The federal effort to document trends in coastal habitat loss: a report by the National Ocean Pollution Policy Board's habitat loss and modification working group.

Loss of coastal wetland habitat continues to occur and is cause for concern. The Habitat Loss and Modification Working Group examined the Federal effort to document this loss through status and trends analysis and by Federal permit documentation and compliance follow-up activities. For status and trends analysis, the Working Group concluded that: Federal efforts need to be accelerated; a tiered approach for wetland mapping and trends analysis, from a broad national scale to a local one, should be used; and a comprehensive, national digital status and trends data base is needed. For permit documentation, the Working Group found that there is no comprehensive national program to track coastal habitat loss in the United States through the permitting system. Therefore, a comprehensive national data base should be developed for documenting and tracking permit actions and permit - related activities. The potential exists for developing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (COE) Regulatory Analysis Management System (RAMS) toward meeting the need for a national data base.