Intertidal deposits. River mouths, tidal flats and coastal lagoons / Приливно-отливные отложения. Устья рек, приливные отмели и прибрежные лагуны

This book is the outcome of experience, first with the Wadden Sea and later with other intertidal areas in the world visited by the author and co-authors, partly to do research, partly because of more personal interest and fascination. Intertidal areas can be important for many reasons besides scientific or economic ones, as the many activities testify that aim to keep intertidal areas in a (more or less) natural state. This book is concemed primarily with intertidal deposits and the conditions of their formation, which include a strong inftuence of water movement (the tides and, less obviously, waves), climate, sediment particle characteristics, vegetation, fauna, and man. This inftuence of various factors becomes increasingly clear when visiting intertidal areas and when reading the voluminous literature. The shear volume of the literature, even when it is restricted to what is relevant for intertidal deposits, as weIl as the widespread occurrence of intertidal deposits along the world's coasts in very different conditions, make it difficult to reach an overview. Our main purpose in writing this book therefore was to put together relevant knowledge on intertidal deposits worldwide, based to a large extent on, besides personal experience, papers and books that are generally accessible and only to a limited extent on less accessible reports and other grey literature. <...>