CARBON IN ESTUARIES 



225 



TABLE 2 

 AREAS OF ESTUARY AND ESTUARINE MARSH* 



*Source map: Man's Domain/A Thematic Atlas of the World, 2nd ed., 

 N. T. W. Thrower (Ed.), McGraw-Hill Book Company. Most coast 

 measurements taken from Azimuth Equal Area Projections. 



t Ratios are same as those applied to the United States in the National 

 Estuarine Pollution Study. See Table 1. 



$ Except where indicated, measurements do not include coastlines north of 

 60° N latitude. 



§ Includes Baltic sea coast, Norway west coast 60 to 70° N latitude, United 

 Kingdom. 



H Crude coastline estimates of major portions of the Philippines, Indonesia, 

 and Madagascar. 



estuaries considerably more complex than that of lakes, rivers, or most terrestrial 

 systems. One important tool in appraising the function of any unit of the earth's 

 surface is net ecosystem production, the net change in the amount of carbon 

 held by the system in a unit of time. 14 Interpretation and measurement of net 

 ecosystem production for an estuary are especially awkward without clarifica- 

 tion of the relationship between the fixed carbon participating in exchanges with 



