Estuaries defining

The magnitude of chemical fluxes carried by SGD is influenced by biogeochemical processes occurring in the subterranean estuary, defined as the mixing zone between groundwater and seawater in a coastal... 

If the mixing is "perfect," tlie estuary behavior may be approximated by what chemical engineers define as a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) (5). However, accurately estimating the time and spatial beliavior of water quality in estuaries is complicated by the effects of tidal motion as just described. The upstream and downstream currents produce substantial variations of water quality at certain points in the estuary, and tlie calculation of such variation is indeed a complicated problem. How ei er, the following simplifications provide some reiiitirkably useful results in estimating the distribution of estuarine water quality. 

Figure 4. The uranium concentration in unfiltered water, 0.2 gm and 3 kD filtered water in river water from the Kalix River mouth and samples from the low salinity estuarine zone (0-3). Data plotted against conductivity (although the salinity scale is not defined below 2, a tentative scale is indicated). The lines represent the best fit for each fraction in the estuary. The data from the Kalix river mouth represent the river water component, which show <10% aimual variation in concentration. The analytical errors are smaller than the symbols. Data from Andersson et al. (2001). Copyright 2001 Elsevier Science.

Fig. 8.39 Distribution coefficients (K and defining the sorption of inorganic Hg(II) to estuarine particles versus salinity (S, in g/L) in the Beaulieu, Mersey, and Plym estuaries. Reprinted with permission from Turner A, Millward GE, LeRoux SM (2001) Sediment-water partitioning of inorganic mercuries in estuaries. Environ Sci Technol 35 4648-4654. Copyright 2001 American Chemical Society...

What are marine bacteria Defining them as bacteria with an absolute requirement for sodium chloride is not a practical solution, because many marine isolates may tolerate quite a wide range of salinities, prompting speculation that they are in fact terrestrial organisms that have been swamped into the oceans from rivers, estuaries and sewage outfalls. Pragmatically, marine microorganisms are therefore defined as bacteria that have been isolated from marine sources on marine media [16]. 

Rivers are close to the perfect environmental flow for describing the flow as plug flow with dispersion. The flow is confined in the transverse and vertical directions, such that a cross-sectional mean velocity and concentration can be easily defined. In addition, there is less variation in rivers than there is, for example, in estuaries or reactors - both of which are also described by the plug flow with dispersion model. For that reason, the numerous tracer tests that have been made in rivers are useful to characterize longitudinal dispersion coefficient for use in untested river reaches. A sampling of the dispersion coefficients at various river reaches that were... 

Contaminated bed sediments exist at numerous locations in the United States and around the world. These result mainly from past indiscriminate pollution of our aquatic environments and consist of freshwater and marine bodies including streams, lakes, wetlands, and estuaries. The bed sediments contain many hydrophobic organic compounds and metal ions that in the course of time act as sources of pollutants of the overlying aqueous phase. There are a number of transport pathways by which pollutants are transferred to the aqueous phase from contaminated sediments. One of the lesser known, but potentially important, modes of transport of pollutants from bed sediments is by diffusion and advection of contaminants associated with colloidal-size dissolved macromolecules in pore water. These colloids are measured in the aqueous phase as dissolved organic compounds (DOCs). (These are defined operationally as particles with a diameter smaller than 0.45 micrometer.)... 

According to Perillo (1995, p. 4), an estuary is defined as a semi-enclosed coastal body of water that extends to the effective limit of tidal influence, within which sea water entering from one or more free connections with the open sea, or any other saline coastal body of water, is significantly diluted with fresh water derived from land drainage, and can sustain euryhaline biological species from either part or the whole of their life cycle. ... 

Hansen and Rattray (1966) first introduced the idea of using stratification-circulation diagrams to describe a spectrum of circulation and geomorphometric types of estuaries that can be defined by stratification (figure 3.9). The basic classification parameters are as follows the stratification is defined by SS/Sq where <5,8 is the difference in the salinity... 

Other parameters used to characterize the types of circulation, mixing, and stratification in estuaries, principally derived from the method of Hansen and Rattray (1966), are the densiometric Froude (Fm) and estuarine Richardson (Rig) numbers (both defined later in this section) (figure 3.10 Fisher, 1976). Fisher (1976) demonstrated that there is a relationship between SS/Sq and Rig Jay et al. (2000) interpreted this ratio as the tendency... 

Figure 3.9 Stratification-circulation diagrams used to describe a spectrum of circulation and geomorphometric types of estuaries that can be defined by stratification. Estuarine types are as follows Type 1 estuaries are those without upstream flow requiring tidal transport for salt balance Type 2 estuaries are partially mixed (e.g., Marrows of the Mersey (NM) (UK), James River (J) (USA), Columbia River estuary (C) (USA) Type 3 estuaries are representative of fjords [e.g., Siver Bay (S), Strait of Juan de Fuca (JF) (USA)] and Type 4 estuaries indicative of salt wedge estuaries [e.g., Mississippi River (M) (USA)]. The basic classification parameters are as follows the stratification is defined by SS/Sq where SS is the difference in the salinity between surface and bottom water and So is the mean-depth salinity, both averaged over a tidal cycle and Us/Uf, where U is the surface velocity (averaged over a tidal cycle) and Uf is the vertically averaged net outflow. The subdivisions a and b represent values where SS/Sq <0.1 and SS/Sq >0.1, respectively subscripts h and 1 refer to high and low river flow. The curved line at the top represents the limit of surface freshwater outflow. (From Hansen and Rattray, 1966, as modified by Jay et al., 2000, with permission.)...

Figure 3.10 Contour lines represented by the ratio (v), defined as the diffusive salt transport (tidal driven) to the total landward salt flux as related to contours of Froude [Fm = Uf/(ghAp/p)1/2] Richardson numbers [Rig = (g[Ap/p][U( /b])/U ]. A clear decrease is found when moving from Type 1 to Type 3 estuaries (From Fisher, 1976, as modified by Jay et al., 2000, with permission.)...

Prior to discussing the factors that control concentrations of the major dissolved components in rivers, estuaries, and oceans, it is important to discuss the operationally defined size spectrum for different phases (dissolved, colloidal, and particulate) of an element. The conventional definition for dissolved materials is the fraction of total material that... 

Microbial mats and biofilms, defined as surface layers of microbes entrained in a matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) (Characklis and Marshall, 1989), are also important in changing the surface texture and erodibility of sediments in estuaries (de Beer and Kiihl, 2001). The EPS are primarily composed of cellular-derived polysaccharides, polyuronic acids, proteins, nucleic acids, and lipids (Decho and Lopez, 1993 Schmidt and Ahring, 1994). The EPS can serve as a cementing agent for surface sediment particles, thereby affecting the erodibility of sediments as well as the flux of dissolved constituents across the sediment-water interface (de Beer and Kiihl, 2001). 

---