Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Coastal and Estuarine Sciences, Volume 2. The AGU Monograph Series on Coastal and Estuarine Regimes is intended to provide timely summaries and reviews of major process and regional studies, both observational and theoretical, and of theoretical and numerical models. It grew out of an IAPSO/SCOR/ECOR working group initiative several years ago designed to enhance scientific communications on this topic. The series" authors and editors are drawn from the international community. The ultimate goal is to stimulate bringing the theory and observations of coastal and estuarine regimes together on the global scale.