What this is
Tidewater Institute is a small online project that writes free course notes on coastal ecology and marine science for curious learners of every age. There are seven units, a glossary, activity plans for teachers and a printable summary. We prefer a clear sentence to a technical one, and we say so when a topic is still debated.
- Anyone can learn how a shoreline works by looking carefully at one.
- Good notes are brief, checked and easy to print.
- A coast is best protected by people who understand it.
The project is independent. It has no premises, no staff directory and no connection with any school, agency or company.
How facts are checked
- Every statement of fact in a unit can be traced to a published book or article. Each unit ends with a “Basis of the facts” box that names the sources.
- Numbers are rounded and marked as approximate. If a figure is widely quoted but hard to verify, the unit says so.
- Where scientists disagree, the unit says it is debated. We do not choose a side without evidence.
- If we are not sure, we leave the statement out.
- There are no photographs, no logos and no copied text. Tables and diagrams are drawn in plain text and tables.
Sources
These are books and journal articles that a reader can look up in a library. Pages and volumes are given where the record is firm. Editions are named only where they matter.
General
- Nybakken, J. W. and Bertness, M. D. Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach. Pearson Benjamin Cummings.
- Mann, K. H. (2000). Ecology of Coastal Waters: With Implications for Management, 2nd edition. Blackwell Science.
- Carson, R. (1955). The Edge of the Sea. Houghton Mifflin.
Unit 1: Tides, waves and erosion
- Pugh, D. and Woodworth, P. (2014). Sea-Level Science: Understanding Tides, Surges, Tsunamis and Mean Sea-Level Changes. Cambridge University Press.
- Pethick, J. (1984). An Introduction to Coastal Geomorphology. Edward Arnold.
- IPCC (2021). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report. Cambridge University Press.
Unit 2: Tide pools
- Connell, J. H. (1961). The influence of interspecific competition and other factors on the distribution of the barnacle Chthamalus stellatus. Ecology 42: 710–723.
- Paine, R. T. (1966). Food web complexity and species diversity. The American Naturalist 100: 65–75.
- Raffaelli, D. and Hawkins, S. (1996). Intertidal Ecology. Chapman and Hall.
Unit 3: Salt marshes
- Adam, P. (1990). Saltmarsh Ecology. Cambridge University Press.
- Barbier, E. B. and others (2011). The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services. Ecological Monographs 81: 169–193.
- McLeod, E. and others (2011). A blueprint for blue carbon: toward an improved understanding of the role of vegetated coastal habitats in sequestering CO2. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 9: 552–560.
Unit 4: Mangroves
- Tomlinson, P. B. (1986). The Botany of Mangroves. Cambridge University Press.
- Giri, C. and others (2011). Status and distribution of mangrove forests of the world using earth observation satellite data. Global Ecology and Biogeography 20: 154–159.
- Valiela, I., Bowen, J. L. and York, J. K. (2001). Mangrove forests: one of the world’s threatened major tropical environments. BioScience 51: 807–815.
- Duke, N. C. and others (2007). A world without mangroves? Science 317: 41–42.
Unit 5: Seagrass meadows
- Short, F. T. and others (2011). Extinction risk assessment of the world’s seagrass species. Biological Conservation 144: 1961–1971.
- Waycott, M. and others (2009). Accelerating loss of seagrasses across the globe threatens coastal ecosystems. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106: 12377–12381.
- Fourqurean, J. W. and others (2012). Seagrass ecosystems as a globally significant carbon stock. Nature Geoscience 5: 505–509.
Unit 6: Coral reefs
- Darwin, C. (1842). The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs. Smith, Elder and Co.
- Veron, J. E. N. (2000). Corals of the World. Australian Institute of Marine Science.
- Hoegh-Guldberg, O. and others (2007). Coral reefs under rapid climate change and ocean acidification. Science 318: 1737–1742.
- Ferrario, F. and others (2014). The effectiveness of coral reefs for coastal hazard risk reduction and adaptation. Nature Communications 5: 3794.
Unit 7: Plankton and food webs
- Lalli, C. M. and Parsons, T. R. (1997). Biological Oceanography: An Introduction, 2nd edition. Butterworth-Heinemann.
- Field, C. B. and others (1998). Primary production of the biosphere: integrating terrestrial and oceanic components. Science 281: 237–240.
- Azam, F. and others (1983). The ecological role of water-column microbes in the sea. Marine Ecology Progress Series 10: 257–263.
- Hays, G. C., Richardson, A. J. and Robinson, C. (2005). Climate change and marine plankton. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 20: 337–344.
Corrections
If you find a mistake, tell your teacher or look it up in a source above. The site has no form and no published address. When a way to send corrections is ready, it will appear on the questions page.