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Eutrophication, water management, and the functioning of Dutch estuaries and coastal lagoons

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Abstract

A number of major European rivers (especially the Rhine) have a prevailing influence on the nutrient cycling of most Dutch estuaries. Owing to the increased loading of the estuaries with nitrogen and phosphorus compounds, effects of eutrophication on the biological communities are most evident in the tidal Western Wadden Sea and in a nontidal brackish lagoon, Veerse Meer. Whether the relation between changed nutrient loadings and changed biomass and production of primary and secondary producers in the turbid tidal Dutch ecosystems should be considered as a causal relation is questionable. The very widespread practice of lagoon modification confuses the effects of nutrient loading.

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    Pieter H. Nienhuis

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Nienhuis, P.H. Eutrophication, water management, and the functioning of Dutch estuaries and coastal lagoons. Estuaries 15, 538–548 (1992). https://doi.org/10.2307/1352396

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