Capabilities and Systems to Support Oceanocraphic Goals 



29 



Program as categorized by the ICO. Some addi- 

 tional $480 million is devoted to applied research 

 and development of a more direct military char- 

 acter. 



The research to be accomplished by the more 

 immediately defense-oriented portion of this plan 

 is in four major subject areas including acoustics, 

 magnetics and gravity, Arctic operations, and en- 

 vironmental forecasting. 



(a) Acoustics Research 



The Bureau of Ships coordinates the acoustics 

 program, which is directed toward understanding, 

 predicting, and exploiting acoustic propagation 

 phenomena. This is concentrated in nine Navy 

 laboratories supplemented by ONR-supported 

 work in eight private and university laboratories. 

 Many industrial organizations under contract to 

 the Navy for sonar, torpedo, and other ASW/USW 

 equipment also do work in oceanographic acous- 

 tics in connection with their development pro- 

 grams. 



and maintenance budgets. They are intended to 

 improve the capability to forecast the ASW en- 

 vironment, as well as to predict the consequences 

 of harbor flushing and disposal of nuclear prod- 

 ucts, etc. 



Many of these forecasting programs will emerge 

 from the research or experimental stage and enter 

 the operational stage in the coming decade. The 

 ASWEPS, for example, is expected to become op- 

 erational in 1965. When it does, it will be funded 

 by the Navy under its fleet operations budget and 

 will not appear within the TENOC projection. 



C. World Ocean Resources (19 Percent of 



the 1963-1972 Effort; 



11 Percent Basic, 8 Percent Applied) 



The two agencies primarily concerned with this 

 goal of developing while conserving ocean re- 

 sources are the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries 

 and the Atomic Energy Commission, although the 

 Bureau of Mines has a responsibility to study oil 

 pollution at sea. 



(b) Magnetics and Gravity Research 



Programs to examine and exploit geomagnetic 

 and gravimetric phenomena are coordinated by 

 the Bureau of Naval Weapons. Four naval labora- 

 tories and four private oceanographic laboratories 

 participate in this program related to submarine 

 navigation, missile guidance and ballistics, sub- 

 marine detection, and mine countermeasures 

 operations. 



(c) Arctic Research 



Operations in the Arctic now require knowledge 

 of under-ice as well as ice-edge phenomena. The 

 Office of Naval Research coordinates work done 

 principally in four Navy laboratories and the Arc- 

 tic Research Laboratory of the University of Alaska 

 on the Arctic oceanic environment. 



(d) Environmental Forecasting 



The oceanographic forecasting program, though 

 planned to absorb only one percent of the Navy's 

 oceanographic budget during the next decade, de- 

 serves special mention. This figure includes only 

 the research and development aspects of programs, 

 most of whose cost is to be borne by fleet operating 



1. FISH RESOURCES 



The Bureau of Commercial Fisheries intends 

 considerable expansion in its basic research pro- 

 gram during the coming decade. By 1972 about 65 

 percent of its total research should be basic re- 

 search as compared with only about 30 percent 

 today. 



As might be expected, the distribution and na- 

 ture of the various fundamental oceanographic 

 variables and properties which define, often within 

 rather narrow limits, the habitat of various fish will 

 receive considerable attention. So will studies of 

 marine communities with their patterns of domi- 

 nant species, of food webs which interconnect the 

 inhabitants of these communities, and of rates of 

 energy and food transfer throughout these webs. 

 Ecological balances must be thoroughly under- 

 stood before the consequences of man's intrusion 

 on them can be predicted. 



Studies of particular species already or poten- 

 tially useful to man will be continued, and a major 

 program of technological and engineering re- 

 search will be undertaken to improve present 

 methods of locating, catching, preserving, and pre- 

 paring fish for the table. In this connection a pro- 

 gram of economic, legal, and social studies will be 

 undertaken as basic to the management and mar- 



