SUSPENDED PARTICULATE MATTER BUDGET FOR THE GERMAN BIGHT

An SPM budget is set up for the German Eight, based on measurements of the TUVAS project between November 1989 and March 1992. The budget in cludes SPM fluxes from/into estuaries, from the atmosphere, into the s ediment (both of the German Eight proper and the German Wadden Sea) an d through the seaward boundaries of the budget area. The budget furthe r includes inventories of the fine sediment (grain size <20 mu m), whi ch has been subject to anthropogenic impact during the last 100 years. The SPM fluxes through the seaward boundaries exceed all other fluxes by more than one order of magnitude. With an SPM deposition of about 3 Mt yr(-1) (10% of the marine fluxes) the German Eight is an effectiv e sink for SPM. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.