Weed science is a very broad discipline, encompassing not only many aspects of pureand applied biology but also areas as diverse as agricultural economics, precisionengineering, spray systems technology and plant taxonomy. This is due in part to theevolution of the subject, from one with an original overriding concern with pragmaticweed control to one having a greater understanding of weeds and their ecology, including interactions with other organisms.After an introduction which puts recent developments in weed research and theEWRS into context, there are chapters on mapping and describing weed populations,weed seed biology, modelling weed effects on the crop and the effects of weeds onbiodiversity. Other chapters deal with particular types of weeds, such as parasitic weeds,perennial weeds and invasive weeds, and a chapter describes the special case of weedmanagement in vegetables. Further chapters are concerned with weed managementsystems, including optimising herbicide use and the problems of herbicide resistance,the use of non‐chemical weed management and biological control of weeds. Althoughby necessity the chapters have a broadly European focus, the areas covered and futureprospects have a world‐wide relevance.We hope that this book will bridge the gap between one‐volume weed sciencetextbooks and specialist reviews in scientific journals and will prove useful to higher‐level students, those starting their academic career in weed science and academics inrelated areas.