This book is a considerable outgrowth of lecture notes on Mechanics of en vironmentally related systems I, which I hold since more than ten years in the Department of Mechanics at the Darmstadt University of Technology for upper level students majoring in mechanics, mathematics, physics and the classical engineering sciences. These lectures form a canon of courses over three semesters in which I present the foundations of continuum physics (first semester), those of physical oceanography and limnology (second semester) and those of soil, snow and ice physics in the geophysical context (third...