Coastal seas
Our coastal seas have a multitude of uses such as fisheries, sources of wave, wind and tidal energy, hydrocarbons and aggregate resource, commercial and recreational shipping. Globally, more and more people are relocating to within 100km of the coast, which increases the impact of human activities on shelf seas. Coastal mega-cities, with populations in excess of 20 million, are being developed and some of these are at risk from rising sea level, storms and coastal erosion. Shelf sea fisheries are coming under increasing pressure to land more fish. Marine protected areas are likely to play a role in conserving sea fish stocks but where should they be located, how large an area should they cover and do they require designated connecting corridors? In addition to the impact of human activities on shelf seas, global warming is also driving change in these regions.
NOC carries out a range of observational programmes to observe how the shelf seas around the UK are changing. The data from these observational programmes is used to validate "whole -system shelf sea numerical models" that simulate the hydrodynamics (e.g. currents and waves), sediment transport and ecosystems. Models of this type are invaluable in predicting how the shelf seas will respond to human activities and climate change.
The importance of shelf seas
Continental shelf seas, the marginal seas adjacent to the land, are the region where humanity predominantly interacts with the sea.
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Coastal change
Anyone who regularly visits the sea shore will know that our coast changes all the time. The sand on a beach can disappear overnight during a storm, only to wash back in again over the following days. Softer cliffs can erode at a startling rate, sometimes taking entire houses with them into the sea. Even rocky coastlines change, with rocks falling from cliffs from time to time as the sea gradually wears away at them. Other areas are gradually silting up, with plants getting a foothold on what were once sandy shores, and sand banks can move around, altering the position of the channels through which boats may pass.Read more →
Currents and waves
In coastal waters waves, changing water levels and currents all interact. Understanding these interactions and their influence on the coastline is of great importance for coastal management, especially in a changing climate.
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Sediment transport?
As an island nation, the UK is heavily dependent upon our shelf seas for food, oil, gas, aggregates and, increasingly, for the generation of electricity. A great deal of the UK’s imported and exported goods travel by sea and their safe passage requires the detailed knowledge of the marine environment (e.g. accurate charts of the depth of our coastal seas, prediction of the waves and marine weather prediction).Read more →
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Shelf sea ecosystems
The shelf seas account for only about 5% of the ocean’s surface area, but they play key roles in controlling our climate and in supporting important food supplies. A measure of how productive an area of ocean is involves assessing how much carbon is “fixed” by the phytoplankton, the single-celled photosynthetic plants that lie at the heart of the marine food chain.Read more →
