VI-88 



A full and adequate knowledge of these three broad categories of 

 information - technical, socioeconomic, and political - is inextri- 

 cably related to establishing goals and assigning uses for individual 

 estuaries or estuarine regions. The assignation of desired uses of 

 a natural resource is a basic management decision which reauires the 

 kinds of information discussed above. 



The overall purpose of applied research and study is to provide the 

 knowledge required to establish and implement and effective compre- 

 hensive managament program which will achieve optimum beneficial 

 uses of the Nation's estuaries. This, of course, calls for a 

 sequence of intermediate steps. The very first thing that must be 

 done is to collate the currently known biological, chemical, and 

 physical conditions of each portion of the estuarine zone. This 

 assemblage of information should also indicate the current uses of 

 the estuarine zone, its resources, the management situation currently 

 in effect, and the problems and dangers that exist. This body of 

 knowledge, the initial data base, is essentially the content of the 

 National Estuarine Inventory (NEI) discussed at length in Chapters 1 

 and 2 of Part VI. 



The National Estuarine Inventory is based on a series of handbooks 

 which will fully describe each segment of the estuarine zone. Infor- 

 mation is recorded under the following classifications: 



(1) Identification of Estuarine Register Area 



(2) Area description 



