River Plumes and Coral Reefs
Definitions
River plume: a discrete body of fresh or low-salinity water discharged from a river mouth into coastal waters.
Coriolis force: the deflecting effect of the earth’s rotation on a moving fluid.
Introduction
A significant proportion of coral reefs are located close to continental or high-island land masses where they are influenced by terrestrial runoff (Furnas, 2003). This runoff may come from larger rivers or small coastal streams which inundate reefs near the stream mouth. The frequency and intensity of runoff affecting reefs depends on local or regional rainfall distributions, intensity, and duration, which determine the volume and timing of runoff. Coral reefs are widely distributed in parts of the world influenced by monsoonal climate regimes, where there is often a pronounced wet season.
Runoff affects coral reefs in a variety of ways. These include the direct osmotic stress of low salinity on corals (van Woesik and Done, 1997), the influence of suspended sediment...
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