This book provides recent environmental, ecological and hydrodynamic information for the major estuaries and the coastal marine systems of the Western Indian Ocean Region. It covers various functions and values of the region’s estuarine ecosystems and their respective habitats, including the land/ocean interactions that define and impact ecosystem services. The Western Indian Ocean region covered by this volume consists of the continental coastal states of Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania and the island states of Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles and Comoros.
The Regional State of Coast Report for the western Indian Ocean (WIO) is the first comprehensive regional synthesis to provide insights into the enormous economic potential around the WIO, the consequential demand for marine ecosystem goods and services to match the increasing human population, the pace and scale of environmental changes taking place in the region and the opportunities to avoid serious degradation in one of the world's unique and highly biodiverse oceans.
Ecology of Estuaries represents the most definitive and comprehensive source of reference information available on the human impact on estuarine ecosystems. The volume discusses both acute and insidious pollution problems plaguing these coastal ecotones. It also provides a detailed examination of the deleterious and pervasive effects of human activities on biotic communities and sensitive habitat areas in estuaries. Specific areas covered include organic loading, oil pollution, polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, chlorinated hydrocarbons, heavy metals, dredging and dredged-spoil disposal, radionuclides, as well as other contaminants and processes. The diverse components of these anthropogenic influences are assembled in an organized framework and presented in a clear and concise style that facilitates their understanding.
This book reports on the findings of, and swnmarizes the conclusions from, the Port Hacking Estuary Project, a model-guided, multidisciplinary study of an estuarine ecosystem. The Project began in 1973, at a time when it was thought that environmental problems could be solved readily by assembling a multidisciplinary team of research scientists and having them co-ordinate their research around the construction of an ecosystem model. But a decade has passed and time has not been easy on this approach. The anticipated predictive dynamic models have not been produced and bitter argument has often marred the course of such studies. Yet the need to anticipate the flow of various chemical species (carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, toxicants) through the environment remains: the evidence is everywhere, from fertilization of urban lakes to acid rain. The magnitude of the problem ensures that funds will continue to be made available - although with short-term variations as perceptions swing. It is thus clear that although the difficulties are great, so is the need. It is from this background that we present this book. The Port Hacking Estuary Project involved some 15 - 20 research scientists over a period of 5 years. The goal was to research the flow of carbon into, within, and out of a small unpolluted estuary chosen for convenience rather than for its social significance. The idea was to use the information obtained from these studies to build a predictive dynamic model.
Estuaries and their surrounding wetland regions are among the most productive ecosystems in the world, with more than half of humanity inhabiting their shores. Anthropogenic factors make estuaries highly susceptible to ecosystem degradation. Coastal waters are closely connected with human activity, and their dynamic processes may greatly affect coastal environments. This book provides a compendium of studies on estuarine dynamics, river plumes, and coastal water dynamics, studies that have investigated the changes in estuarine and coastal zones in response to sea-level rise and other environmental factors, and policy and management strategies to ensure the health and economy of coastal zones. This book aims to display novel frontiers in these fields and may help to inspire in-depth studies in the future.
The Estuary as a Filter contains the proceedings of the Estuarine Research Federation’s seventh biennial conference at Virginia Beach, Virginia, in late October, 1983. In five invited sessions, scientists and managers considered the physical, geological, chemical-geochemical, and biological processes involved in the ""filtering"" role of estuaries and reflected on management implications of these matters. Most of their presentations and reflections are included in this book in order to demonstrate what is known and what needs to be explored further. The papers in this volume are grouped as they were presented at the conference. Thus, physical oceanographers begin the work by considering turbulence, mixing, and circulation processes in estuaries. Geologists then examine estuarine sedimentation, including the roles of flocculation and bioturbation in accelerating this process. Chemists and geochemists describe the interactions among and effects of inputs of nutrients, metals, and organic matter into estuaries, and the fate of radionuclides in these systems. Biological and biochemical processes involving surface foam, microbes, sea grasses, and wetlands are considered, along with carefully derived nutrient budgets of selected estuarine regions. Finally, some of the problems facing managers of estuarine ecosystems in three areas of the United States are described, along with the success story of the ongoing rehabilitation of the Thames Estuary in England.
