For instructors or students of physical oceanography at the graduate level, choosing a textbook is a pleasant exercise and often a matter of taste rather than necessity when it comes to open-ocean processes. Choices become somewhat limited or even problematic regarding books on estuarine dynamics, and the arrival of Estuaries: Dynamics, Mixing, Sedimentation, and Morphology by David Prandle has been met with high expectations. The author’s contribution to the field is substantial by any standard, which warrants an interest in this volume by students and experienced researchers alike, as well as by engineers, managers, and other practitioners dealing with the estuarine environment. Prandle compiles and revisits many of his previous results, and includes complementary discussions of other relevant studies. Although individual chapters are written in a “stand-alone” style, the same theoretical framework is applied throughout the text so that the reader can navigate among different chapters and subjects relatively easily. The book’s title accurately represents its content: a wealth of information on tidal and residual circulation in estuaries, mixing processes between riverine discharge and oceanic water, and how these dynamics affect sediment balance and shape estuarine morphology.

Yankovsky, A. 2009. Review of Estuaries: Dynamics, Mixing, Sedimentation and Morphology, by D. Prandle. Oceanography 22(4):252–253, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2009.118.

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