protection uses. James Johnston describes the approaches being undertaken to 

 integrate a large number of data sets into an ecosystem framework for the support of 

 habitat protection activities in the coastal areas of our nation. Many other 

 representative endeavors could have been included here, particularly freshwater or 

 aquatic data base development. 



During the late sixties and the 1970s another revolution was occurring in the area 

 of ecology, in which step-down investigation began to give way to synoptic 

 integration and the emergence of holistic concepts of ecological systems.- Although 

 recognized as a discipline within the broad framework of biological sciences since the 

 1930s, the conceptual basis for the ecosystem as a fundamental unit of the biosphere 

 has only recently been drawn into perspective.' This strengthened concept rapidly 

 infiltrated applied ecology — in wildlife management, forest and range management, 

 and other aspects of natural resource management.'' Collectively, current ecological 

 concepts have brought a new perspective to dealing with the problems and processes 

 of habitat protection. Indeed, the holistic approach to management problems has 

 furthered the need for information relating species and their habitat requirements to 

 ecological processes. 



The impact of all the changes of the seventies on the field resource manager has 

 been staggering. Keeping up — with current legislation, regulations and policy, the 

 new concepts in his field, the enormous volumes of paper, and the mixed blessings of 

 modern computing — is a full-time job in itself. At the same time, the press of day-to- 

 day decisions affecting the fate of the resources he or she is charged with conserving 

 leads to increased reliance on one's best professional judgment. On the other hand, 

 society has developed an almost mystical belief in its own technology, including the 

 sometimes sterile information generated using computers. All too often a resource 

 manager's professional judgment is questioned before our judicial system, and the 

 desire for extensive documentation of data and methods becomes an issue unto 

 itself.^ 



Two major issues permeate all data base development activities, present and 

 future: I ) What is the appropriate role of data bases in development of information to 

 support the governmental decision processes that have an impact on habitat 

 protection? and 2) Where are we headed in our attempts to develop integratable 

 information bases to support habitat management? 



THE ROLE OF DATA BASES IN INFORMATION DEVELOPMENT 



During the late 1970s the developers and suppliers of natural resource technical 

 information recognized that their products had to fit the needs of the 

 decisionmakers. ' '^ These specified information needs are constrained by institutional 

 as well as scientific/technical limitations. It is helpful to define the relationships used 

 to develop specific ecological information needs. Ecological information 

 development is not limited to, but includes all aspects of habitat protection. The 

 determination of institutional and scientific/technical opportunities and constraints 

 can be schematically depicted as an information flow network, which has two 

 primary sets of components — institutional analysis of governmental decisionmaking 

 and technical analysis of the concepts guiding data base development. These two sets 

 are briefly defined and discussed below from a generalized federal decision process 

 perspective. 



Institutional Analysis Components 



Institutional analysis components are the primary drivers in a schematic network 

 of information flow and feed-back pathways in the development of ecological 

 information for use in habitat protection (Figure 1). Legal mandates (laws, 

 regulations, executive orders, court decrees), together with program needs determine 

 Study Criteria, which transmit specifications to the Technical Analysis Components 

 (Figure 2) for further processing.' The production of the specified information 



