A coastal sea area usually indicates a sea area between a continental shelf break with a water depth of about 200 m and the land shore. About 70% of global fish resources spend part of their life cycle in the coastal seas, which accounts for 90% of marine biomass yield. Freshwater and nutrients from the land have a great influence on the coastal seas, especially since more than half the human population lives within 100 km of a coast. Chemical reactions occur there rapidly between substances from the land as they encounter substances from the ocean. In terms of physics, a coastal sea acts as a boundary layer and kinetic energy is actively exchanged there. But if coastal oceanography were to be summed up in a single sentence, it would be `the study that quantitatively makes clear the material transport in the coastal sea area'. Because the physical, chemical and biological processes relate to the material transport in the sea, it can be said the coastal oceanography is a genuinely interdisciplinary study. This book clarifies the quantitative material transport processes in the coastal sea area, mainly from a physical viewpoint.

The Washington-Oregon coastal zone is a classical Eastern Boundary Current region. The area is extremely productive, the productivity dependent on near-shore infusions of nutrients into surface layers during wind-driven coastal upwelling. The Washington-Oregon coastline is much more regular than areas off California or off the East Coast, where large capes lend complexity to both the physical environment and the ecosystem response. The relatively straight coastline and broad, deep shelf greatly simplify the physical environment, so that processes responsible for much of the variance are more easily identified. The system response from mid-Oregon northward, although not strictly two-dimensional, is more so than many other coastal areas. Consequently, the system is amenable to the testing of relatively simple models integrating wind forcing with physical, chemical and biological responses in the upper water column. This book is an integrated synthesis of physical, chemical, geological and biological research in a dynamic shelf ecosystem characterized by seasonal, wind-driven upwelling, major river influences, extensive silt deposits, productive pelagic and demersal fisheries, and unique surf-zone communities. The broad scope of the book includes: detailed analyses of physical circulation and sediment transport; production and utilization of organic matter in the marine food web; river influences on regional hydrology and sediment deposition; inputs and inventories of anthropogenic chemicals in the water column and sedimentary deposits. Much of the book is based on primary analyses of previously unpublished data sets. Interdisciplinary approaches are emphasized in models and discussions of coastal upwelling dynamics, hydrographic patterns and anomalies, benthic boundary-layer processes and larval transport, oceanographic influences on commercial stocks, mechanics of chemical cycling and accumulation, and surf-zone production. An extensive index and references complete the book. The book is intended both to document and explain specific regional features of the Washington/Oregon shelf system and, more generally, to illustrate the complexities of interactive influences on the dynamics of coastal ecosystems. Oceanographers, both researchers and students, will be very interested in this book, and it can also be used by governmental agencies and industries dealing with coastal zone management and planning.

This book unifies and enhances the accessibility of contemporary scholarly research on advances in coastal modeling. A comprehensive spectrum of innovative models addresses the wide diversity and multifaceted aspects of coastal research on the complex natural processes, dynamics, interactions and responses of the coastal supersystem and its associated subsystems. The twenty-one chapters, contributed by internationally recognized coastal experts from fourteen countries, provide invaluable insights on the recent advances and present state-of-the-art knowledge on coastal models which are essential for not only illuminating the governing coastal process and various characteristics, but also for understanding and predicting the dynamics at work in the coastal system. One of the unique strengths of the book is the impressive and encompassing presentation of current functional and operational coastal models for all those concerned with and interested in the modeling of seas, oceans and coasts. In addition to chapters modeling the dynamic natural processes of waves, currents, circulatory flows and sediment transport there are also chapters that focus on the modeling of beaches, shorelines, tidal basins and shore platforms. The substantial scope of the book is further strengthened with chapters concentrating on the effects of coastal structures on nearshore flows, coastal water quality, coastal pollution, coastal ecological modeling, statistical data modeling, and coupling of coastal models with geographical information systems.