Environmentalphysical

Environmentalphysical is a proposed interdisciplinary field that combines environmental science with physical principles to study natural and built environments. The term is not widely established in formal curricula, but it is sometimes used to describe research that applies physics-based methods to environmental problems, integrating measurements, theory, and modelling.

Scope includes atmospheric physics, climate dynamics, hydrology, freshwater and groundwater flow, soil physics, geophysics, biophysical interactions, energy transfer, and radiation transport. It covers processes such as heat exchange, mass transport, wave propagation, and phase transitions in environmental settings, as well as the interaction of human activities with physical systems.

Methods: observations (in situ sensors, weather stations, ocean buoys), remote sensing, laboratory experiments, numerical modelling, analytical solutions, and statistical data analysis. It emphasizes quantitative description and prediction using physical laws and governing equations.

Applications: climate and weather prediction, dispersion of pollutants, heat islands, renewable energy resource assessment, groundwater management, ecosystem energy budgets, hazard assessment, and environmental monitoring.

Education and status: researchers may come from physics, meteorology, oceanography, engineering, or environmental science. Coursework often includes thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, radiative transfer, statistical mechanics, and computational modelling. The term environmentalthics? environment al physics is more common in the literature, while the combined term is less standard.

Relationship: overlaps with environmental science, environmental engineering, geophysics, and earth system science.

See also: environmental science, physics, climate science, hydrology, remote sensing.