| In most cases, eutrophication of a coastal zone is a multi-source phenomenon. The questions often raised by authorities about these different sources are: what are their marine area of influence and their respective role in the eutrophication process? A first answer to these questions is proposed for the bay of Biscay-English Channel French coasts, using a hydrodynamical model alone with a passive tracer for each of the main 45 French watersheds of the domain. The statistical marine receiving area of each river is then defined over a whole decade (2000–2010) by using different percentiles (respectively the 10th, 50th, 90th ones) of the distribution of tracer values in each mesh of the grid: this enables to map the dilution areas of each river plume... |
