CHAPTER 1. THE NATIONAL ESTUARINE INVENTORY 



"In conducting the * * * study, the Secretary shall assemble, cooridnate, and 

 organize all existing pertinent information on the Nation's estuaries and estu- 

 arine zones . . ." 



CLiiA.N Wateb Restoration Act of 1966 

 Sections (g) (2) 



The National Estuarine Inventory is the primary repository of the 

 quantitative documentation used in the National Estuarine Pollution 

 Study to describe the Nation's estuarine system, its uses and problems. 

 While the directive calling for this study did not explicitly require an 

 inventory, the breath of information required implicitly demanded 

 inventory techniques, including automation. 



The inventory differs from a basic data storage-and-retrieval sys- 

 tem in three respects : First, the intent is to supply information for 

 institutional and technical management rather than for scientific 

 analyses, thus introducing a very wide variety of information and also 

 preventing duplication of existing federally financed data systems. 

 Second, to increase its value to the estuarine manager, much material 

 has been entered as statistical summaries rather than in raw data 

 form; and, third, information which does not readily lend itself to 

 automation techniques has been "assembled, coordinated, and orga- 

 nized" by other methods. 



This discussion describes in some detail the selection of the descrip- 

 tors used; tlie sources of information; how the information was col- 

 lected, organized, and automated (fig. VI-1-1) ; the present status 

 of the data bank ; and the need for, and value of, a management infor- 

 mation system based on this system. 



Section 1. The Handbook of Descriptors 



The framework around w^hich the inventory is built is the "Hand- 

 book of Descriptors" (VI-1-1), an outline showing the information 

 necessary to describe the Nation's coastal areas. 



The original list of descriptors, developed within the Federal Water 

 Pollution Control Administration (FWPCA), was reviewed in detail 

 by other agencies of the Department of the Interior and a number of 

 State water pollution control and natural resource agencies. Critical 

 review by this diverse group helped to build a more comprehensive 

 data base than otherwise would have resulted. 



COMPOSITION OF THE HANDBOOK 



Tlie "Handbook" is comprised of the outlines for the two basic 

 types of management information needed to work with any estuarine 



(520) 



