A well-designed monitoring program should provide a framework within which resource management agencies can address specific management issues. At each point, the monitoring staff must decide if temporal and spatial resolution is adequate to address the question asked and if data resolution is of adequate precision for a management action. This tiered approach will also discourage the automatic use of expensive high-tech measurements until they are clearly needed. Scientific uncertainty should be explicitly considered at each tier level when considering adequacy of data in hand. The tiered approach described is organized into a monitoring plan to be used by the agencies now making less organized measurements of coastal contamination.
Initial tiers represent observational data and simple measurements of bulk parameters.
Depending on the response provided by such data to the testable question posed, a decision will be made whether or not to continue to the next tier. Proceeding from tier to tier will generate data of increasing resolution, accuracy and cost. Thus, more sophisticated data will not be sought unless a specific need is identified at the preceding tier level. Ideally, the more detailed studies required in the later tiers will be carried out only when simpler studies conducted in an earlier tier reveal that data of higher resolution or reduced uncertainty are necessary. Continual close links to ongoing academic research are essential so that the monitoring plan can be modified as new information becomes available.