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How does saltwater mix in an estuary


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Project Information
Title: How does saltwater mix in an estuary
Subject: Environmental Sciences
Grade level: Middle School - Grades 7-9
Academic Level: Ordinary
Project Type: Experimental
Cost: Low
Awards: None
Affiliation: Brentwood School
Year: 1997
Description: In this experiment the salinity of water from five different locations along an estuary is tested by calculating water density.
Link: www.csun.edu...
Background

Brackish Water

Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing of seawater with fresh water, as in estuaries, or it may occur in brackish fossil aquifers. The word comes from the Middle Dutch root "brak," meaning "salten" or "salty". Certain human activities can produce brackish water, in particular certain civil engineering projects such as dikes and the flooding of coastal marshland to produce brackish water pools for freshwater prawn farming. Brackish water is also the primary waste product of the salinity gradient power process. Because brackish water is hostile to the growth of most terrestrial plant species, without appropriate management it is damaging to the environment (see article on shrimp farms).

Technically, brackish water contains between 0.5 to 30 grams of salt per litre—more often expressed as 0.5 to 30 parts per thousand (ppt or ‰). Thus, brackish covers a range of salinity regimes and is not considered a precisely defined condition. It is characteristic of many brackish surface waters that their salinity can vary considerably over space and/or time.

Water salinity based on dissolved salts in parts per thousand (ppt)
Fresh water Brackish water Saline water Brine
< 0.5 0.5 – 30 30 – 50 > 50

Brackish is a mixture of sea water and fresh water, and an estuary is a body of water where fresh and salt water mix. The most extensive brackish water habitats worldwide are estuaries, where a river meets the sea.

The River Thames flowing through London is a classic river estuary. The town of Teddington a few miles west of London marks the limit of the tidal part of the Thames, although it is still a freshwater river about as far east as Battersea insofar as the average salinity is very low and the fish fauna consists predominantly of freshwater species such as roach, dace, carp, perch, and pike. The Thames Estuary becomes truly brackish between Battersea and Gravesend, and the diversity of freshwater fish species present is smaller, primarily roach and dace, euryhaline marine species such as flounder, European seabass, mullet, and smelt become much more common. Further east, the salinity increases and the freshwater fish species are completely replaced by euryhaline marine ones, until the river reaches Gravesend, at which point conditions become fully marine and the fish fauna resembles that of the adjacent North Sea and includes both euryhaline and stenohaline marine species. A similar pattern of replacement can be observed with the aquatic plants and invertebrates living in the river.

This type of ecological succession from a freshwater to marine ecosystem is typical of river estuaries. River estuaries form important staging points during the migration of anadromous and catadromus fish species, such as salmon and eels, giving them time to form social groups and to adjust to the changes in salinity. Salmon are anadromous, meaning they live in the sea but ascend rivers to spawn; eels are catadromous, living in rivers and streams, but returning to the sea to breed. Besides the species that migrate through estuaries, there are many other fish that use them as "nursery grounds" for spawning or as places young fish can feed and grow before moving elsewhere. Herring and plaice are two commercially important species that use the Thames Estuary for this purpose.

For more information (background, pictures, experiments and references): Brackish Water

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License)

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