This textbook provides an in-depth overview of the hydrodynamics of estuaries and semi-enclosed bodies of water. It begins by describing the typical classification of estuaries, followed by a presentation of the quantitative tools needed to study these basins: conservation of mass, salt, heat, momentum, and the thermodynamic equation of seawater. Further topics explore tides in homogeneous basins, including shallow water tides and tidal residual flows, wind-driven flows in homogeneous basins, density-driven flows, as well as interactions among tides, winds and density gradients. The book proposes a classification of semi-enclosed basins that is based on dominant dynamics, comparing forcing agents and restorative or balancing forces. Introduction to Estuarine Hydrodynamics provides an introduction for advanced students and researchers across a range of disciplines - Earth science, environmental science, biology, chemistry, geology, hydrology, physics - related to the study of estuarine systems.

Estuaries are of high socioeconomic importance with twenty-two of the thirty-two 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. This book 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. Written by leading authorities on estuarine and lagoon hydrodynamics, this volume provides a concise foundation for academic researchers, advanced students and coastal resource managers.

Estuaries are of high socioeconomic importance with twenty-two of the thirty-two 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. This book 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. Written by leading authorities on estuarine and lagoon hydrodynamics, this volume provides a concise foundation for academic researchers, advanced students and coastal resource managers.