STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

This tutorial is designed to help you learn about the effects of land use on the water quality and living resources of estuaries. It also serves as an introduction to our model that allows you to explore various scenarios of land use and their effects on estuarine plants and animals. We emphasize that the model, named the "Changing Land Use and Estuaries" model (CLUE), is a tool to foster better understanding of the linkages between man's activities on land and the functioning of coastal ecosystems, and is not intended to provide hard and fast answers regarding the consequences of land-use decisions. All biological systems and their component parts are inherently variable and highly interactive. Science strives to see the patterns hidden within the profusion of detail that nature offers, recognizing that its conclusions must be approximations of the truth. We recognize science's strengths and its limitations, and work continually to improve our understanding of how nature functions. To this end, models have proved valuable as syntheses of our current knowledge. Computerized models have allowed great advances in understanding nature and in unraveling the complicated interactions that comprise ecosystems. Models have helped formulate the current state-of-the-art of our understanding of land use and its effects in estuaries. We welcome you to learn and explore using CLUE, recognizing that the model can best provide information useful to land-use planning when considered in context with other factors, such as social and economic considerations, not dealt with directly by CLUE.