1.
Intertidal zone
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The intertidal zone, also known as the foreshore and seashore and sometimes referred to as the littoral zone, is the area that is above water at low tide and under water at high tide. This area can include different types of habitats, with many types of animals, such as starfish, sea urchins. The well-known area also includes rocky cliffs, sandy beaches. The area can be a strip, as in Pacific islands that have only a narrow tidal range. Organisms in the zone are adapted to an environment of harsh extremes. The intertidal zone is home to many several species from different taxa including Porifera, Annelids, Coelenterates, Mollusks, crustaceans, Arthropods. Water is available regularly with the tides but varies from fresh with rain to highly saline, wave splash can dislodge residents from the littoral zone. With the intertidal zones high exposure to the sun, the range can be anything from very hot with full sun to near freezing in colder climates. Some microclimates in the zone are ameliorated by local features. Adaptation in the littoral zone allows the use of nutrients supplied in high volume on a basis from the sea. Edges of habitats, in this land and sea, are themselves often significant ecologies. Along most shores, the zone can be clearly separated into the following subzones, high tide zone, middle tide zone. The intertidal zone is one of a number of biomes or habitats, including estuaries, neritic, surface. Marine biologists divide the region into three zones, based on the overall average exposure of the zone. The low intertidal zone, which borders on the shallow subtidal zone, is exposed to air at the lowest of low tides and is primarily marine in character. The mid intertidal zone is exposed and submerged by average tides. The high intertidal zone is covered by the highest of the high tides. The high intertidal zone borders on the splash zone, on shores exposed to heavy wave action, the intertidal zone will be influenced by waves, as the spray from breaking waves will extend the intertidal zone
2.
Littoral zone
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The littoral zone is the part of a sea, lake or river that is close to the shore. In coastal environments the littoral zone extends from the water mark. It always includes this intertidal zone and is used to mean the same as the intertidal zone. However, the meaning of littoral zone can extend well beyond the intertidal zone, what is regarded as the full extent of the littoral zone, and the way the littoral zone is divided into subregions, varies in different contexts. The use of the term varies from one part of the world to another. For example, military commanders speak of the littoral in ways that are different from marine biologists. The adjacency of water gives a number of characteristics to littoral regions. The erosive power of water results in particular types of landforms, such as sand dunes, the natural movement of the littoral along the coast is called the littoral drift. Biologically, the availability of water enables a greater variety of plant and animal life. In addition, the local humidity due to evaporation usually creates a microclimate supporting unique types of organisms. The word littoral is used both as a noun and an adjective and it derives from the Latin noun litus, litoris, meaning shore. In oceanography and marine biology, the idea of the zone is extended roughly to the edge of the continental shelf. Starting from the shoreline, the zone begins at the spray region just above the high tide mark. From here, it moves to the region between the high and low water marks, and then out as far as the edge of the continental shelf. These three subregions are called, in order, the zone, the eulittoral zone and the sublittoral zone. The supralittoral zone is the area above the high tide line that is regularly splashed. Seawater penetrates these elevated areas only during storms with high tides, organisms here must cope also with exposure to fresh water from rain, cold, heat and predation by land animals and seabirds. At the top of this area, patches of dark lichens can appear as crusts on rocks, some types of periwinkles, Neritidae and detritus feeding Isopoda commonly inhabit the lower supralittoral
3.
Shoal
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Often it refers to those submerged ridges, banks, or bars that rise near enough to the surface of a body of water as to constitute a danger to navigation. Shoals are also known as sandbanks, sandbars, or gravelbars, two or more shoals that are either separated by shared troughs or interconnected by past and or present sedimentary and hydrographic processes are referred to as a shoal complex. The term shoal is also used in a number of ways that can be similar or quite different from how it is used in the geologic, geomorphic. Shoals are characteristically long and narrow ridges and they can develop where a stream, river, or ocean current promotes deposition of sediment and granular material, resulting in localized shallowing of the water. Marine shoals also develop either by the in place drowning of barrier islands as the result of sea level rise or by the erosion. Shoals can appear as a coastal landform in the sea, where they are classified as a type of bank, or as fluvial landforms in rivers, streams. A shoal–sandbar may seasonally separate a smaller body of water from the sea, such as, Marine lagoons Brackish water estuaries Freshwater seasonal stream and river mouths and deltas. They are typically composed of sand, although they could be of any matter that the moving water has access to and is capable of shifting around. Wave shoaling is the process when surface waves move towards shallow water, such as a beach, they slow down, their wave height increases and this behavior is called shoaling, and the waves are said to shoal. The waves may or may not build to the point where they break, depending on how large they were to begin with, in particular, waves shoal as they pass over submerged sandbanks or reefs. This can be treacherous for boats and ships, shoaling can also diffract waves, so the waves change direction. For example, if waves pass over a bank which is shallower at one end than the other. Thus the wave fronts will refract, changing direction like light passing through a prism, refraction also occurs as waves move towards a beach if the waves come in at an angle to the beach, or if the beach slopes more gradually at one end than the other. Sandbars, also known as a trough bars, form where the waves are breaking, sometimes this occurs seaward of a trough. Sand carried by the moving bottom current is deposited where the current reaches the wave break. Other longshore bars may lie further offshore, representing the point of even larger waves. A harbor or river bar is a sedimentary deposit formed at an entrance or river mouth by. Where beaches are suitably mobile, or the river’s suspended and/or bed loads are large enough, deposition can build up a sandbar that completely blocks a river mouth and damming the river
4.
Wind wave
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In fluid dynamics, wind waves, or wind-generated waves, are surface waves that occur on the free surface of bodies of water. They result from the wind blowing over an area of fluid surface, Waves in the oceans can travel thousands of miles before reaching land. Wind waves on Earth range in size from small ripples, to waves over 100 ft high, when directly generated and affected by local winds, a wind wave system is called a wind sea. After the wind ceases to blow, wind waves are called swells, more generally, a swell consists of wind-generated waves that are not significantly affected by the local wind at that time. They have been generated elsewhere or some time ago, wind waves in the ocean are called ocean surface waves. Wind waves have an amount of randomness, subsequent waves differ in height, duration. The key statistics of wind waves in evolving sea states can be predicted with wind wave models, although waves are usually considered in the water seas of Earth, the hydrocarbon seas of Titan may also have wind-driven waves. The great majority of large breakers seen at a result from distant winds. Water depth All of these work together to determine the size of wind waves. Further exposure to that wind could only cause a dissipation of energy due to the breaking of wave tops. Waves in an area typically have a range of heights. For weather reporting and for analysis of wind wave statistics. This figure represents an average height of the highest one-third of the waves in a time period. The significant wave height is also the value a trained observer would estimate from visual observation of a sea state, given the variability of wave height, the largest individual waves are likely to be somewhat less than twice the reported significant wave height for a particular day or storm. Wave formation on a flat water surface by wind is started by a random distribution of normal pressure of turbulent wind flow over the water. This pressure fluctuation produces normal and tangential stresses in the surface water and it is assumed that, The water is originally at rest. There is a distribution of normal pressure to the water surface from the turbulent wind. Correlations between air and water motions are neglected, the second mechanism involves wind shear forces on the water surface
5.
Longshore drift
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Longshore drift is a geological process that consists of the transportation of sediments along a coast parallel to the shoreline, which is dependent on oblique incoming wind direction. Oblique incoming wind squeezes water along the coast, and so generates a current which moves parallel to the coast. Longshore drift is simply the sediment moved by the longshore current and this current and sediment movement occurs within the surf zone. Beach sand is moved on such oblique wind days, due to the swash and backwash of water on the beach. Breaking surf sends water up the beach at an oblique angle, thus beach sand can move downbeach in a zig zag fashion many tens of meters per day. This process is called beach drift but some regard it as simply part of longshore drift because of the overall movement of sand parallel to the coast. Longshore drift affects numerous sediment sizes as it works in different ways depending on the sediment. Sand is largely affected by the force of breaking waves. There are numerous calculations that take into consideration the factors that produce longshore drift, some of these are, Geological changes, e. g. erosion, backshore changes and emergence of headlands. Change in hydrodynamic forces, e. g. change in wave diffraction in headland, change to hydrodynamic influences, e. g. the influence of new tidal inlets and deltas on drift. Alterations of the sediment budget, e. g. switch of shorelines from drift to swash alignment, the intervention of humans, e. g. cliff protection, groynes, detached breakwaters. The sediment budget takes into consideration sediment sources and sinks within a system, a good example of the sediment budget and longshore drift working together in the coastal system is inlet ebb-tidal shoals, which store sand that has been transported by long shore transport. As well as storing sand these systems may also transfer or by pass sand into other systems, therefore inlet ebb-tidal systems provide a good sources. Long shore occurs in a 90 to 80 degree backwash so it would be presented as an angle with the wave line. This section consists of features of long shore drift that occur on a coast where long shore drift occurs uninterrupted by man-made structures, spits are formed when longshore drift travels past a point where the dominant drift direction and shoreline do not veer in the same direction. As well as dominant drift direction, spits are affected by the strength of wave driven current, wave angle, spits are landforms that have two important features, with the first feature being the region at the up-drift end or proximal end. The proximal end is attached to land and may form a slight “barrier” between the sea and an estuary or lagoon. As an example, the New Brighton spit in Canterbury, New Zealand, was created by longshore drift of sediment from the Waimakariri River to the north and this spit system is currently in equilibrium but undergoes phases of deposition and erosion
6.
Coastal wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
7.
Bay
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A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, lake, or another bay. A large bay may be called a gulf, sea, sound, a cove is a type of smaller bay with a circular inlet and narrow entrance. A fjord is a particularly steep bay shaped by glacial activity, bays can be the estuary of a river, such as the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary of the Susquehanna River, which is the largest bay in North America. Bays may also be nested within each other, for example, some large bays, such as the Bay of Bengal and the Hudson Bay, have varied marine geology. The land surrounding a bay often reduces the strength of winds, bays were significant in the history of human settlement because they provided a safe place for fishing. Later they were important in the development of sea trade as the safe anchorage they provide encouraged their selection as ports, there are various ways from which bays can be created. The largest bays have developed as a result of plate tectonics, as the super-continent Pangaea broke up along curved and indented fault lines, the continents moved apart and the worlds largest bays formed. These include the Gulf of Guinea, Gulf of Mexico and the Bay of Bengal, another way bays form is via glacial and river erosion. A bay formed by a glacier is a fjord, rias are created by rivers and are characterised by more gradual slopes. Currents can make waves more constant, and soft rocks speed erosion, hard rock eroded less quickly, leaving headlands. The Gulf of California is an example of a bay created by plate tectonics as Baja California peninsula moves away from the Mexican mainland, Bay platform Great capes Headlands and bays
8.
Lagoon
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A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by barrier islands or reefs. Lagoons are commonly divided into coastal lagoons and atoll lagoons and they have also been identified as occurring on mixed-sand and gravel coastlines. There is an overlap between bodies of water classified as coastal lagoons and bodies of water classified as estuaries, lagoons are common coastal features around many parts of the world. Lagoons can also be man-made and used for treatment, as is the case for e. g. aerated lagoons. Lagoons are shallow, often elongated bodies of water separated from a body of water by a shallow or exposed shoal, coral reef. Some authorities include fresh water bodies in the definition of lagoon, the distinction between lagoon and estuary also varies between authorities. Richard A. Davis Jr. restricts lagoon to bodies of water with little or no fresh water inflow, and little or no tidal flow, Davis does state that the terms lagoon and estuary are often loosely applied, even in scientific literature. Timothy M. Kusky characterizes lagoons as normally being elongated parallel to the coast, while estuaries are usually drowned river valleys, coastal lagoons are classified as inland bodies of water. Many lagoons do not include lagoon in their common names, in England, The Fleet at Chesil Beach has also been described as a lagoon. In Latin America, the term laguna in Spanish, which translates to. However, sometimes it is used to describe a full-sized lake, such as Laguna Catemaco in Mexico. The brackish water lagoon may be explicitly identified as a coastal lagoon. In Portuguese the same usage is found, lagoa may be a body of sea water. Lagoon is derived from the Italian laguna, which refers to the waters around Venice, Laguna is attested in English by at least 1612, and had been Anglicized to lagune by 1673. In 1697 William Dampier referred to a Lagune or Lake of Salt water on the coast of Mexico, captain James Cook described an island of Oval form with a Lagoon in the middle in 1769. Atoll lagoons form as coral reefs grow upwards while the islands that the reefs surround subside, unlike the lagoons that form shoreward of fringing reefs, atoll lagoons often contain some deep portions. Coastal lagoons form along gently sloping coasts where barrier islands or reefs can develop off-shore, coastal lagoons do not form along steep or rocky coasts, or if the range of tides is more than 4 metres. Due to the slope of the coast, coastal lagoons are shallow
