Soil physics instructors Radcliffe (U. of Georgia) and Simunet (U. of California-Riverside) offer a beginning textbook for an undergraduate or lower graduate course in soil physics or vadose zone hydrology that uses the numerical computer model HYDRA series. The software is widely used in soil science, they say, and is easy to learn for anyone who knows Microsoft Excel. Students are assumed to be adept with differential and integral calculus, though only differential is really necessary because derivations involving integral calculus appear at the end of chapters. They cover soil solid phase, soil water content and potential, steady water flow in soils, heat flow in soils, transient water flow, and solute transport. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)