tion level. 



Pro— Fairly easy to determine. 

 Con — May include large areas not nor- 

 mally considered coastal or exclude 

 those which are. 



5. A fixed distance from some tidal line, 

 such as 300 m from mean high tide. 



Pro— Easy to determine. 

 Con— May include or exclude inappro- 

 priate areas. 



6. Some contour line such as the 10-m con- 

 tour. 



Pro — Easy to determine. 

 Con — May include or exclude inappro- 

 priate areas. 



7. Peak of the coastal mountain range. 



Pro — Easy to determine. 

 Con— Many coasts do not have moun- 

 tain ranges. 



8. Inland boundaries of coastal counties or 

 parishes. 



Pro— Easy to determine. 

 Con— May include or exclude inappro- 

 priate areas. 



9. Man-made structures such as roads, canals, 

 etc. 



Pro— Easy to determine. 

 Con — May include or exclude inappro- 

 priate areas. 



10. Pleistocene/Recent contact. 



Pro — Some areas recently built are ob- 

 viously coastal, and may be easy to dis- 

 cern. 



Con — Not appropriate on beaches 

 which are not aggrading. 



11. Maximum inland or seaward range of any 

 one species. 



Pro— Should be fairly easy to determine. 

 Con — No species is distributed along en- 

 tire United States coastline. Historical 

 accidents of distribution can cause er- 

 roneous results. Plasticity of the re- 

 sponse of an organism to its environ- 

 ment and synergisms among environ- 

 mental inputs may allow an organism 



to occur in a variety of coastal and non- 

 coastal areas. 



12. Wetland/nonwetland soils. 



Pro — Fairly easy to determine. 



Con— Wetland soils may occur in areas 



which are no longer wetlands. 



13. Wetland/nonwetland vegetation. 



Pro— Fairly easy to determine. 

 Con — Large number of species needed 

 for coastal delineation of the entire 

 United States. Not appropriate for un- 

 vegetated coast. 



14. Salinity intrusion. 



Pro — Fairly easy to determine. 

 Con— Salinity is not the only factor 

 which determines the inland extent of 

 coastal ecosystems, nor is salinity re- 

 stricted to the seacoast. 



15. Tidal influx. 



Pro — Fairly easy to determine. 

 Con — Tidal influx is not the only factor 

 which determines the inland extent of 

 coastal ecosystems. 



1 6. Inland boundaries for marine and estuarine 

 in the Cowardin et al. (1977) system which 

 has been adopted by the National Wetlands 

 Inventory. These boundaries arc based on 

 vegetation, soils, and salinity. 



Pro — Will be mapped for the entire 

 United States, large amounts of infor- 

 mation already on this framework, will 

 probably be updated regularly. 

 Con — No information yet on how this 

 applies to coastal processes. Updates 

 will certainly change inland boundaries. 



17. Determine the major coastal influences 

 and make an inland boundary determina- 

 tion for each Level I, II, or III division 

 based on tin- extent of the influences. 



Pro — Would most accurately reflect the 

 functioning of coastal ecosystems in 

 area of interest. 



Con Would not be uniform around the 

 coastline and would cause problems ol 

 comparison of information among divi- 

 sions. Extremely difficult to determine. 



