1Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series IEncyclopedia of Lakes and Reservoirs ISpringer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012 110.1007/978-1-4020-4410-6_264 ILars Bengtsson, Reginald W. Herschyand Rhodes W. Fairbridge Laurentian Great Lakes, Interaction of Coastal and Offshore Waters 1 21S3 Yerubandi R. Rao IS3 and David J. Schwab (1) Environment Canada, National Water Research Institute, Canada Center for Inland Waters, 867 Lakeshore Road, Burlington, ON, Canada (2) Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, 2205 Commonwealth Blvd, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA IS::l Yerubandi R. Rao (Corresponding author) Email:
[email protected] [;] David J. Schwab Email:
[email protected] Without Abstract Introduction The Laurentian Great Lakes represent an extensive, interconnected aquatic system dominated by its coastal nature. While the lakes are large enough to be significantly influenced by the earth's rotation, they are at the same time closed basins to be strongly influenced by coastal processes (Csanady, 1984). Nowhere is an understanding of how physical, geological, chemical, and biological processes interact in a coastal system more important to a body of water than the Great Lakes. Several factors combine to create complex hydrodynamics in coastal systems, and the associated physical transport and dispersal processes of the resulting coastal flow field are equally complex. Physical transport processes are often the dominant factor in mediating geochemical and biological processes in the coastal environment. Thus, it is critically important to have a thorough understanding of the coastal physical processes responsible for the distribution of chemical and biological species in this zone. However, the coastal regions are not isolated but are coupled with mid-lake waters by exchanges involving transport of materials, momentum, and energy.