Vegetation and the Atmosphere, Volume 1: Principles

In ecology, vegetation is treated as a community of plants, growing and reproducing, providing food and shelter for animals and man, and stabilizing the soil by intercepting rain and by recycling nutrients. In geophysics, vegetation is an active layer of material insulating the soil from the atmosphere and exposing a surface profoundly different from the soil in two respects: its capacity for absorbing and storing carbon; and its ability to release water to the atmosphere when the soil surface is completely dry.