toward a national pyolicy for management, beneficial use, protection, and 

 development of the land and water resources of the coastal and estuarine 

 zones. 



Within Federal agencies, marine environmental programs reflect the areas 

 of principal concern: the coastal zone, water quality, and recreation and 

 international cooperation in solving on a global and regional scale the marine 

 environmental problems which trouble us today. 



The Coastal Zone 



The consequences of our past and present marine environmental practices 

 are most visible where civilization and the sea confront one another across a 

 narrow band of shore and tidelands. The complex physical and biological 

 processes at work there are understood only in a general way, and the legal 

 institutions governing the uses of this region constitute a dense web of con- 

 flicting rights and confused priorities at every level of Government. A major 

 direction taken by the Federal Ocean Program has been to define problems 

 more clearly. Now, with some of them identified, scientists in Federal agen- 

 cies and their colleagues in private institutions and industry are seeking 

 specific solutions. 



The University of Michigan, using a simulation technique called WAL- 

 RUS (Water and Land Resource Use Simulation), is helping Government 

 officials, scientists, and businessmen to anticipate the long-range eflfects of 

 environmentally significant decisions. This Sea Grant-sponsored project 

 allows participants to assume roles of local officials faced with responsibility 

 for managing a sample body of water (in this case. Grand Traverse Bay in 

 Lake Michigan ) . In a few hours, they can simulate the effects of decades of 

 accumulating population growth, industrial development, and pollution 

 problems. The WALRUS concept is expected to be a useful educational 

 device for coastal community leaders. 



Another Sea Grant-supported project is helping the Marine Resources 

 Council of the Nassau-Suffolk Bicounty Regional Planning Board in New 

 York to improve its resource management methods. The Center for the 

 Environment and Man, under a contract with the Board, has identified the 

 research needed to solve the most pressing marine resource problems facing 

 Long Island and has proposed management guidelines for future Board 

 actions. 



A marine-resources decision model is being developed by an interdis- 

 ciplinary team at the University of California at Santa Barbara to assist 

 Santa Barbara County in the formulation of its Seacoast General Plan. The 

 model now consists of land use, pollution, marine resources, cost/benefit, 

 air pollution, and sewage treatment submodels. An initial enumeration of 

 the many effects of various land uses on the different environments and the 

 resultant economic impacts has been accomplished. 



While much of the expertise in the field of ocean law has been concen- 

 trated on the problems related to the 1973 United Nations Conference on 

 Law of the Sea, the many other legal problems associated with use of the 

 coastal zone and marine resources have been receiving increasing emphasis. 

 Schools of Law in universities in most of the coastal States have developed 



12 



