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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 ...
Organisms in marine ecosystems tolerate salinity, while many freshwater organisms are intolerant of salt. The degree of salinity in an estuary or delta is an important control upon the type of wetland (fresh, intermediate, or brackish), and the associated animal species. Dams built upstream may reduce spring flooding, and reduce sediment ...
There are three basic types of freshwater ecosystems: Lentic (slow moving water, including pools, ponds, and lakes), lotic (faster moving water, for example streams and rivers) and wetlands (areas where the soil is saturated or inundated for at least part of the time). Limnology (and its branch freshwater biology) is a study about freshwater ...
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]
An intertidal wetland is an area along a shoreline that is exposed to air at low tide and submerged at high tide. This type of wetland is defined by an intertidal zone and includes its own intertidal ecosystems .
an ecotone describes a variation in species prevalence and is often not strictly dependent on a major physical factor separating one ecosystem from another, with resulting habitat variability. An ecotone is often unobtrusive and harder to measure. an ecotone is the area where two communities interact.
Worldwide, continental shelves occupy a total area of about 24 million km 2 (9 million sq mi), 8% of the ocean's total area and nearly 5% of the world's total area. [ 29 ] [ 30 ] Since the continental shelf is usually less than 200 metres deep, it follows that coastal habitats are generally photic , situated in the sunlit epipelagic zone .
The former term refers to any inlet or cove providing a physical refuge from the open ocean. An estuary is any physiographic feature where freshwater meets an ocean or sea. The northern portion of the bay is a brackish estuary, consisting of a number of physical embayments which are dominated by both marine and fresh water fluxes.