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Comments Submitted by the URI Coastal Resources Center 



for the Committee on National Security Regional Briefing 



Mahan Conference Center, Spruance Hall 



Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island 



22 January 1996 



Thank you for providing the Coastal Resources Center the opportunity to 

 provide testimony regarding our perspectives on the issue of 

 Regional Opportunities in Leveraging Oceanographic Research for Defense 

 and Non-defense Industries and Activities 



It is our hope/intention that this testimony provide the subcommittee 

 members with the University of Rhode Island's Coastal Resources Center 

 views on how leveraging technologies and partnerships, both in the United 

 States and abroad can produce a mutually beneficial situation/relationship. 



For more information contact Stephen Olsen, Director or Karla Boreri at 

 the Coastal Resources Center, Marine Resources Building, Graduate School 

 of Oceanography, Narragansett Bay Campus, Narragansett Rhode Island, 

 02881. The phone number is (401) 874-6224, ext. 6501 and the fax 

 number is (401)789-4670. Thank you. 



"The Nature of The Challenge" 



1 . Why coastal ecosystem's are of great importance and deserve the 

 benefits of shared (applicable/relevant) US military resources, technology, 

 and training capabilities. 



• the coast can be defined as a ribbon of land 60 km wide containing a 

 human population in 1990 as large as the entire planet's population in 

 1950 (Pemetta and Elder, 1993) 



• this population is projected to double between 1990 and 2050 by which 

 time it will include two-thirds of the world population (Merrick, 1989) 



• an estimated 26 percent of all biological productivity, 5-10 percent of 

 the world's food production and 85-99 percent of the world's catch 

 occur in the coastal ecosystem (Postma and Zijlstra in Pemetta and 

 Elder, 1993) 



• yet, the world's coastal regions (which include the continental shelf) 

 comprise only some 8 percent of the planet's surface (Holligan and 

 Boois, 1993) 



• clearly the coastal regions are increasingly the primary habitat of our 

 (human) species (Olsen, 1995) 



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