The Hudson River Estuary, first published in 2006, is a scientific biography with relevance to similar natural systems.

Illustrations, maps, and text - distilled from the best research on the Hudson's habitats and history - invite you to explore the river yourself.

The Hudson River estuary is one of the most intensively studied estuaries in the world. Many environmental and civic groups have struggled with the conflict in the Hudson River area between the desire for a quality environment and the ever-increasing demands of an expanding human population for drinking water, electric power, efficient transportation, and waste disposal. Estuarine Research in the 1980s provides a synoptic overview of the research conducted on the Hudson estuary since 1980. The essays reflect diverse studies of the physical, chemical, and biological ecology of the Hudson River estuary. Included are historical studies of water flow through the estuary; a model to predict the effect of increased withdrawals of fresh water; a summary of the movements of radionuclides from power plants and atmospheric fallout within the Hudson watershed; and a paper on sedimentation in New York harbor. Several essays are devoted to surveys of the fishes of special parts of the estuary. Others deal with the life histories, movements, and population dynamics of individual species. Also included are a section of fisheries methods, including the effects of sampling additional habitats; a study of the effects of channel dredging on water quality; reviews of indices of population abundance; a review of the quality control procedures used in utility-sponsored research; a model of the effects of compensation on the risk of population decline and extinction; a study addressing the energetics of the lower food web; and a plea for the restoration of the badly polluted Croton Bay.

This book provides an overview of the ecology of the Hudson River.

Winner of the 2012 Award for Excellence presented by the Greater Hudson Heritage Network The diverse contributions to Environmental History of the Hudson River examine how the natural and physical attributes of the river have influenced human settlement and uses, and how human occupation has, in turn, affected the ecology and environmental health of the river. The Hudson River Valley may be America's premier river environmental laboratory, and by bringing historians and social scientists together with biologists and other physical scientists, this book hopes to foster new ways of looking at and talking about this historically, commercially, and aesthetically important ecosystem. Native people's influences on the ecological integrity of aquatic and shoreline communities were generally local and minor, and for the first 12,000 years or so of human use, the Hudson River was valued mainly as a source of water, food, and transportation. Since the arrival of European colonists, however, commerce has been the engine that has driven development and use of the river, from the harvesting of beaver pelts and timber to the siting of manufacturing industries and power plants, and all of these uses have had pervasive effects on the river's aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In the meantime, aesthetic movements such as the Hudson River School of painting have sought to recover and preserve the earlier pastoral landscape, anticipating the more recent efforts by environmentalists that have led to dramatic improvements in water quality, shoreline habitats, and fish populations. Despite the pervasive forces of commerce, the Hudson River has retained its world-class scenic qualities. The Upper Hudson remains today a free-flowing, tumbling mountain stream, and the Lower Hudson a fjord penetrated and dominated by the Hudson Highlands. The Hudson's unique history continues to affect current uses and will surely influence the future in remarkable ways.