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.

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.

Written by an outstanding group of contributors, this book examines the function and structure of coastal lagoonal ecosystems and the natural and anthropogenic drivers of change that affect them, most notably nutrient over-enrichment from coastal watersheds and airsheds. The contributors target the susceptibility of coastal lagoons to eutrophication, the indicators of eutrophic conditions, the influences of natural factors such as major storms and other climate effects, and the resulting biotic and ecosystem impairments that have developed. The book compares biogeochemical and ecological response to nutrient enrichment and other pollutants in lagoonal estuaries to those in other estuarine types.

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.

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.