Severn Estuary

The Severn Estuary () is the estuary of the River Severn, the longest river in Great Britain. Its high tidal range means it has been at the centre of discussions in the UK regarding renewable energy.

Geography

Definitions of the limits of the Severn Estuary vary. A narrower definition adopted by some maps is that the river becomes the Severn Estuary after the Second Severn Crossing near Severn Beach, South Gloucestershire and stretches to a line from Lavernock Point (south of Cardiff) to Sand Point near Weston-super-Mare. A wider definition is that the estuary extends upstream to Aust, the site of the Severn Bridge. The estuary is about wide at Aust, and about wide between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare.

The estuary forms the boundary between Wales and England in this stretch. On the northern side of the estuary are the Caldicot and Wentloog Levels, on either side of the city of Newport; and, to the west, the city of Cardiff together with the resort of Penarth. On the southern, English, side, are Avonmouth, Portishead, Clevedon, and Weston-super-Mare. Denny Island is a small rocky island of , with scrub vegetation, approximately three miles north of Portishead. Its rocky southern foreshore marks the boundary between England and Wales, but the island itself is reckoned administratively to Monmouthshire, Wales.The estuary has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world — about .The estuary's funnel shape, its tidal...
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