tailieunhanh - MODELING OF ESTUARINE WATER QUALITYINTRODUCTION Estuarine water quality is a term used to describe

MODELING OF ESTUARINE WATER QUALITY INTRODUCTION Estuarine water quality is a term used to describe the quality of characteristics of the water in estuaries. Although the term implies quality in a physical-chemical sense, its use has been extended to include also the acceptability of water in a socioeconomic sense. The term “water quality,” like environmental quality and air quality, has to do with the quality of the water or the environment wherever it is found and wherever it is used or encountered. The high chemical and bacteriological quality of the water supplies has become an almost matterof-fact part of any American’s. | MODELING OF ESTUARINE WATER QUALITY INTRODUCTION Estuarine water quality is a term used to describe the quality of characteristics of the water in estuaries. Although the term implies quality in a physical-chemical sense its use has been extended to include also the acceptability of water in a socioeconomic sense. The term water quality like environmental quality and air quality has to do with the quality of the water or the environment wherever it is found and wherever it is used or encountered. The high chemical and bacteriological quality of the water supplies has become an almost matter-of-fact part of any American s life but the quality of waters in which man recreates has become of greater concern with man s awareness of degradation of the quality of the waters around him. Estuarine water quality has become a major focus of the . Environmental Protection Agency with passage of the Water Quality Act of 1987 establishing the National Estuary Program with the goal of identifying nationally significant estuaries protecting and improving their water quality and enhancing their living resources. The original four estuaries selected in 1985 for study were Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island Long Island Sound in New York and Connecticut Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts and Puget Sound in Washington. Within a year Albemarle-Pamlico Sounds in North Carolina and the San Francisco Bay Sacramento-San Jacinto Delta system in California were added and most recently Galveston Bay in Texas among others has been added. A thoroughly technical description of water quality would require several volumes to cover the physical chemical and biological characteristics of water and how these characteristics change in different environments how they interact and how they influence the many ways water is used by plants animals and especially man. This would be true even though this article is limited to estuaries which are among the most complex natural systems known and which feel the .