TIDAL DEPOSITION AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS: SUMMARY ON SEVENTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TIDAL ENVIRONMENTS

International conference on tidal environments was held every four years, it is the first time for China to be a successful host of the 7th conference in September, 2008, bringing together newly research achievements on tidal deposition and environments. "Modern and ancient tidal sedimentation and sedimentary sequences","tidal hydrodynamics-sediment dynamics and morphodynamics", "impacts of global change and human activities on tidal environments" and "physical and mathematical modeling techniques for tidal environments" were considered as the focus topics. It introduced the six main tidal depositional systems on China's shallow and wide continental shelf which is famous for museum of tidal depositional morphology on continental shelf; for its close relations to human's activities the development of tide-dominated delta was drew much attention; identification and analysis of tidal sedimentary sequence not only show the source of sediments, but also reveal the dynamic mechanism of behavior pattern of tidal currents and sediments. The environmental effects of tidal deposition are not just regional but even more the apparent response to global change, therefore, its monitoring and physics-numerical simulation under this background play an irreplaceable role in the understanding of tidal depositional systems of high-and low-latitude regions in response to global change and transformation of depositional systems by extreme climate events.