The seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas 

 adjacent to the coast but outside the area of the 

 territorial sea, to a depth of 200 meters (657 feet) 

 or, beyond that limit, to where the depth of the 

 superadjacent waters admits of the exploitation of 

 the natural resources of the said areas; to the 

 seabed and subsoil of similar submarine areas 

 adjacent to the coasts of islands. 



The United States, under the terms of this 

 convention, acquired the right to exploit shelf 

 resources extending over an area of 850,000 

 square miles, roughly equivalent to the 1803 

 Louisiana Purchase. 



The area of the U.S. Continental Shelf is shown 

 in Table 2. 



IV. ESTUARIES 



The Coastal Zone's third major domain, the 

 estuaries, comprizes the landward boundary of the 

 land-sea transition zone. Historically the term 

 "estuary" has been apphed to the lower tidal 

 reaches of a river. The broader contemporary 



Table 2 

 AREA OF THE UNITED STATES CONTINEN- 

 TAL SHELF BY COASTAL REGIONS 

 (Thousands of square statute miles) 



definition may include bays, sounds, inlets, fjords, 

 and lagoons. Estuaries have been variously defined 

 and classified by geomorphology, circulation, sali- 

 nity, origin, biology, and politics.^ 



The Clean Water Restoration Act of 1966"* 

 established the following definition: 



For the purpose of this subsection, the term 

 'estuarine zones' means an environmental system 

 consisting of an estuary and those transitional 

 areas which are consistently influenced or affected 

 by water from an estuary such as, but not limited 

 to, salt marshes, coastal and inter tidal areas, bays, 

 harbors, lagoons, inshore waters, and channels, and 

 the term 'estuary ' means all or part of the mouth 

 of a navigable or interstate river or stream or other 

 body of water having unimpaired natural connec- 

 tion with open sea and within which the sea water 

 is measurably diluted with fresh water derived 

 from land drainage. 



It is the estuaries which experience the greatest 

 impact of man's effect on the coastal zone. 

 Consequently, most current attention being direc- 

 ted at the coastal zone is focused on the Nation's 

 estuaries and the Great Lakes. Table 3 shows the 

 areas of U.S. estuarine waters by region. 



Table 3 

 ESTUARINE AREAS 



_ . Area 



"^"9'°" (Square Miles) 



New England 3,149 



Middle Atlantic 6,719 



Chesapeake 1,688 



South Atlantic 14,359 



Gulf of Mexico 3,837 



Pacific 19,680 



Great Lakes 60,306 



Total estuarine . . . 109,838 



Source: Figures based on Coast and Geodetic Survey. 

 Based on "low water line mapping," they rriay not in- 

 clude marshlands and certain "inland waters." For a 

 complete discussion of these and other statistics, refer to 

 Shore and Sea Boundaries, A. L. Shalowltz, U.S.C.&G.S. 

 Publication 10-1, 1964. 



Source: Information for this table was prepared in part 

 by Surveys and Research Corp., 1967, for the National 

 Council on Marine Resources and Engineering Develop- 

 ment, based on data from Department of Commerce, 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey, and Department of Defense, 

 Corps of Engineers (for Great Lakes information). For 

 more detailed data by States, see Tables 1 and 2, 

 Chapter 2. 



A discussion of the definition and terminology is 

 contained in Estuaries, Publication No. 83 of the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Science, 1967, 

 particularly Section I: papers by D. W. Pritchard, Hubert 

 Caspers, and K. O. Emery. 



''70 Stat. 499, 33 U.S.C. 466c. This Act directs that a 

 National Estuarine Study be conducted. See Chapter 9. 



1II-8 



