16 / 2024-08-15 11:15:05

Current trends in estuarine and coastal dynamics: Observations and Modelling

estuary, coast, dynamic, observation, modelling

Session 24 - Estuaries and coastal environments stress - Observations and modelling

The coasts cover a diverse range of ecosystems within marine, estuarine, and freshwater environments. They are some of the most heavily populated and visited areas and are also some of the most threatened natural habitats. Coastal zones are critically important not only to the people who live there but for the health of the planet. Many world estuaries and coast environments are under tremendous stress in response to global warming and the increased anthropogenic forcing. Warmer waters, rising sea levels, tropical cyclones, and coastal erosion are just some of the elements impacting coastal communities worldwide and transforming these environments. Coastal hazards such as storm events with associated storm surges are increasing in frequency and intensity, as are marine heatwaves that devastate coral reefs. Human activities like sewage discharge, overfishing, navigation channel dredging, land reclamation, the construction of shipping ports and marine plastics are also responsible for coastal pollution and degradation.



Therefore, a good understanding of the current state of these marine environments and lessons learnt from these human influences would be extremely valuable to restore and protect these habitats and ecosystems from further environmental degradation and even catastrophe. In this talk, we introduce our recently published monography that documents recent trend and development in observing and modelling of estuaries and coastal oceans with a focus on sediment transport dynamics and hydrodynamics of these environments. As such, the monography identifies some key coastal management issues and offer strategies to address these environmental problems facing coastal oceans worldwide.