10
Gerardo M.E. Perillo . M. Cintia Piccolo . Mario Pino-Quivira
express their concepts and papers are rejected discouraging further presentations.
However, in other cases, editors reject papers from particular areas because they do
not have international appeal.
Although it is not the main concern of this paper, from the analysis of the individual journals (Table 1.1), there is a remarkable bias in the scope of each journal. Almost 80% of the papers published in Estuaries are from USA/Canada and normally
European estuaries have a similar treatment (although slightly higher) to the rest of
the regions. Whereas, ECSS accepted more papers from Europe and (with a small difference) from USA/Canada. However, authors from the other regions tend to publish
more in this journal than in Estuaries.
Considering specifically the papers published in both journals about estuaries from
South America, there is a considerable difference between them (7 in Estuaries and
26 in ECSS). In this regard, we did two types of analysis: one dealing with .the main
subject of the article and another related to the country in which the estuary(ies) is(are)
located. Figure 1.6 shows the total percentage distribution based on the eight major
subject we classified each paper (Geomorphology, Physical Oceanography, Geomorphology/Physical, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry or a combination of both Biology and Chemistry, Biology and Physical, and Biology and Geomorphology). Of the
total of 33 papers found in both journals, 23 were fully or partly devoted to Biology as
main subject (18 were only on biological matters). Nine papers were fully or partly
related to Geomorphology and/or Physical Oceanography, but no paper actually considered both issues together.
Of course, our analysis is not suggesting or indicating that any subject has a lesser
importance than the others. What we like to point out is the fact that there is a dramatic bias towards only one of the sciences, which is valid for all over the world probably due to the unbalance that exist on the number of specialist in each discipline. It is
necessary to remember that the main approach we tried to follow with the present book
was to show the level of knowledge about Geomorphology and Physical Oceanography in South American estuaries. We consider that estuaries should be studied by teams
of researchers with a wide variety of disciplines applying an integrated approach.
In Table 1.2 we correlated the main subject of each of the individual articles with
the country in which the described estuary is located. Notably of the eleven countries
having marine coasts in South America, we found papers dealing with estuaries from
only six of them, and two of the countries (Equator and French Guiana) have one paper each. The bulk of the articles comes from Brazil, Chile and Argentina which also
have the longer coastlines but also the larger number of estuaries. Again, the bias towards Biology is observed specifically in Brazil and Chile. In the latter all papers but
one are purely Biological. Whereas Argentina has more papers dealing with Geomorphology and Physical Oceanography than Biology.
As a further example of this large differentiation, we analysed the references in the
following eight chapters of this book. We considered only all articles that strictly refer to South American Estuaries or related coastal features. We did not considered
abstracts in congresses or specialized journals. It resulted in a total of 387 references
(only 14% were repeated in two or more chapters) resulting that 65.4% were published
in Latin American sources (e.g., journals, technical reports, proceedings of congresses,
books and chapters of books).
Gerardo M.E. Perillo . M. Cintia Piccolo . Mario Pino-Quivira
express their concepts and papers are rejected discouraging further presentations.
However, in other cases, editors reject papers from particular areas because they do
not have international appeal.
Although it is not the main concern of this paper, from the analysis of the individual journals (Table 1.1), there is a remarkable bias in the scope of each journal. Almost 80% of the papers published in Estuaries are from USA/Canada and normally
European estuaries have a similar treatment (although slightly higher) to the rest of
the regions. Whereas, ECSS accepted more papers from Europe and (with a small difference) from USA/Canada. However, authors from the other regions tend to publish
more in this journal than in Estuaries.
Considering specifically the papers published in both journals about estuaries from
South America, there is a considerable difference between them (7 in Estuaries and
26 in ECSS). In this regard, we did two types of analysis: one dealing with .the main
subject of the article and another related to the country in which the estuary(ies) is(are)
located. Figure 1.6 shows the total percentage distribution based on the eight major
subject we classified each paper (Geomorphology, Physical Oceanography, Geomorphology/Physical, Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry or a combination of both Biology and Chemistry, Biology and Physical, and Biology and Geomorphology). Of the
total of 33 papers found in both journals, 23 were fully or partly devoted to Biology as
main subject (18 were only on biological matters). Nine papers were fully or partly
related to Geomorphology and/or Physical Oceanography, but no paper actually considered both issues together.
Of course, our analysis is not suggesting or indicating that any subject has a lesser
importance than the others. What we like to point out is the fact that there is a dramatic bias towards only one of the sciences, which is valid for all over the world probably due to the unbalance that exist on the number of specialist in each discipline. It is
necessary to remember that the main approach we tried to follow with the present book
was to show the level of knowledge about Geomorphology and Physical Oceanography in South American estuaries. We consider that estuaries should be studied by teams
of researchers with a wide variety of disciplines applying an integrated approach.
In Table 1.2 we correlated the main subject of each of the individual articles with
the country in which the described estuary is located. Notably of the eleven countries
having marine coasts in South America, we found papers dealing with estuaries from
only six of them, and two of the countries (Equator and French Guiana) have one paper each. The bulk of the articles comes from Brazil, Chile and Argentina which also
have the longer coastlines but also the larger number of estuaries. Again, the bias towards Biology is observed specifically in Brazil and Chile. In the latter all papers but
one are purely Biological. Whereas Argentina has more papers dealing with Geomorphology and Physical Oceanography than Biology.
As a further example of this large differentiation, we analysed the references in the
following eight chapters of this book. We considered only all articles that strictly refer to South American Estuaries or related coastal features. We did not considered
abstracts in congresses or specialized journals. It resulted in a total of 387 references
(only 14% were repeated in two or more chapters) resulting that 65.4% were published
in Latin American sources (e.g., journals, technical reports, proceedings of congresses,
books and chapters of books).