Lagoon Environments Around The World

Lagoon Environments Around the World - A Scientific Perspective covers a wide range of topics. Typically bordering between land and sea, lagoons are among the most diversely utilized waterways on the planet. Lagoons are extremely important environments socio-economically, and their usage places ever increasing stress on these very sensitive aquatic regions. The effective management of shallow aquatic environments requires a detailed scientific understanding of the various contributary natural processes. This has both environmental and economic implications, especially where there is any anthropogenic involvement. This book draws on international scientific research to examine the following lagoon related issues: classification, circulation hydrodynamics, ecosystems, sedimentation, anthropogenic stresses, and response to extreme events. The research was carried out by researchers who specialize in shallow water processes and related issues.

This book reviews the origin, development, morphology, environment and ecology of the world's coastal lagoons. There are particularly extensive series of lagoons - areas of salt or brackish water separated from the adjacent sea by a low-lying sand or shingle barrier - along the eastern and Gulf of Mexico coasts of the USA, in Mexico itself, in Brazil, West Africa, Natal, southern and eastern India, south-west and south-east Australia, Alaska, Siberia and around the shores of the Mediterranean, southern Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas. In several of these areas they support important fisheries. This book summarises what is known of the formation and fate of lagoons, the lagoonal environment, lagoonal ecology, the strategies of lagoonal species, the human use of lagoons, besides containing a general introduction and a section on methods for the study of coastal lagoons.

This volume addresses ten issues pertaining to energy and the environment, such as climate change, fossil fuels, endangered species, and renewable energy, and examines how these issues are affecting countries around the world. In the industrial age, first powered by coal and then more often by oil, environmental degradation nearly inevitably followed resource exploitation and energy production. This book examines environmental issues in specific countries around the world as well as solutions some of these countries have discovered in order to help save the environment. This volume includes 10 chapters, each addressing a specific issue relating to energy and the environment as it pertains to a variety of countries, including toxic chemicals, pollution, deforestation, and climate change. Each chapter begins with an introduction to the issue. Following the chapter introduction, each chapter highlights that issue in eight countries and provides historic perspective. This work provides an overview for high school students and college students at the undergraduate level on 10 important topics that address matters relating to energy and the environment in the 21st century.

Chilean Patagonia, located at the southwestern tip of South America, is one of the last regions on earth where highly intact environments predominate. With a coastline that extends along some 100,000 km of fjords, channels, and islands, it has one of the world ́s most extensive marine-terrestrial interfaces. Local place-based and Indigenous cultures and management practices are a vital presence across the region, while the long and rich history of conservation efforts have resulted in officially protected areas covering over 50% of the land and 41% of the coastal-marine area. However, Chilean Patagonia is increasingly facing anthropogenic pressures associated with increased infrastructure and access, salmon aquaculture, extractive industries, and the spread of invasive exotic species. Despite widespread recognition that Chilean Patagonia represents a unique global reservoir of socio-natural heritage, to date there has been no region-wide assessment of the scientific evidence of the conservation status of its ecosystems or the priorities for their effective conservation. Conservation in Chilean Patagonia: Assessing the state of knowledge, opportunities, and challenges is the first book to gather and synthesize the available scientific and socio-environmental information related to Patagonian conservation. It presents the collaborative work of 68 researchers and local experts, representing a range of specialties and perspectives, including: biology, ecology, socio-ecology, fisheries, aquaculture, anthropology, economics, geography, tourism, cryosphere, oceanography, climate and global change. The book’s 18 chapters focus on the status of key ecosystems and conservation tools, and provide recommendations toward the construction of a renewed, inclusive, and integrated conservation agenda for the Chilean Patagonian region. It provides an essential primer for anyone interested in the future of this ecologically vital region, as well as lessons on interdisciplinary collaboration and integrated analysis of conservation issues useful for conservation practitioners and scholars. This is an open access book. This book is a translation of an original Spanish edition. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation.

Coastal lagoons comprise 13% of the world's coastline and are found from tropical zones to the poles. They are enriched by oceanic and continental inputs and are among the world's most productive ecosystems. In many parts of the world, lagoons have long been closely interlinked with human societies - nowhere more so than in the Lagoon of Venice, where the mingling of human actions and ecological process has been so enduring, complete, complex, and profound. A one-of-a-kind scientific reference text The Venice Lagoon Ecosystem: Inputs and Interactions Between Land and Sea covers research on the flooding and biological damage from pollution and dredging to Venice. The research integrated in situ and experimental studies and modeling to create a key multidisciplinary and synthesized contribution to understanding the complex interactions between man-induced perturbations and natural biological phenomena to better understand their reciprocal effects. Topics include: the role of coll oidal material in biogeochemical cycling of organic carbon and trace metals, the interactions between lagoon sediments and degradation of organic matter, the processes which regulate the coupling of nutrient dynamics, oxygen and metal concentrations, and the effects of contaminants on macroalgea, molluscs, fish, and otherbiota. The volume includes bibliographic references and index. The scientific results found in this volume represent a distinctive contribution to the understanding of one of the world's most renowned coastal lagoon ecosystems, as well as to decisions on the future development of Venice and its lagoon. What's more, the lessons learned and approach taken in The Venice Lagoon Ecosystem: Inputs and Interactions Between Land and Sea are applicable to other coastal lagoon ecosystems around the world.

Dynamic and productive ecosystems, coastal lagoons play an important role in local economies and often bear the brunt of coastal development, agricultural, and urban waste, overuse from fisheries, aquaculture, transportation, energy production, and other human activities. The features that make coastal lagoons vital ecosystems underline the importance of sound management strategies for long-term environmental and resource sustainability. Written by an internationally renowned group of contributors, Coastal Lagoons: Critical Habitats of Environmental Change examines the function and structure of coastal lagoonal ecosystems and the natural and anthropogenic drivers of change that affect them. The contributors examine the susceptibility of coastal lagoons to eutrophication, the indicators of eutrophic conditions, the influences of natural factors such as major storms, droughts and other climate effects, and the resulting biotic and ecosystem impairments that have developed worldwide. They provide detailed descriptions of the physical-chemical and biotic characteristics of diverse coastal lagoonal ecosystems, and address the environmental factors, forcing features, and stressors affecting hydrologic, biogeochemical, and trophic properties of these important water bodies. They also discuss the innovative tools and approaches used for assessing ecological change in the context of anthropogenically- and climatically-mediated factors. The book investigates the biogeochemical and ecological responses to nutrient enrichment and other pollutants in lagoonal estuaries and compares them to those in other estuarine types. With editors among the most noted international scholars in coastal ecology and contributors who are world-class in their fields, the chapters in this volume represent a wide array of studies on natural and anthropogenic drivers of change in coastal lagoons located in different regions of the world. Although a significant number of journal articles on the subject can be found in the literature, this book provides a single-source reference for coastal lagoons within the arena of the global environment.

This is a broad-based review of the environmental, oceanographic, engineering, and management aspects of coastal lagoons summarized in a convenient single volume. A comprehensive literature review, as well as references add to the utility of this volume, creating an invaluable resource for academics, scientists, and laymen.