Book excerpt: Published by the American Geophysical Union as part of the Coastal and Estuarine Studies, Volume 50. Continental shelves, coastal seas and estuaries contain many valuable resources for economic, social, tourist and recreational activity. The majority of the world's largest cities are located on the coastline. For example, 86% of the total Australian population is located in the coastal zone. Almost 75% of the global harvest of fisheries comes from coastal areas. However, it is also the region into which anthropogenic wastes are discharged, leading to degradation of the environment. As we become more aware of the consequences of these discharges, and develop new management strategies to avoid detrimental effects in estuaries and coastal regions, it is clear that an understanding of mixing processes plays a very important role in dispersion of introduced contaminants. This volume consists of 30 papers, each dealing with different aspects of mixing processes in the marine environment. The following topics are covered: inner continental shelf processes, shelf?]estuary interactions, estuarine processes, sediment transport processes, ocean outfalls, and theoretical studies. The majority of the papers include results of field experiments with some degree of integration with numerical and/or analytical models. A wide variety of environments from different countries are presented. These include micro?] and macro?]tidal environments, areas influenced by major oceanic current systems, enclosed and semi?]enclosed embayments, and mangrove environments.