The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Wetlands Inventory Program (NWI) is the nation's leader in wetland mapping. To date, wetland maps have been produced for over 90% of the coterminous United States. In 2001, the State of Connecticut's Office of Long Island Sound Programs approached the Service about doing a special inventory of eelgrass in Long Island Sound. The Service initiated this study in 2002 and produced a report on the distribution of eelgrass beds in the eastern portion of Long Island Sound: "Eelgrass Survey for Eastern Long Island Sound, Connecticut and New York" (Tiner, et al. 2003). This survey was intended to be the baseline study for monitoring the status of eelgrass in this area of Long Island Sound.