Book Description

This book addresses specific water quality and pollution problems and documents the changes that occurred during the critical transition period when PCB dumping was discontinued and water treatment plants came into increased use. It will appeal to fishery biologists working with Atlantic coast species, people involved with estuaries worldwide, and to all environmentalists interested in the history of the landmark Hudson River Settlement Agreement. The signing of the Hudson River Settlement Agreement ended more than a dozen years of controversial court battles over the placement of electric generating plants on the Hudson River estuary. Much of this agreement was based on original field research, the most compelling of which is found in this book. Fisheries Research in the Hudson River includes a summary of existing fisheries data bases, with comments on their strengths and weaknesses and a guide to their availability, as well as discussions of the natural history of striped bass, white perch, river herrings, tomcod, sturgeon, and a very important food source, the amphipod gammarus tigrinus. It also proposes a management plan for sturgeon, a plan based on an age-structured population model that demonstrates the practical application of basic scientific data.