advancement Award from Princeton University (2011).
Affiliations and expertise
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA

SS

Sutanu Sarkar

Professor Sutanu Sarkar is a Distinguished Professor, holder of the Blasker Chair of Environmental Engineering, and Affiliate Professor of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. His honors include a NASA group achievement award (1994), Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel Research Prize (2001) from the Humboldt Foundation, Fellow of the American Physical Society (2006), Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2010) and Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (2010). His work uses computational fluid dynamics to study multiscale, unsteady flow problems. His recent research concerns flows in the natural environment where he brings techniques of modern computational science to predict turbulence, transport of pollutants and tracers, and submersible wake dynamics and wind turbine interactions with the atmospheric boundary layer.
Affiliations and expertise
Distinguished Professor, Holder of the Blasker Chair of Environmental Engineering; Affiliate Professor, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, CA, USA