INTRODUCTION 
Reviews of existing data and literature have deservedly become 
regular tasks in the development of natural resource management plans. 
In the cases of Tampa and Sarasota Bays, literature reviews and syntheses 
actually preceded the establishment of management programs. The 1982 
Tampa Bay Area Scientific Information Symposium --or Tampa BASIS-- led to 
a series of management task forces and eventually to the Agency on Bay 
Management, administered by the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. The 
Agency’s bay plan, "The Future of Tampa Bay" drew heavily on the 
proceedings of Tampa BASIS. More recently, the Southwest Florida Water 
Management District is producing a legislatively mandated plan for Tampa 
Bay, the implementation of which will draw upon a data compilation 
program conducted for the District by the University of South Florida’s 
Department of Marine Science. Likewise, the proceedings of a 1987 
Sarasota Bay Symposium being prepared by Mote Marine Laboratory will 
provide important technical background for the management conference to 
be convened under the National Estuary Program, beginning late in 1988. 
These NOAA "Estuary-of-the-Month" Symposium proceedings shall 
contribute to the progress of resource management in both bays. For the 
first time, the similarities and differences of the two bays are treated 
together, although it is obvious that more is left to learn concerning 
their relationship than is known already. 
These proceedings appear at a time when two other useful 
literature reviews will become available, one for each bay. The U.S. 
Fish and Wildlife Service is publishing an Estuarine Profile on Tampa Bay 
which is current to approximately 1985, and forms a useful link between 
the Tampa BASIS proceedings and this report. Sarasota Bay information 
bridging the Sarasota Bay Symposium and this report appears in the 
Governor’s nomination of the bay to the U.S. Environmental Protection 
Agency, for inclusion in the National Estuary Program. In fact, the 
paper by Estevez and Merriam contained in this report was adapted from 
the NEP document, with consent of the EPA. 
Despite the fact that symposium speakers have worked in the same 
bays for years and interact at conferences, workshops, and in other 
arenas, all participants left the symposium with new insights to the 
bays, their own work, and the work of others. There was general support 
for periodic, technical exchanges which have not occurred as often as 
policy or planning meetings in recent years. The most interesting 
development was agreement on the value of an ecological model for the bay 
area, proposed by Carl Goodwin of the U.S. Geological Survey. An 
ecosystem model would help identify areas where new research is needed, 
make maximum use of existing data, and provide a mechanism to link lines 
of bay-related research which have been isolated along traditional, 
academic lines for too long. In fact, the new water management district 
plan for Tampa Bay provides for development of an ecosystem model during 
the next five years, and allocates more than one-half million dollars for 
that purpose. 
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