Biomanipulation: retrospective and future development

Contaminants discharged to an estuary usually become associated with the near surface brackish waters and on an ebb tide these waters form a plume which streams away from the estuary mouth. As the plume mixes downwards, a localised region of minimum dilution may form at the sea-bed, depending on the rates of transverse and vertical mixing.A modelling study of the outflow from the Tees estuary suggests that regions of minimum dilution at the sea-bed could occur between 1.5 and 4.0 km from the estuary mouth, the latter corresponding to a tide of spring range. An estimate for the Humber outflow on a spring tide indicates that a similar impact region could occur at a distance of some 9 km from the entrance to the estuary. At the Tyne and Wear estuaries, the vertical mixing of contaminants is likely to be too slow for the regions of minimum dilution to form before the discharge plumes are cut off from the estuary mouths by the reversal of tidal flow.