Book excerpt: The second edition of this outstanding handbook covers an area that has become increasingly important within global chemical legislation. Environmental degradation rates are vital for assessing environmental exposure from chemicals in various media. This book saves time and effort by providing and evaluating this essential information. Easy to use and well indexed by chemical name as well as by CAS number, the text presents rate constant and half-life ranges for various processes and then combines them into ranges for different media, which can be directly entered into a wide range of models. Figures of chemical structures and physical properties facilitate the interpretation of degradation rates.