August 27, 2003 — Estuaries are places where fresh water from rivers mix with saltwater. An estuary can be a bay, lagoon or slough. These important coastal habitats are used as spawning grounds and nurseries for at least two-thirds of the nation's commercial fish and shellfish. The wetlands associated with estuaries also reduce polluted runoff, buffer uplands from flooding and provide many recreational opportunities – including swimming, boating and bird watching. Sustaining the nation's estuarine ecosystems is critical to human health, as well as the health of the economy.

Introduction
The NOAA Ocean Service is helping to preserve the nation’s estuaries through one of its most successful partnership programs -- the National Estuarine Research Reserve System. The reserve system is a network of 25 protected areas representing different biogeographic regions in the United States. All 25 reserves are federally designated by NOAA for long-term research, environmental monitoring, education and coastal stewardship.

More than one million of estuarine lands and water are included within the reserves, which provide essential habitat to wildlife; offers educational opportunities to students, teachers and the public, and serves as living laboratories for scientists.

Reserve System History
The reserve system was created in 1972 by the Coastal Zone Management Act in order to provide a system of representative estuarine ecosystem areas suitable for long-term estuarine research, education and interpretation. Administered by the NOAA Estuarine Reserves Division, the reserve system is a federal-state partnership between NOAA and the coastal states. NOAA provides funding and national guidance, while each reserve is managed on a daily basis by a lead state agency or university, with input from local partners. NOAA and state partners work collaboratively to set common priorities and develop system wide programs. The state partners carry out locally relevant and nationally significant programs at each individual reserve and provide the day-to-day management of resources and programs. Through this partnership, the reserve system is helping to fulfill NOAA's stewardship mission to sustain healthy coasts by improving the nation's understanding and stewardship of estuaries.

Reserve System Organizational Structure
Although NOAA is the lead federal agency and is the only entity that can designate a site as a reserve, the protected area is owned and managed by the state. NOAA requires each reserve to maintain a core staff consisting of a research coordinator, education coordinator and manager. These staff members, as well as other estuarine reserve positions, are state employees — none of the reserve field staff work for NOAA. However, 12 NOAA staff do oversee the program from an office in Silver Spring, Md.

Local management in the reserve system is as diverse as the habitats represented in the program. The 25 reserves are spread across 21 states and territories. Each state has a lead partner managing the estuarine reserve, usually the Department of Natural Resources or Department of Environmental Protection. However, state universities serve as the lead agency for some sites. For example, Rutgers University is the lead for the Jacques Cousteau Reserve, in New Jersey, and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at William and Mary is the lead agency for the Chesapeake Bay Reserve in Virginia. In addition to the lead state agency, there are many other local partners supporting and guiding the reserves. Most reserves also have an advisory council comprised of local organizations and citizens.

NERR Research
Most issues the reserves address reflect the needs of the local community, however, there are three issues all 25 reserves address:

• Non-point Source Pollution: Polluted runoff from urban areas, farms and timber harvest operations is a major source of water contamination, causing beach closings, shellfish advisories and the loss of critical habitat.
• Habitat Restoration: Damaged or injured estuaries must be rehabilitated through habitat restoration.
• Invasive Species: Maintaining biodiversity and controlling invasive species are essential to maintaining healthy and productive estuaries.

Through integrated research and education, the reserves help communities develop strategies to deal successfully with these coastal resource issues. In 2002, reserve staff were asked what external forces most affect the reserves and management of reserves. Based on the answers, there are numerous environmental and societal factors affecting reserves:

• The main environmental factors include habitat loss and degradation linked to development, climate change, population growth and distribution, invasive species and pollution.
• Societal factors include population growth and sprawl, perceptions about the environment and the lack of awareness for environmental issues among the public, political and economic ideologies that encourage growth at the expense of environmental quality.

The reserve system Strategic Plan for 2003-2008 was created with these current issues in mind. Specifically, the Strategic Goals for 2003-2008 are to: 1) improve coastal decision making by generating and transferring knowledge about coastal ecosystems, 2) enhance and expand the reserve system, and 3) increase awareness, use and support of the reserve system and its estuarine science, education and stewardship programs. This plan provides vision, mission, goals and objective statements to guide the system over the next five years. Furthermore, a three-year action plan will be developed and revised annually to provide key actions that will be taken to accommodate the strategic goals and objectives. A system of performance measurement also will be designed to track progress toward the achievement of the reserve system strategic goals and objectives.

Reserve System Outreach
Not only do the reserves provide scientists and graduate students with a “living laboratory” within which they can conduct their research, the reserves also offer the community a wealth of expertise in educating students, assisting teachers and providing adult audiences with information about this coastal resource and how to best protect and manage it. Reserves provide adult audiences with training on estuarine issues of concern to their local communities. They also offer field classes for K-12 studies and target regional teachers through professional development programs in marine education. Therefore, each reserve truely is a "living laboratory" in which scientists conduct research and educators communicate research results.

National Reserve Programs
Individual reserves focus on local and regional research and educational needs, but as a whole, the entire national reserve network participates in three system-wide programs. These programs provide the reserves with common research standards and educational goals.

• Every reserve monitors the health of its estuary through the System-wide Monitoring Program.
• The Graduate Research Fellowship Program supports the reserves' scientific activities, while providing graduate students with hands-on field experience.
• The Coastal Training Program provides local communities with resources to make informed management decisions.

System-wide Monitoring Program
The System-wide Monitoring Program is the first of its kind in the nation. Each reserve tracks water quality variables and weather using the same instruments and protocols. The objectives of this program are to measure changes in estuarine waters to understand how human activities and natural events can affect coastal resources. It provides valuable data on the short-term variability and long-term changes in estuaries to researchers, natural resource managers and other coastal decision-makers. To track the changes in water quality, reserve staff use automated dataloggers to collect data on temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen, turbidity, water level and pH. These variables are taken at four stations in each of the 25 reserves in 30 minute intervals. These data are important measures of environmental conditions for numerous estuarine species. The reserves also sample the water for nutrients (e.g., nitrogen) and chlorophyll. In addition to taking water quality data, each reserve also has a weather station that collects data on temperature, relative humidity, barometric pressure, rainfall, wind speed, and direction and photosynthetically active radiation. These data are important because weather can have a major impact on estuarine habitats. Storms increase runoff into the estuary, which can affect the water quality (e.g., dissolved oxygen or salinity) and the organisms living in the water. The data collected by this monitoring program has already been used to detect conditions related to oyster diseases and to measure recovery of estuarine areas after hurricanes. Likewise, coastal managers have used this monitoring data to make informed decisions on local and regional issues, such as “no-discharge” zones for boats and measuring the success of restoration projects. The reserve system plans to continue collecting water quality and weather data over the coming decades and expand the program to include a biological monitoring component and to track changes in land use through remote sensing.

Graduate Research Fellowships
Each reserve can support up to two Graduate Research Fellowships each year. The reserve system’s Graduate Research Fellowship offers qualified masters and doctoral students an opportunity to address scientific questions to local, regional and national significance. Fellows also have the opportunity to network with and learn from local and visiting investigators. The results are high-quality research focused on improving coastal management. All Graduate Research Fellowships must be conducted in a reserve and enhance the scientific understanding of a reserve’s ecosystem. The program benefits all parties involved — while Graduate Research Fellows receive hands-on experience, reserve managers and coastal decision-makers receive vital ecological data. Projects are based on the reserve’s local needs, the reserve system’s national priorities and the student’s interest. Research priority areas for the reserves include: non-point source pollution and nutrient dynamics; habitat conservation and restoration; invasive species and biodiversity; and economic, sociological and anthropological research applicable to estuarine ecosystem management. Funds are available on a competitive basis and the application deadline is Nov. 1, 2003, for consideration as a 2004 fellow. Fellows receive a stipend of $20,000 per year and may be funded for up to three years.

Coastal Training Program
The Coastal Training Program provides up-to-date scientific information and skill-building opportunities to coastal decision makers. Through this program, the reserves can ensure that coastal decision-makers have the knowledge and tools they need to address critical resource management issues of concern to local communities (i.e., coastal habitat conservation and restoration, biodiversity, water quality and sustainable resource management). Partnerships are key to the success of the program, so the reserves work closely with State Coastal Programs, Sea Grant College extension and education staff and a host of local partners in determining key coastal resource issues to address and targeting appropriate audiences. The CTP targets a range of audiences, including land-use planners, elected officials, regulators, land developers, community groups, environmental non-profits and coastal businesses. Training is provided through a variety of venues ranging from seminars, hands-on skill training, participatory workshops, lectures and technology demonstrations. Participants benefits from opportunities to share experiences and network in a multidisciplinary setting, often with a reserve-based field activity. The program has resulted in better informed decision-making around coastal resource issues and improved coastal stewardship at both the local and regional levels. For example, through workshops and seminars alone, reserves have reached more than 13,000 coastal decision-makers since 1994.

Additional information about the reserves is also available though the reserve Technical Series, high quality manuscripts that contribute valuable information and perspectives relevant to the reserve system and its management, education, research and stewardship efforts. The goals of the technical series is to make available peer reviewed data sets, curriculars and reports that are unlikely to be published in the primary literature, yet are useful to coastal managers, educators, researchers and students. The technical series will ensure that important data and reports are archived and accessible for posterity.

Other resources within the reserve system include the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technologies , the Central Data Management Office, and the NOAA Coastal Services Center.

Since its inception in 1972, the reserve system has and will continue to achieve its mission of promoting informed management through linked programs of research, education and land management. Each reserve has built a strong foundation for ongoing partnerships with state, federal and local authorities and will continue to support estuarine issues of national importance, including non-point source pollution, habitat restoration, biodiversity, invasive species and sustainable estuarine ecosystems. Reserves also provide long-term water quality and weather monitoring, as well as opportunities for both scientists and graduate students to conduct research in a “living laboratory.”

Relevant Web Sites
NOAA National Estuarine Research Reserve System

Coastal Zone Management Act

NOAA Mission Statement

NERR System-wide Monitoring Program

NERR Graduate Research Fellowship Program

NERR Coastal Training Program

Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technologies

Central Data Management Office

NOAA Coastal Services Center

Media Contact:
Glenda Tyson, NOAA's Ocean Service, (301) 713-3066 ext. 191 or Ben Sherman, NOAA's Ocean Service, (301) 713-3066 ext. 178