Estuarine and Wetland Processes: With Emphasis on Modeling

Estuaries and Wetlands are important coastal resources which are subject to a great deal of environmental stress. Dredging, construction, creation of intertidal wetlands, regulation of fresh­ water flow, and pollution are just a few of the activities which affect these coastal systems. The need to predict the effects of these perturbations upon ecosystem dynamics, particularly estuarine fisheries, as well as on physical effects, such as sedimentation and salt intrusion, is of paramount importance. Prediction requires the use of models, but no model is likely to be satisfactory unless fundamental physical, chemical, sedimentological, and biological processes are quantitatively understood, and the appropriate time and space scales known. With these considerations in mind, the Environmental Laboratory, U. S. Army Engineer Haterways Experiment Station,* Vicksburg, Mississippi, sponsored a workshop on "Estuarine and Wetland Processes and Water Quality Modeling" held in New Orleans, June 1979. The contents of this volume have been selected from the workshop papers. The resulting book, perhaps more than any other symposium proceed­ ings on estuaries and wetlands, attempts to review important pro­ cesses and place them in a modeling context. There is also a distinct applied tinge to a number of the contributions since some of the research studies were motivated by environmental assessments. The difference in title between this volume and the workshop re­ flects more accurately the contents of the published papers.