be of management or scientific interest, but also integrates 
some other things that may in and of themselves be hard to in¬ 
terpret. Phytoplankton, biomass, and photosynthesis are natural¬ 
ly linked. In regular monitoring terms what we're talking about 
is phytoplankton biomass, chlorophyll-a measurements, and pri¬ 
mary productivity measured with carbon 14 or some other standard 
technique. But the notion of some kind of integration of lots 
of variables into something that's measurable and important is a 
useful consideration. 
The third point, and I made these in other places, is long¬ 
term. I have some interesting primary productivity data from a 
place in the Mid-Chesapeake Bay over a 6-year period. Not a tre- 
medously long period of time, but it's 6 years, and these sort 
of data bases are a bit rare. Made with the same technique once 
or twice a month for 6 years. And what we find here is some 
very substantial differences not so much in the pattern of pro¬ 
ductivity, but rather in the magnitude of the productivity. 
Interestingly enough, we had a bit of a natural experiment 
occurring here. In June of 1982 tropical storm Agnes added a 
considerable amount of freshwater and nutrients and other 
materials to the Bay. And one story could go that the 
phytoplankton productivity and phytoplankton biomass also 
followed a similar pattern responded, and there was a bit of a 
memory there perhaps in 1973, and then productivity gradually 
decreased to around 400 grams per square meter per year there¬ 
after. 
In 1973 to 1977, nutrient loading from the Susquehanna 
River was reasonably comparable. So we have a bit of natural 
variability here that could have led us to some quite different 
conclusions about the response of the Bay to large influxes of 
nutrients had this data base not been around. So, long-term 
data are very important. 
Lastly, we're very concerned with the infrastructure within 
these monitoring programs to try to synthesize the data that are 
being collected. Not just organize it, but rather synthesize it 
into forms that makes some scientific sense. In other words, we 
think we're getting a good reflection of what reality is, and 
into a form that's useful in making decisions. 
This is from that program. It's a very early piece of 
information that was developed. And it has to do ultimately 
with trying to understanding what's regulating and modifying the 
degree of anoxia in some portions of the Bay. 
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