Observations of flow over hollows (bathymetric depressions) at various estuarine systems suggest that their speed increases locally at the deepest part. Numerical experiments were carried out to investigate the reason for this acceleration. Results show that the flow is convergent before and then divergent after it passes over the hollow. However, the simulated current speeds in the hollow decr...

Marine ecosystem is a complex nonlinear system. However, ecosystem health assessment conventionally builds on a linear superposition of changes in ecosystem components and probably fails to evaluate nonlinear interactions among various components. To better reflect the intrinsic interactions and their impacts on ecosystem health, an ecosystem coordination index, defined as the matching level of...

Development of infrastructure around cities is rapidly increasing the amount of artificial substrate (termed artificial reef, 'AR') in coastal marine habitats. However, effects of ARs on marine communities remain unknown, because it is unclear whether ARs can maintain similar communities to natural reefs. We investigated whether well-established (> 30 years old) breakwaters could consistently a...