NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.
This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.
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The National Research Council was organized by the National Academy of Sciences in 1916 to associate the broad community of science and technology with the Academy’s purposes of furthering knowledge and advising the federal government. Functioning in accordance with general policies determined by the Academy, the Council has become the principal operating agency of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering in providing services to the government, the public, and the scientific and engineering communities. The Council is administered jointly by both Academies and the Institute of Medicine. Dr. Bruce Alberts and Dr. Robert M. White are chairman and vice chairman, respectively, of the National Research Council.
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STEERING COMMITTEE AND COASTAL WORKING GROUP
KARL K. TUREKIAN,
Yale University, New Haven, CT,
Retreat Chairman
ROBERT C. BEARDSLEY,
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, Woods Hole, MA
HELEN M. INGRAM,
University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
GENE E. LIKENS,
The New York Botanical Garden, Millbrook, NY
SYUKURO MANABE,
NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ
DUNCAN T. PATTEN,
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
LARRY L. SMARR,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL
PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTORS
ALAN F. BLUMBERG,
Hydroqual, Incorporated, Glen Rock, NJ
RICHARD F. BOPP,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
WILLIAM M. EICHBAUM,
The World Wildlife Fund, Washington, DC
DOUGLAS L. INMAN,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
STEPHEN P. LEATHERMAN,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD
RICHARD ROTUNNO,
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
JERRY R. SCHUBEL,
The State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY
R. EUGENE TURNER,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
JOY B. ZEDLER,
San Diego State University, San Diego, CA
NRC STAFF
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director,
Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources
GARY D. KRAUSS, Staff Officer,
Water Science and Technology Board
COMMISSION ON GEOSCIENCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RESOURCES
M. GORDON WOLMAN,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD,
Chairman
PATRICK R. ATKINS,
Aluminum Company of America, Pittsburgh, PA
PETER EAGLESON,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
EDWARD A. FRIEMAN,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA
W. BARCLAY KAMB,
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
JACK E. OLIVER,
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
FRANK L. PARKER,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
RAYMOND A. PRICE,
Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada
THOMAS A. SCHELLING,
University of Maryland, College Park, MD
LARRY L. SMARR,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL
STEVEN M. STANLEY,
The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
VICTORIA J. TSCHINKEL,
Landers and Parsons, Tallahassee, FL
WARREN WASHINGTON,
National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO
EDITH BROWN WEISS,
Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC
Staff
STEPHEN RATTIEN, Executive Director
STEPHEN D. PARKER, Associate Executive Director
MORGAN GOPNIK, Assistant Executive Director
JEANETTE SPOON, Administrative Officer
SANDI FITZPATRICK, Administrative Associate
ROBIN ALLEN, Senior Project Assistant
Preface
On June 25-26, 1992, the National Research Council's (NRC) Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources (CGER) held a retreat on "Multiple Uses of the Coastal Zone in a Changing World" at its Jonsson Study Center in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The purpose of the retreat was to bring together a diverse group to assess the dimensions of our scientific knowledge as it applies to social and environmental issues in the coastal zone.
People have always been drawn to coastal areas for food, commerce, and recreation. Over the past half century, increases in the coastal population and accelerated land use changes have threatened key ecosystem functions that are necessary to maintain plant and animal communities, the quality and quantity of our water supplies, and our ability to harvest the historically abundant natural resources from our bays, estuaries, and the oceans within our coastal waters.
Population and economic activity continue to concentrate in the coastal zone. The stakes riding on future management decisions affecting the coastal zone are large. On the one hand, traditional management approaches have not been adequate to halt environmental degradation and associated losses. On the other, significant economic and social costs are associated with many of the protective measures proposed, such as controlling point and nonpoint sources of pollution, imposing limits on fish harvests, or restricting coastal development. Given the complexity of the scene, there is a clear need for the scientific, managerial, and policy communities to surmount traditional barriers to support a more integrated approach to inform and guide decisions in the coastal zone.
A steering committee of commission members, working closely with CGER staff, organized and hosted the retreat. Karl Turekian acted as retreat chair. Ten papers were presented by recognized experts in the fields of ecology, oceanography, meteorology, marine biology, hydrology, geomorphology, and public policy. The preparation of the papers was carefully monitored by the steering committee. The fifty attendees participated in workshops that examined different aspects of the coastal zone—weather/climate, ocean circulation, geomorphology, rivers/estuaries, wetlands, land use, pollution, and public policy and institutional arrangements. Facilitators and scribes were selected to stimulate debate and discussion in the workshops and to record the key issues identified by each group. Following the retreat, a working group, led by Donald Boesch, helped pull together the ideas and recommendations from the retreat.
The report has two major sections: an overview and the background papers by individual authors. The overview represents a collaborative effort by the working group, commission members, and NRC staff based on a review of the papers and the major issues discussed at the retreat. The
entire report has been read by a group other than the authors, but only the overview has been subjected to the report review criteria established by the National Research Council's Report Review Committee. The background papers have been reviewed for factual correctness and edited.
The Commission on Geosciences, Environment, and Resources gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions of time and expertise of the retreat participants. Special thanks are extended to those who made formal presentations, acted as facilitators to stimulate discussion, or served as scribes in the workshops. It is hoped that the discussions presented here will stimulate new ideas and research, suggest some starting points for a more holistic approach to broad resource and environmental issues in the coastal zone, and perhaps form the basis for further inquiry of specific issues by units of the NRC.
M. Gordon Wolman, Chairman
Commission on Geosciences,
Environment, and Resources
Contents
Suggested Issues for the National Research Council and its Constituents to Pursue, |
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2 A Synopsis of Coastal Meteorology: A Review of the State of the Science |
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3 Modeling Transport Processes in the Coastal Ocean |
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4 Coastal Geomorphology |
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5 Rivers and Estuaries: A Hudson Perspective |
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6 Types of Coastal Zones: Similarities and Differences |
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7 Landscapes and the Coastal Zone |
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8 Coastal Wetlands: Multiple Management Problems in Southern California |
9 Coastal Pollution and Waste Management |
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10 Coastal Management and Policy |
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11 Research and Development Funding for Coastal Science and Management in the United States |
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