Book excerpt: Designed for undergraduate and graduate students, this book covers important soil physical properties, critical physical processes involving energy and mass transport, movement and retention of water and solutes through soil profile, soil temperature regimes and aeration, and plant-water relations. It includes new concepts and numerical examples for an in depth understanding of these principles. The book provides readers with clear coverage of how and why water and solute flow through the soil and details how various factors influence the flow. It includes guidance on the use of the existing public domain computer models.