Stokes Inlet is an

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In ma ...

in the Goldfields-Esperance region of

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to ...

. The inlet is situated west of Esperance in Stokes National Park and is set is a large

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the ...

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

with permanent deep water and high dunes located on either side. Thick bushland and paperbark trees surround the inlet and grow down to the waters edge. It is in a largely unmodified condition. The inlet functions primarily as a result of wave energy and is a wave dominated

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime environm ...

. Stokes Inlet was named in 1848 by

John Septimus Roe John Septimus Roe (8 May 1797 – 28 May 1878) was the first Surveyor-General of Western Australia. He was a renowned explorer, a member of Western Australia's legislative and executive councils for nearly 40 years, but also a participant in ...

, the Surveyor General of Western Australia, while leading a five-man exploration expedition along the coast, commemorating John Lort Stokes' work on , surveying the Western Australian coast.

Geography

The inlet is managed by the Department of Environment and Conservation with a

catchment A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, th ...

that extends over inland and is fed by two main rivers, the Young and

Lort The League of Resident Theatres (LORT) is the largest professional theater association of its kind in the United States, with 75 member theaters located in every major market in the U.S., including 29 states and the District of Columbia. LORT me ...

Rivers. The inlet itself is long and wide with an area of , and receives an annual flow of 5 million cubic metres. The central basin has an area of with intertidal flats having an area of approximately . The mouth of the river is in the middle of Dunster Castle Bay; it is closed by a sandbar that cuts the

off from the sea and only opens every few years. As a result, the

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensionless and equal ...

and water level fluctuate greatly dependent upon the amount of evaporation and river flow.

Flora

The aquatic flora of the estuary are dominated by the small green

algae Algae ( , ; : alga ) are any of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic, eukaryotic organisms. The name is an informal term for a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from ...

'' Polyphysa peniculus'', the stonewort '' Lamprothamnium papulosum'', and the seagrass '' Ruppia megacarpa''. The waterbody of the inlet is fringed with salt water paperbarks with

sedge The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large, with some 5,500 known species described in about 90 genera, the largest being the "true sedges" genus '' Carex'' ...

s and samphire common along the sandy sections.

Fauna

Marine species flourish at times when the bar is open; blue manna crabs, juvenile

prawn Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (which is a member of the order decapoda), some of which can be eaten. The term "prawn"Mortenson, Philip B (2010''This is not a weasel: a close look at nature ...

s, cockles and

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, whic ...

s have all been identified in the inlet. Many fish species inhabit the estuary, such as the common minnow, hardyheads, gobies, and larger species such as black bream and sea mullet.

References

{{coord, 33, 49, 11, S, 121, 9, 39, E, region:AU-WA_type:waterbody, display=title Inlets of Western Australia South coast of Western Australia