Estuaries: towards the next century

Abstract

Estuaries are of unique importance. They were colonized by humans from the earliest times, having always been recognized as the link between land and sea, providing safe harbours and attractive sites for commerce and industry, commercial fishery resources, habitats for wildlife and opportunities for tourism and recreation. They are highly dynamic areas, subject to cycles of erosion and deposition and encompassing a complex of subtidal, intertidal and terrestrial habitats. The previous chapters have looked in some detail at one particular estuary: the Thames. This concluding chapter, still in the context of estuaries, looks ahead in a more general way towards the rapidly approaching new century. But first it is appropriate to glance backwards and briefly consider the previous 100 years. Such an exercise is always popular as we approach the end of a period, and there is no doubt that those reviewing the twentieth century will find an unusually rich mine to exploit, given the accelerating pace of technology, the increasing population growth, the rate of political change and the associated alterations in human attitudes and behaviour.