20 



himself must be extended to protect the natural environment from 

 man. 



This extension of the institutional environment must recognize not 

 only the realities of how the biophysical environment operates, but 

 it must also recognize the need of human society for the estuarine 

 zone and its value to civilization both as an essential part of his eco- 

 system and as an exploitable resource. 



P0PUL.ATI0N AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ESTUARINE ZONE 



The importance of the estuarine zone of the United States to the 

 national community is shown most clearly by the numbers of people 

 that use it. Population concentration in the coastal counties began 

 when the first European colonist arrived. This concentration brought 

 about the development of a corresponding amount of manufacturing 

 industry in the estuarine zone, while the great harbors gave the 

 estuarine zone its dominating position as the commercial center of 

 the Nation. 



Long before the settlement of Plymouth, British, French, and 

 Spanish fishermen were exploring the North Atlantic fishery resources 

 including those in the Gulf of Maine and along Georges Bank ; after 

 colonization of New England, the fisheries were the sustaining in- 

 dustry that provided the economic foundation for growth and devel- 

 opment. The estuaries were also the entry portal for the immigrants 

 that came to this Nation looking for the land of opportunity. 



As the population grew, the relative importance of the fishery 

 progressively declined as economic growth in other industries out- 

 stripped the demand for seafood as a staple diet item. The growth 

 of industrial and population centers in the estuarine zone closely 

 paralleled the growth of the rest of the Nation, with the estuarine 

 zone becoming relatively more important in international conmierce 

 and less important in agricultural food production than the interior 

 of the country. 



The coastal counties contain only 15 percent of the land area of the 

 United States, but within this area is concentrated 33 percent of the 

 Nation's population, with about four-fifths of it living in primarily 

 urban areas which form about 10 percent of the total estuarine zone 

 area. Another 13 percent of the estuarine land area is farmland, but 

 this accounts for only 4 percent of the total agricultural land of the 

 Nation. The estuarine zone, then, is nearly twice as densely populated 

 as the rest of the country, and supports only one- fourth as much agri- 

 culture per unit area. 



In those regions lying between Cape Hatteras, N.C., and Canada as 

 well as in the Pacific Southwest, over 90 percent of the population lives 

 in urban areas ; over much of the Atlantic estuarine zone stretches the 

 great northeastern megalopolis with population densities averaging 

 over 1,000 persons per square mile. The remainder of the estuarine 

 zone of the United States exhibits a pattern of major centers of popu- 

 lation clustered around natural harbors and separated by stretches 

 of coastline which are either empty and inaccessible or beginning to be 

 sprinkled with private residences and resort communities in the vicin- 

 ities of population centers. 



The coastal counties have within their borders 40 percent of all 



