Physical oceanography in the coastal waters of the Maltese Islands

Abstract

The current socio-economic development activities in Malta are taking place at a fast rate and a background of adequate scientific knowledge and marine research is required not only to assess the nature and extent of the living and non-living resources but also to provide development strategies that ensure the proper use and the good environmental management of such resources. This paper aims to present the limited physical oceanographic data currently available for the coastal waters of the Maltese Islands and to use such measurements in an attempt to identify the hydrodynamical processes and phenomena that should be investigated in future surveys. Ship station data are mainly available. Nearshore water current and BT data concern almost exclusively regions at the East and North East coast close to the main sewer outfall. These measurements were collected by the Department of physics, University of Malta in the 1970's.