Introduction to the shelf seas - Introduction to the Physical and Biological Oceanography of Shelf Seas - page 23

great potential for a further drawing together of the threads of physics, biogeochem-
istry and fisheries science to achieve a full synthesis of understanding of the shelf seas.
Such a synthesis should illuminate the processes that govern the distribution and
diversity of shelf sea ecosystems, clarify the role of the shelf seas in the Earth system
and underpin predictions of how the shelf seas will respond to our shifting climate.
The continuation and future development of this scientific campaign will require a
cohort of scientists whose training enables them to straddle what, in the past, have
seemed like disciplinary divides and approach the challenge of shelf sea science with a
truly interdisciplinary perspective.

Summary

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The shelf seas have an importance which is disproportionate to the relatively small
fraction of the area of the global ocean which they occupy. Biologically they are
among the most productive parts of the ocean and support most of the world's major
fisheries.
Their importance to modern society is heightened by the fact that a high propor-
tion of the human population lives close to the shores of the shelf seas and has
become increasingly dependent on the resources available there; apart from fish and
shellfish, they are also important sources of hydrocarbons and aggregates and we use
them extensively for transport and recreation. Modern industrial society has tended
to rely on the shelf seas as a convenient and economic way of disposing of toxic waste
materials. Along with some of these waste materials, rivers also carry large quantities
of nutrients leached from agricultural land. The proper management of the shelf seas
in response to these many pressures provides strong motivation for understanding
the workings of the shelf sea system and the development of predictive models of how
they will respond to future changes. Apart from these practical applications, the shelf
seas present us with a major interdisciplinary scientific challenge in unraveling the
many diverse processes involved in the working of the shelf sea regime. The history of
shelf sea research has been rather short; little was done until the early years of the
twentieth century and even then progress was limited, partly due to meagre resource
allocation but also because of the limitations of the available techniques for meas-
urement at sea. The last few decades have seen rapid progress and substantial
improvements in technology along with developments in theory. These have enabled
our understanding of much of the basic physics to have advanced to a point where it
provides a sound basis for elucidating the way physical processes influence and
control so much of the biogeochemistry and the structures of ecosystems. Biological
and chemical measurement techniques are improving rapidly, providing new process
insights and data on space and time scales to match measurements of physical
parameters. Alongside in situ measurement techniques and the remote sensing of
ocean properties, soundly based numerical models are useful tools for furthering
understanding and testing ideas.