Introduction to Estuarine Hydrodynamics

An essential introduction to the study of estuaries, highlighting their immense spatial and temporal variability.

Arnoldo Valle-Levinson (Author)

9781108838252, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 March 2022

250 pages, 30 colour illus.
25 x 17.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.53 kg

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.

Preface
Introduction and classification
2. Conservation equations
3. Tides in semienclosed basins
4. Shallow water tides
5. Tidal residual flows in homogeneous, semienclosed basins
6. Wind-driven flows in homogeneous, semienclosed basins
7. Flows driven by density gradients
8. Interactions among tides, density radients and wind
9. Fronts
10. Time scales in semienclosed basins
11. Semienclosed basins with low or no discharge
12. Classification of semienclosed basins, based on dynamics. Index.

Subject Areas: Mechanics of fluids [TGMF], Engineering thermodynamics [TGMB], Oceanography [seas RBKC], Geological surface processes [geomorphology RBGD], Fluid mechanics [PHDF]