National Estuary Study: Volume 2 - Appendix A - Staff Report

Abstract

This staff report summarizes background information essential to an understanding of the problems of the estuaries and Great Lakes and to devising solutions for them. It draws freely on draft and published materials of Federal and State Governments, statistics and data compiled by Federal agencies, publications of institutions and conservation organizations, and the several contract documents appended to the main report following this staff report. Also used freely was the data bank of the Deparment of the Interior's estuarine pollution study as well as the report of that study issued in November 1969. In addition it draws on interviews with Federal, State, local, and institutional experts, and on the sources of both Bureaus of the Fish and Wildlife Service. This basic information report is organized in four chapters: The Estuarine Environment; Estuarine Uses and Conflicts; Estuarine Management; and Estuarine Conservation--A Synthesis. The first deals with the physical and biological characteristics of estuaries of the United States and the Great Lakes; the second discusses the major uses that directly or indirectly affect these areas; the third summarizes the legal and institutional arrangements that determine how these areas are managed; and the fourth draws together the import of the first three.