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Monitoring of the ecological conditions of the Estuary is frequently given short shrift due to lack of funding. In fact, monitoring is an essential component of scientific inquiry that informs pollution control decisions, as well as guides habitat restoration strategies. For example, in an effort to reduce impacts on aquatic ecosystems, pyrethroids were recommended as a replacement for older pesticides. Yet fish sampling studies revealed that pyrethroids have their own unique adverse impacts. Without such studies, resource managers will not know when their management decisions or new products are having unpredicted effects.
There is also a need to study and monitor all types of restoration projects, to see how well they are performing and whether or not they are achieving the goals and objectives they were designed to achieve. For instance, monitoring of early tidal wetland restoration sites has taught us that the configuration of marsh channels plays a key role in the success of a project. In spite of these unequivocal demonstrations of their importance, monitoring studies in the Estuary remain underfunded.
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