Survey represents the Nations's oldest marine environmental 

 service. In 1974, 130 permanent tide gages were in operation along 

 the coasts and in major embayments of the United States, Puerto 

 Rico, and other territories and possessions. A tide and tidal current 

 survey of Puget Sound and approaches was begun, focusing on the 

 San Juan Islands area. This survey was conducted in cooperation 

 with the Canadian Government. A tide and tidal current survey of 

 Cook Inlet, Alaska, was completed during 1974. Requests for tidal 

 information, mostly for tidal data to be used in litigation for tidal 

 boundaries, have increased with the advent of coastal zone 

 management programs. NOAA recently entered into agreements 

 with other Federal agencies, States, and local governments to 

 establish tide stations and provide information for marine boundary 

 determinations. 



In a program designed to facilitate worldwide tidal predictions for 

 use in Navy operational planning, ONR intends to use a few newly 

 developed sea-floor tide recording instruments to collect data at key 

 open ocean locations. Work is underway to develop techniques for 

 computing modifications introduced by interactions with the sea 

 floor in coastal regions. 



At the year's end, the Southeastern Coastal Plains Expedition 

 (SCOPE) was nearing completion by NOAA's National Ocean 

 Survey. SCOPE is a concentrated 2-year environmental study of a 

 38,000-square-mile area of coastal waters extending from Cape 

 Hatteras, N.C., to the vicinity of Cape Canaveral, Fla. The study is 

 designed to provide coastal zone administrators with data to assist 

 in predicting the effects of both natural processes and man's 

 activities in these areas. 



In 1974, the USCG and NOAA began a cooperative program to add 

 Long-Range Aid to Navigation (LORAN) C to nautical charts, 

 thereby supplementing the general charting of LORAN C being 

 performed by the Defense Mapping Agency. The program is 

 expected to continue through the early 1980's paralleling implemen- 

 tation of the OMEGA navigational system, which should attain 

 worldwide coverage by 1978. The present LORAN A navigation 

 system will be phased out when these two systems are fully 

 operational. 



Progress continued on NOAA's storm evacuation maps, designed 

 to facilitate evacuation of people from storm-threatened coastal 

 areas. The long-range goal of the program is to publish a total of 190 

 maps to cover all Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastal areas 

 vulnerable to flooding as a result of hurricanes or other storms. In 

 1974 a second edition of six maps in the Houston-Galveston, Tex., 

 area was published to reflect land subsidence revealed by extensive 

 resurveying of the region. Also completed were six maps covering 



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