Invited Feature by Raymond G. Najjar, Christopher R. Pyke, Mary Beth Adams, Denise Breitburg, Carl Hershner, Michael Kemp, Robert Howarth, Margaret R. Mulholland, Michael Paolisso, David Secor, Kevin Sellner, Denice Wardrop and Robert Wood

摘要

The contribution from Najjar and colleagues highlight and bring together a remarkable amount of research and thinking about a major estuarine system. Its contents convey both the significant advances of the last few decades, as well as the limitations as to how far we can generalize about estuarine functions, human uses, and management options. The paper also demonstrates the degree of inter-disciplinary effort, and inter-institutional collaboration that will continue to be needed to take the next steps in developingrna comparative and synthetic understanding of the way coastal systems work, and how we use and manage them.