Field State Park, lands purchased for the 

 Reserve, for which the City of San Diego holds 

 title, lands held by the County of San Diego, 

 and small inholdings under private 

 ownership. Immediately upstream of the 

 estuary is the Tijuana River Valley, where 

 the County of San Diego is acquiring land for a 

 regional park and considering a variety of 

 enhancement measures. On the Mexico side of 

 the border, the Tijuana River is a concrete- 

 lined flood control channel, which extends 

 inland towards Rodriguez Dam. Most of the 

 1,731 square mile (4,483 sq. km.) 

 watershed is behind this major dam. 



1.8 THE RESEARCH 



In the first year that research funding 

 became available through the NERR program, 

 four graduate students entered the national 

 competition and obtained support for work on 

 phytoplankton (Fong 1986), macroalgal 

 dynamics (Rudnicki 1986), dune restoration 

 (Fink 1987), and interactions of native and 

 exotic dune plants (Wood 1987). Thereafter, 

 the studies supported through NERR 

 concerned ecosystem monitoring (Zedler and 

 Covin 1984, Covin 1984, Covin and Zedler 

 1988), the dynamics of marsh vegetation 

 (Covin et al. 1986, Zedler et al. 1986, 

 Zedler 1986), soils (Mayer 1987), 

 reestablishment of plant populations (Zedler 

 and Covin 1987), the response of fish and 

 benthic invertebrates to wastewater influxes 

 (Nordby and Zedler 1988, Nordby and Zedler 

 1991), simulation modeling and salt marsh 

 monitoring (Brenchley-Jackson et al. 

 1990), and wastewater wetlands to protect 

 Tijuana Estuary from sewage pollution 

 (Busnardo 1992, Sinicrope 1992). 



The California Sea Grant Program, the 

 State Resources Agency, the State Coastal 

 Conservancy, and other agencies have funded 

 research that complements and extends the 

 knowledge base for Tijuana Estuary. Studies 

 carried out at the NERR have had major 

 impacts on landscape planning and resource 

 management throughout California. 



• Plans to restrict wastewater discharge 

 to coastal streams have been guided by the 

 detrimental effects of salinity reduction that 

 have been documented at Tijuana Estuary. 



• Management goals of providing full tidal 

 flushing to tidally impaired systems have 

 been based on the impacts of tidal closure, 

 which occurred in the estuary in 1984. 



• Methods of restoring functional salt 

 marsh habitats have been based on 

 experimental work at the NERR. 



• Artificial wetlands (72 ponds within a 

 30-acre NERR site) were shown effective in 

 attracting wildlife and subsidizing habitat for 

 the estuary's bird populations. 



• Innovative research on how to 

 manipulate the hydroperiods (filling and 

 drainage regimes) of wetlands constructed for 

 wastewater treatment has shown how 

 effective marsh soils and plants are in 

 removing nitrogen and heavy metals from 

 wastewater. This project, along with the 

 artificial wetland demonstration project, has 

 influenced plans for reclaiming and reusing 

 wastewater. It is likely that the future will 

 see a major change in the way treated 

 wastewaters are managed. Instead of 

 discharging effluent to the ocean, it will be 

 reused in irrigation, and excess volumes will 

 probably be impounded for marsh habitat, 

 wildlife production, ground-water recharge, 

 and esthetic appreciation, with proper 

 controls on outflow to avoid damage to saline 

 habitats along the coast. 



1.9 



MANAGEMENT 



Management of the Research Reserve is a 

 cooperative effort that involves many agencies 

 and individuals (Chapter 6) in accordance 

 with the management plan (Dobbin Associates 

 1986). Only three other NERRs are located 

 along the Pacific coast: Elkhorn Slough on 

 Monterey Bay, California; South Slough on 

 Coos Bay, Oregon; and Padilla Bay in 

 Washington. 



