'In this new book, Philip A. Allen has distilled a lifetime of insightful study of the Earth's surface into a wide ranging and rigorous synthesis of planetary sediment processes. Sediment Routing Systems is the first to use the idea of global sediment routing - 'following the sediment' - to provide a framework for synthesis across environments and scales, to integrate the source and sink sides of the routing system, and to link geochemical and particulate fluxes. It manages to do this in a quantitative framework that is carefully formulated, accessible, and perfectly pitched in clarity and detail. Sediment Routing Systems is a landmark and masterpiece; for many Earth scientists, it will be all they need in terms of global sediment dynamics.' Chris Paola, University of Minnesota