NOAA's National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) acknowledges the importance of both long-term environmental monitoring programs and data and information dissemination through the support of the NERRS System-wide Monitoring Program (SWMP). The goal of the SWMP is to "identify and track short-term variability and long-term changes in the integrity and biodiversity of representative estuarine ecosystems and coastal watersheds for the purpose of contributing to effective national, regional and site specific coastal zone management."

Understanding the impact of anthropogenically altering freshwater flow to estuaries is a growing information need for coastal managers. Due to differences in watershed development, drainage canals and water control structures, the Ten Thousand Islands area of southwest Florida provides an ecosystem-scale opportunity to investigate the influence of both more, and less, freshwater flow to coastal bays compared to locations with more natural hydrology.