MANAGING COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS: PROGRESS 



TOWARDS A SYSTEMS APPROACH 



James B. Johnston 



INTRODUCTION 



Coastal ecosystems, which include uplands, river mouths, bays, estuaries, and 

 wetlands, are extremely important because they provide major transportation routes 

 for commerce, essential habitats for fish and wildlife resources, and a source of 

 recreational opportunity for more than eighty percent of the population of the 

 United States. ' Commercial fishing, sport fishing, game and waterfowl hunting, and 

 other wildlife-related activities are affected by the biological conditions of the bays 

 and estuaries. For example, 60 to 80 percent of our commercial finfishes and 

 shellfishes are estuarine dependent; they require estuaries for breeding, nursery, or 

 feeding purposes. The commercial catches of the major estuarine-dependent fin- 

 fishes and shellfishes in 1977 and 1978 had dockside values of 1.7 billion dollars and 

 1.3 billion dollars, respectively. ^ 



Wetlands provide food and cover for waterfowl, wildlife, and sport and 

 commercial fish. Waterfowl depend on wetlands for breeding and wintering habitat, 

 particularly along migratory routes. Wetlands also can retain flood waters and trap 

 pollutants. Despite these ecological values, the areas of wetlands have been 

 drastically reduced. The wetland loss rates for the continental United States were 

 estimated to be 0.2 percent per year (8,200 ha per year) between 1922 and 1954, and 

 0.5 percent per year (19,000 ha per year) from 1954 to mid-1970, utilizing existing 

 wetland inventories conducted by state and federal agencies. ^ Losses are directly 

 attributed to dredging, draining, and filling, and to storms, subsidence and erosion. 



Recognizing the importance of and damage inflicted to coastal ecosystems, the 

 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Coastal Ecosystems Project (cosponsored by the 

 Environmental Protection Agency under its initial Interagency Energy-Environment 

 Research and Development Program) has developed a system or holistic concept for 

 synthesizing ecological information for use in managing coastal ecosystems. These 

 studies are called coastal ecological characterizations. Voluminous data are compiled 

 and synthesized to provide ecological data bases for large coastal regions. 



Over the last five years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the U.S. 

 Environmental Protection Agency has conducted characterization studies of the 

 Chenier Plain of Louisiana and Texas, •» the Pacific Northwest (Washington and 

 Oregon),' the Rocky Coast of Maine,* and the Sea Islands Coastal Region of Georgia 

 and South Carolina^ (Figure 1) to assist natural resource managers of these areas in 

 fulfilling their legislative mandates. Current studies are being conducted by the U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service for the Bureau of Land Management to address nearshore 

 and onshore impacts associated with Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) oil and gas 



The Author. Dr. Johnston is a Marine Ecologist, for the U.S. Fish and Wildhfe Service, Dept. of the Interior, 

 National Coastal Ecosystems Team, Slidell, LA. He has served as an Oceanographer{ Marine Biologist), for 

 the Bureau of Land Management, Dept. of the Interior, LA( 1974-1976). He has published numerous papers 

 on coastal zone management, Outer Continental Shelf oil and gas development, fisheries, environmental 

 education, and ecological characterizations. 



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