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 become an encycloDedic form of Inventory. A great deal of thought 

 and work must be devoted to the formulation of this system and for 

 the development of a program to manage this system. Studies which 

 have been conducted for specific purposes in specific areas should 

 be integrated into a larger mass of information and made generally 

 available. This system would serve not only researchers, but would 

 also be an integral part of the information needed for planning, 

 funding, and managing estuarine areas. 



A second area of need in data processing is increased emphasis on 

 correlating the collection of physical, chemical, and biological 

 data in estuaries. For purposes of water quality management, des- 

 criptive data in one of these categories is essentially useless 

 without comparable information in the other two. A critical core 

 of data (including temoerature, dissolved oxygen, salinity and pH 

 profiles, chlorophylls, current velocities, bottom sediment, 

 characterization, transparency, total sestion, dissolved carbon, 

 etc.) should be identified as commonly needed in all ecological 

 studies of estuaries. Federal and federally sponsored researchers 

 should be required to collect this data at reasonable time intervals 

 during the course of all estuarine studies. Standard data processing 

 techniques should be established and copies of information received 

 should be collected in a central data storage bank. 



