River basin sediment dynamics and interactions within the UK Land-Ocean Interaction Study : the context

A major Land-Ocean Interaction Study (LOIS) was launched by the UK Natural Environmental Research Council in 1992 as a Community Research Programme. The six-year programme, which was completed in 1998, aimed to estimate contemporary fluxes into and out of the coastal zone, to characterize the key physical and biogeochemical processes involved, to describe the longer term evolution of coastal systems and to develop coupled land-ocean models. The rivers component of the LOIS study focused on the Yorkshire Ouse and the other principal rivers draining to the Humber Estuary, and on the River Tweed. Most effort was directed to the Yorkshire Ouse. The river research programme emphasized sediment, water quality and biological investigations. In view of the general lack of information on suspended sediment transport by British rivers, particular attention was placed on investigating the suspended sediment dynamics of the study rivers and their tidal reaches and interactions between fine sediment and nutrients and contaminants. The 14 papers contained in this special issue report various aspects of these sediment studies, including several linked to the longer term behaviour of the river systems involved.