Estuaries are of high socioeconomic importance with 22 of the 32 largest cities in the world located on river estuaries. Estuaries bring together fluxes of fresh and saline water, as well as fluvial and marine sediments, and contain high biological diversity. Increasingly sophisticated field observation technology and numerical modeling have produced significant advances in our understanding of the physical properties of estuaries over the last decade.
Contemporary Issues in Estuarine Physics introduces a classification for estuaries before presenting the basic physics and hydrodynamics of estuarine circulation and the various factors that modify it in time and space. It then covers special topics at the forefront of research such as turbulence, fronts in estuaries and continental shelves, low inflow estuaries, and implications of estuarine transport for water quality.
List of contributors
Preface
1. Definition and classification of estuaries A. Valle-Levinson
2. Estuarine salinity structure and circulation W. R. Geyer
3. Barotropic tides in channelized estuaries C. T. Friedrichs
4. Estuarine variability D. Jay
5. Estuarine secondary circulation R. J. Chant
6. Wind and tidally driven flows in a semi-enclosed basin C. Winant
7. Mixing in estuaries S. G. Monismith
8. The dynamics of estuary plumes and fronts J. O'Donnell
9. Low-inflow estuaries: hypersaline, inverse and thermal scenarios J. Largier
10. Implications of estuarine transport for water quality L. Lucas
Index
Arnoldo Valle-Levinson received a Ph.D. from the State University of New York in 1992 before going on to work at Old Dominion University (Norfolk, Virginia). He joined the University of Florida (Gainsville) in 2005 where he is now a Professor in the Department of Civil and Coastal Engineering. His research focuses on bathymetric effects on the hydrodynamics of estuaries, fjords and coastal lagoons. Professor Valle-Levinson is the recipient of a CAREER award from the US National Science Foundation, a Fulbright Fellowship for research in Chile, and a Gledden Fellowship from the University of Western Australia. He has worked extensively in several Latin-American countries, where he also teaches courses on estuarine and coastal hydrodynamics. He is also an associate editor for the journals Continental Shelf Research and Ciencias Marinas.