River Discharge to the Coastal Ocean: A Global Synthesis

Description

Rivers provide the primary link between land and sea. Utilizing the world's largest database, this book presents a detailed analysis and synthesis of the processes affecting fluvial discharge of water, sediment and dissolved solids. It also discusses the ways in which climatic variation, episodic events and anthropogenic activities - past, present and future - affect the quantity and quality of river discharge. The book contains more than 165 figures - many in full color - including global and regional maps. An extensive appendix presents the 1534-river database as a series of 44 tables that provide quantitative data regarding the discharge of water, sediment and dissolved solids. The complete database is also presented within a GIS-based package available online at www.cambridge.org/milliman. Now available in paperback, reprinted with corrections, this is an invaluable resource for researchers, professionals and graduate students in hydrology, oceanography, geology, geomorphology and environmental policy.

John D. Milliman is Chancellor Professor of Marine Science at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary, Virginia, and has been at the forefront of studies of river runoff to the coastal ocean since the 1970s. He is an Honorary Professor at the Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and recipient of the 1992 Francis P. Shepard Medal for Excellence in Marine Geology. He is Editor of Deep-Sea Research Part II and has published more than 150 research papers and book chapters. Katherine L. Farnsworth is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geoscience at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her research examines the interaction between fluvial and marine systems including the flux and fate of sediments to the coastal oceans.

'For university libraries and many research institutions dealing with global and regional change, this reference work is indispensable ... The authors who must have put an incredible amount of time and dedication into this work deserve great respect and thanks.' Joerg Matschullat, Environmental Earth Sciences 'This book is engaging. The writing style is clear, direct and informal, and the authors ... take the 'global' in the title seriously - the examples are nicely balanced around the world ... Anyone interested in continental- to global-scale particle and dissolved fluxes from the continents to the world ocean will benefit from having this material close at hand.' Chris Paola, Oceanography