Resumen
An analysis based on the compilation of bibliographic information for the southwestern Gulf of México led to the establishment of an integrated oceanographic framework useful to assess the processes that take place at different spatial and temporal scales. Those scales are related to the survival of the Sistema Arrecifal Veracruzano (SAV). This study should help us understand the multidisciplinary approach necessary to understand the marine environment of the area. The information was analyzed considering two main dynamic scales: the basin and the coastal zone, both included in a conceptual model, which states that the circulation in the SAV is the result of the interaction between the different components of the circulation and atmospheric processes. Both processes influence the generation of gradients of scalar properties, which, in turn, influence the coral reef community of the SAV.