Hobbie 9419078 The goals of this project is to begin intellectual synthesis in our understanding of how estuarine systems function. Synthesis in estuarine research can take many forms. One type of estuarine synthesis has the long-term goal of achieving an understanding of estuarine processes and estuarine ecology sufficient to predict the responses of these coastal systems to a wide variety of human impacts including climate change and of human management options. This US Scientific Committee on Problems in the Environment (SCOPE) workshop will help chart the course for achieving synthesis by: * Illustrating by case histories how synthesis has actually been carried out in various ecological systems, especially in estuaries * Gaining community agreement on the questions that must be answered to achieve a synthetic view of estuarine responses to human impacts * Identifying the methods, data, and models needed to accomplish this synthesis. This U.S. effort will then feed into the international SCOPE activities related to estaurine environments.
