Estuarine Science

Estuaries are the point of convergence for almost the entire array of coastal and ocean environmental issues. Management of these rapidly changing environments requires a whole-system perspective that includes integration of all available knowledge of the ecology, chemistry, and physics of estuaries. Yet estuarine research has been primarily short-term and site-specific, providing few insights that can be generalized and applied to a broader understanding of these complex ecosystems.

Estuarine Science addresses that problem by presenting examples of synthetic approaches to estuarine science. Leading scientists -- including Donald F. Boesch, W. Rockwell Geyer, Nancy Rabalais, Charles A. Simenstad, and many others -- offer twelve chapters that report on different types of ecological synthesis and summarize the current state of scientific knowledge. Additional chapters examine the adequacy of existing synthesis, and the data and models required for improving the scientific management of estuaries in the coming decade.

Each of the book's five sections introduces a major area of estuarine syntheses; highlights key problems about that topic; reports case histories of successful synthesis; and recommends types of data to collect, processes to study, and models to build for a predictive understanding. Sections examine:

• inputs to estuaries of water, sediment, and nutrients from the drainage basin
• the coupling of estuarine physics with biogeochemistry and ecology
• the biogeochemical process in estuaries and their linkages to the food web
• controls on the distribution and abundance of organisms in the estuary
• the need for synthesis that would directly improve the scientific management of estuaries

Estuarine Science synthesizes what has been learned from the intensive research in many different estuarine projects around the country. It will be an essential work for professional scientists and graduate students working in coastal or estuarine research, as well as for managers, planners and environmentalists involved with coastal and estuarine issues.