Environmental Data Service for storage, handling, and dissemination to interested scientists.

NOAA completed major geophysical data-acquisition projects in two continental shelf areas last year, the Gulf of Alaska and the Oregon-Washington coast. A major deep Pacific Ocean series was also completed. The Geological Survey conducted detailed surveys and analyses of the geological structure of the continental margin.

The Coastal Environment

Even before last year's coastal zone legislation, the Federal Ocean Program had begun to turn shoreward to meet the crucial problems in this area. A magnet for population, the Nation's coastal zone has become home to some 81 million Americans as well as a crowded province of industry, commerce, and recreation. It has been here that the most urgent confrontations between the marine environment and human activities have occurred-confrontations exacerbated year by year as the tempo and tone of conflicting demands on coastal zone land and resources have risen. Thus, some strong coastal zone programs are being developed that are expected to become stronger as the intent of last year's legislation is transformed into programs.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is presently designing a National Coastal Water Quality Monitoring Network integrating existing capabilities at the Federal, State, and local levels of government. NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service, working in cooperation with EPA, maintains 190 coastal stations to establish baselines and examine trends in areas where pesticide residues may be accumulating.

Preliminary results from EPA contracts indicate that, of more than 3,000 coastal and Great Lakes public beaches surveyed, some 300 were closed in 1972. In most instances these closings were directly attributable to sewage system breakdowns. The effect of pollution on shellfish-growing areas in the coastal zone was also reviewed by EPA. The results of these surveys will be published as a series of National Ocean Survey charts.

The Department of the Interior's National Water Data Program continued last year to provide multipurpose water data to agencies at all governmental levels responsible for managing, developing, improving, or protecting the coastal environment. In 1972, data on long-term fresh water inflow were obtained at more than 600 gauging stations in the Nation's estuaries, with water quality data available from about 30 stations.

The Naval Civil Engineering Laboratory in 1972 continued development of the Navy Environmental Protection Data Base, which will serve over 240 major naval activities in the continental United States and foreign countries. The pollutants to be monitored will be based upon the results of a two-year pilot program conducted at three representative sites-a naval fleet activity, a naval air

station, and a naval munitions depot. The major aim of the program. is to enable the Navy to evaluate the effects of its operation on the environment, as well as the success of pollution-abatement programs. Additionally, the Navy will compile an inventory of appropriate Federal, State, and local laws to insure that its pollution-abatement program meets legislative requirements.

The Corps of Engineers' on-going research into general coastal engineering problems continued. This research supports the Corps' extensive civil works programs and regulatory responsibilities in the coastal zone and on the Outer Continental Shelf. The results are widely disseminated and are extensively used by the private sector, local and State governments, and other Federal agencies as well as the Corps. Consequently, the overall national capability for effective planning, construction, operation and maintenance of essential transportation, recreation, and conservation facilities is considerably enhanced. Current research gives particular attention. to wave mechanics, the functional effectiveness and the environmental effects of protective coastal works, the physical and environmental factors which shape and modify the land-sea interface, the dynamics which govern the behavior of tidal inlets and estuaries, and problems unique to harbors in particularly hostile environments such as the Arctic, offshore deep water, and tsunamithreatened areas. Special regional projects continued, such as the San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Joaquin Water Quality Study, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Enlargement Study, and the Chesapeake Bay Basin Study.

A national assessment of the shores and beaches of coastal and Great Lakes waters was made available in maps and reports which show shore erosion, ownership and use, shoreline characteristics and erosion effects, and the location of shore parks and protective works. This is part of the National Shoreline Study of the Corps, which has been transmitted to Congress.

Research in coastal zone regions is emphasized in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) program. The RANN program in 1972 included studies of the effects on estuaries of waste discharge and dumping, effects of engineering activities, management strategies for ecologically important areas, and methods for restoring damaged areas. The goal of RANN is to define workable strategies for resolving conflicts between regional growth and development, and environmental quality.

NOAA's Marine Ecosystem Analysis (MESA) program represents a major effort to describe in a systematic way the significant features of marine environmental interrelationships. Significant preplanning was completed in 1972; a full-scale field prototype project is being initiated in the New York Bight in 1973. Provision for needed research in ocean dumping has been made in the New York

Bight project plan. The success of this effort will help to determine the applicability of the program to other critical marine areas.

Estuarine and coastal zone research is being carried out on both coasts and in Alaska with support from the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This work includes an environmental study, begun in 1961, to determine the properties, distribution, and movement of Columbia River water and its dissovled and suspended load in the northeast Pacific Ocean.

The marine sciences research program of the AEC is directed toward determining those environmental factors which influence the movement of radioelements through the marine environment, the possible means and rates of return of radioactivity to man through marine food webs, and basic ecological processes. Within this broad program are studies of biological, physical, and chemical oceanography, and studies related to operational activities such as the impact of waste heat from nuclear power stations on the local ecology at such sites.

As nuclear power-plant siting in the estuarine and coastal areas increases, studies must be accelerated on trace-element cycling, modeling of water circulation and sedimentation, productivity at various levels of the food web, and the effects of waste heat and other non-nuclear discharges on the general ecology of the region. Insight into the physical and biological dynamics of the system is essential in order to predict the response of the marine ecosystem to maninduced stresses. During 1972, the AEC continued support for a multidisciplinary study of nuclear power-plant siting in Chesapeake Bay. In 1973, the AEC will accelerate portions of its marine research program toward increasing present understanding of the effects on the marine environment of nuclear power-plant operations. The U.S. Coast Guard, in 1972, collected periodic temperature-salinity-depth profiles at 12 stations on the continental shelf as part of the lightship/ light-station sampling program. In addition, monthly maps showing sea surface temperature variations and certain biological phenomena were prepared from airborne radiation thermometer coverage of Atlantic and Pacific shelf areas.

Prediction of tides and tidal currents by NOAA's National Ocean Survey is the Nation's oldest marine environmental service. In 1972, 125 permanent tide gauges were in operation along the coasts and within major embayments of the United States, Puerto Rico, and other territories and possessions. The National Ocean Survey also operated 51 permanent water-level gauging stations and 60 to 80 temporary ones in the Great Lakes area last year.

Special tide surveys were conducted along the Florida Coast to define marine boundaries and in the Chesapeake Bay to support the Bay study of the Corps of Engineers. Special circulatory studies were conducted in 1972 along the Massachusetts and South Carolina coasts. The 1973 field season will include tide and tidal current surveys in Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, and circulatory

surveys in Cook Inlet, Alaska, and Mt. Hope Bay, Massachusetts. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its predecessors have operated the Tsunami Warning System as a national service since 1948. The Alaskan Regional Tsunami System, directed from Palmer, Alaska, was established to detect and locate major earthquakes in the Alaskan-Aleutian region and provide information and warnings to people in that region. The Tsunami Information Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, ensures dissemination of tsunami warnings and collects tsunami data on a real-time basis. The detection network of the present Tsunami Warning System is composed of 31 seismic stations and 47 supporting tide stations on the shores and islands of 16 Pacific Ocean countries. The system communicates through the facilities of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Defense Communications Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Weather Service, and other government agencies, both domestic and foreign. Although no large tsunami occurred in 1972, a tsunami watch was issued after a large earthquake near Taiwan. In July 1972 a regional tsunami warning was issued by Palmer Observatory after a major earthquake near Sitka, Alaska; only a minor tsunami resulted from this seismic disturbance.

Major Research Projects

Last year's Federal Ocean Program noted that the decade of the 1970's would see plans of the previous decade begin to bear fruit in the form of experiments, programs, and valuable data. This prediction has been amply confirmed by the progress achieved in continuing efforts and by the initiation of several promising new programs.

One of the primary goals of the NSF's International Decade of Ocean Exploration is support of research fundamental to improved description and prediction of the marine environment. Knowledge about ocean circulation is critical for predicting the ocean's influence on weather, climate, and pollutant dispersal in the ocean, but detailed understanding of circulation has largely been limited to currents such as the Gulf Stream and the Kuroshio, which follow continental boundaries. The Mid-Ocean Dynamics Experiment (MODE) seeks a more detailed understanding of fluctuations in ocean circulation by combining oceanographic observations with sophisticated numerical theory to establish the dynamics and statistics of medium-sized eddies, their energy sources, and their role in the general circulation of the ocean. The MODE-I field experiment, underway between March and July 1973 just south of Bermuda, involves five United States vessels, the R.R.S. Discovery from England's National Institute of Oceanography, and an extensive array of moored instruments.

The North Pacific Experiment (NORPAX) will investigate the

influence of the North Pacific on the weather and climate of North America. This has been a matter of scientific speculation for nearly fifty years. During the 1960's the Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsored research in the North Pacific aimed at identifying the ocean processes linked to unusual weather conditions. Large areas of abnormally hot or cold sea surface temperatures (in terms of 30-year monthly averages) were identified in the North Pacific. Meteorologists and oceanographers postulated that these surface temperature anomalies influenced the atmosphere in a way that affected the climate from the Pacific eastward across the entire North American continent.

In 1972, the IDOE and ONR joined to support research designed to unravel these relationships. The goal of NORPAX is to study and develop a basis for understanding the major physical processes