The benthic boundary layer is the zone of water and sediment immediately adjacent to the bottom of a sea, lake, or river. This zone is of considerable interest to biologists, geochemists, sedimentologists, and engineers because of very strong gradients of energy, dissolved and solid chemical components, suspended matter, and the number of organisms that live there. It is, for example, the sink for anthropogenic substances and the home of microscopic plant life that provides the nutrients that determine fish populations--and ultimately the size of the fisheries. This book of original chapters...