The 7th International Conference on Estuarine and Coastal Modeling (ECM) will be held concurrently with our ERF 2001 Biennial Conference. ECM typically brings together an energetic, diverse group of about 125 to 150 model researchers and users. The focus of ECM is to assess the current state of the art and practice in marine environmental hydrodynamic, water quality and sediment transport modeling.

The ECM will be at the Tradewinds Sirata Beach Resort Hotel in St. Pete Beach, 5-7 November 2001. Several joint technical sessions and social gatherings with ERF are planned. The opportunity to bring ECM together with ERF is most relevant today.

The last decade has seen the expanded use of numerical modeling techniques to understand the circulation and pollutant transport in estuarine and coastal waters. As confidence in these models has increased, environmental engineers and scientists have come to rely on them as tools for assessing environmental impacts for siting of proposed facilities or exploitation of marine resources. Today models are routinely used to estimate the impact of power plant operations, municipal and industrial waste discharges, dredging, marine development and accidental releases of hazardous chemicals on the environment. An ever growing number of models, some reliable, some not, have been developed, documented and applied to assess these impacts. As the science and application of modeling matures, standardization of model testing, calibration and validation becomes absolutely necessary. Already some government agencies have developed and adopted procedures to approve models for particular applications. The use of estuarine and coastal circulation and pollutant transport modeling is now common practice.

The goal the ECM 7 is detail the application of environmental models to estuaries, bays, sounds, lagoons, embayments, bights, and coastal areas. Models aimed at solving engineering and environmental impact assessment problems and improving the understanding of circulation and pollutant transport in these near shore water are included. Model applications to address regulatory requirements for facility sighting and operations are also presented.

Program topics include circulation modeling, pollutant transport and water quality prediction, modeling techniques and sensitivity studies, model-data comparison methods, specific estuarine and coastal system models, water level and current forecasting, visualization in model/data analysis, sediment transport modeling, modeling of chemicals and floatables, hazardous waste fate prediction, inverse methods and facility siting and CSO studies.

For those interested in presenting a paper at ECM 7, abstracts should be submitted via the conference web site (HREF=http://www.oce.uri.edu/emc7) by 15 May 2001. Additional information on the conference can be found at the conference web site and by contacting: