The Estuarine Ecosystem

Abstract

For the inhabitants of many of the world's major cities and towns, estuaries provide their nearest glimpse of a natural habitat; a habitat which, despite the attempts of man to pollute or reclaim it, has remained a fascinating insight into a natural world where energy is transformed from sunlight into plant material, and then, through the steps of a food chain, is converted into a rich food supply for birds and fish. This book first outlines the estuarine environment and the physical and biological factors that are important within it. It then examines the responses of the animals and plants to these factors, considers the problems of life in estuaries and why so few species have adapted to it, and then proposes a food web for an estuary. The coastal waters of the sea, and especially the waters of estuaries, are widely polluted. Thus in practice, marine pollution is often essentially estuarine pollution. To reflect this large impact of mankind on estuaries, and to consider how mankind may either destroy or enrich the estuarine ecosystem, chapters consider pollution in estuaries, and the diverse uses and abuses of the estuarine habitat by man, as well as the methods used to study human-induced changes in estuaries, and the ways in which estuarine management can either monitor, control, or prevent pollution or destruction of the estuarine ecosystem.