'Subterranean Estuaries' Crucial to Sustainable Fishing and Aquaculture Industries

摘要

Subterranean estuaries are analogous to surface water estuaries, where freshwater flowing out to sea mixes with seawater, but are instead located underground, invisible to the naked eye. Yet the newly published research shows these hidden features are very important in the ecology of coastal systems and in filtering pollutants - some of which have been slowly travelling to sea for decades having leached from agricultural soils.The research, just published open access in Limnology and Oceanography, uncovered subterranean estuaries in the Ria de Vigo in Galicia (one of the most productive coastal ecosystems in Europe and leader in bivalve production for human consumption) and assessed their importance to the coastal environment.