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Chapter 3 

 THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC VALUES OF ESTUARINE USE 



Chapter 2 described the most 

 important uses of the estuarine 

 zone. There are a variety of uses 

 associated with demographic and 

 industrial development in the coastal 

 counties; each biophysical region 

 has very similar kinds of uses to 

 the others, but there are differences 

 in intensity of certain kinds of use 

 in different biophysical regions, 

 and also in individual areas within 

 regions. 



Such differences tend to be related to the availability for exploita- 

 tion of a particular kind of resource; such as sunshine and beaches 

 in Florida, oil in Texas and Louisiana, deep safe harbors at New 

 York and San Francisco, salmon runs in Washington and Alaska. Each 

 of these stimulates emphasis in estuarine exploitation for a par- 

 ticular kind of use, sometimes to the extent of excluding all other 

 uses either by expropriating all available space or damaging the 

 environment for other uses. 



