ESTUARIES: 



UNIQUELY 

 COMPLEX 

 ECOSYSTEMS 



By Pam Smith 

 Photographs by Scott D. Taylor 



It is the intuitive belief among marine scientists that each estuary and coastal system is unique and 

 different, probably because there are so many possible combinations of important factors of geology, 

 climate, tide and history that identical combinations are improbable. ...It is the whole system phenomena 

 that state departments responsible for estuarine resources must consider. Perhaps it is in the systems 

 study of the overall performance that there is hope for prediction and management. 



Coastal Ecological Systems of the United States, Volume I 

 Howard T. Odum, B.J. Copeland and E.A. McMahan, editors 



The year was 1970. The four- volume document was the product of a two-year review 

 of the state-of-knowledge on estuaries requested by Congress in 1968 as part of a National 

 Estuarine Pollution Survey. 



Its editors and contributors were among the prominent pioneers of an emerging field 

 of study. They were led by Odum, ecology professor, and other researchers from the 

 University of North Carolina; and Copeland, then a zoology professor at the University of 

 Texas. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 27 



