This region's goal is "to promote regional interdisciplinary research that will help to identify, characterize, and quantify the relationships between human population and human activities associated with coastal development and habitat structure and function."¹⁰ Program planners separated the region into two subregions, the Caribbean Sea and the South Atlantic Bight and focused on human and ecosystem health. They started by identifying two ecosystems of greatest concern: (1) coral reefs and (2) estuaries and embayments. After these two ecosystems were identified, program planners elicited information from workshop participants and other experts in the region to select a small number of research needs and questions for each ecosystem. Thus, for the coral reef ecosystem, the following specific research needs were selected:

1. " Determine the mechanisms, causes, and effects of coral decline as manifest by coral disease, low coral recruitment, and decreased growth rates of individual species. Determine, thereby, factors affecting reef recovery and reef succession

2. Determine economic and sociological ramifications of reef decline

3. Develop (in coordination with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) tropical water quality standards and classifications for the maintenance of reef health."¹¹

For estuaries and embayments the regional board recommended research to:

1. " Evaluate complete estuarine systems (including estuaries, embayments, marshes, and mangroves)—i.e., characterize (and classify, if appropriate) based on function and functional status

2. Create numerical ocean circulation models

3. [Include] Stand-alone socioeconomic and policy-oriented research needs."¹²

The Southwest region is unique among the nine regions in explicitly including foreign coastal waters, the Pacific coast of Baja California and the Gulf of California. This was done because relevant ecosystems (particularly the California Current) extend south of the border and because the North American Free

FRONT MATTER (R1-R10)

SUMMARY (1-8)

1: INTRODUCTION (9-16)

2: MAJOR COASTAL ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES (17-28)

3: SCIENCE PRIORITIES RELEVANT TO THE WATER SUBCOMMITTEE (29-58)

4: RELATIONSHIP OF REGIONAL, NATIONAL, AND INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS (59-70)

5: INTERFACES WITH OTHER NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COUNCIL COMMITTEES AND SUBCOMMITTEES (71-76)

6: SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (77-80)

REFERENCES (81-88)

APPENDIX A: LETTER OF REQUEST (89-92)

APPENDIX B: BIOGRAPHIES OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS (93-96)

APPENDIX C: BACKGROUND MATERIAL EXAMINED (97-106)