twice this value[@wfmark]. The small amplitude of the bulk flow recently measured is in marked contrast to earlier claims of large amplitude coherent motions over scales of the order of 100$h^{-1}$ Mpc[@courteausurvey], which at face value would imply excess power on very large scales. This result is in line with the results of recent redshift surveys which have not detected inhomogeneities on very large scales.

Greater insight on the characteristic of the flowfield can be obtained by decomposing the 3-D velocity field into two components, one which is induced by the local mass distribution and a tidal component due to mass fluctuations external to the volume considered[@hoffman][@wfmark][@wfenear]. Figure \[fig:tidal\] shows the results of this decomposition applied to the ENEAR survey[@wfenear], where the local volume is a sphere of $ 80\hmpc$ centered on the Local Group. The plots show the full velocity field (upper left panel), the divergent (upper right panel) and the tidal (lower left panel) components. To further understand the nature of the tidal field, its bulk velocity component has been subtracted and the residual is shown in the lower right panel. This residual is clearly dominated by a quadrupole component. In principle, the analysis of this residual field 