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There have been many definitions proposed to describe an estuary. The most widely accepted definition is: "a semi-enclosed coastal body of water, which has a free connection with the open sea, and within which seawater is measurably diluted with freshwater derived from land drainage". [1] However, this definition excludes a number of coastal ...
The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various species of life, such as sea stars, sea urchins, and many species of coral with regional differences in ...
The Chesapeake Bay (/ ˈ tʃ ɛ s ə p iː k / CHESS-ə-peek) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the state of Delaware.
Model of Estuary. The residence time of water is a key variable determining the health of an estuary, particularly from human-induced stresses.Rapid flushing ensures that there is insufficient time for sediment accumulation or dissolved oxygen depletion in the estuary; thus a well flushed estuary is intrinsically more robust than a poorly flushed estuary. [1]
A marine coastal ecosystem is a marine ecosystem which occurs where the land meets the ocean. Worldwide there is about 620,000 kilometres (390,000 mi) of coastline. Coastal habitats extend to the margins of the continental shelves, occupying about 7 percent of the ocean surface area.
The result is often a very large estuary at the mouth of a relatively insignificant river (or else sediments would quickly fill the ria). The Kingsbridge Estuary in Devon, England, is an extreme example of a ria forming an estuary disproportionate to the size of its river; no significant river flows into it at all, only a number of small ...
A bay can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River. [2] Bays may also be nested within each other; for example, James Bay is an arm of Hudson Bay in northeastern Canada. Some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology. [citation needed]
The Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve is an estuary reserve in Maryland. The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and is one of the most productive bodies of water in the world. The Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve reflects the diversity of estuarine habitats found within the Bay and ...