The use of the term "integration" in the oceanographic world is now ingrained in governmental infrastructure for strategic planning and program implementation. Indeed the National Office for Integrated and Sustained Ocean Observations, Ocean.US, was formed in recognition of the requirements of an Integrated Ocean Observing System (IOOS, Malone and Hemsley, this volume). The topic of this contribution is more narrowly focussed on improving models through data integration in the larger context of how models are applied and how they interplay with observations. The report from the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy provides this context, along with conceptual planning documents for the various subsystems of IOOS developed by Ocean. U.S. Within NOAA, specific guidance on data integration is found in various program planning documents such as the NOAA Annual Guidance Memorandum. The NOAA Storm Surge Partnership Project is an excellent example of a program that is built on the requirement to integrate activities across NOAA. academia, and stakeholders and has a nested data integration activity. Outside of NOAA, but within the IOOS umbrella structure, several regional observing system entities are developing their own tailored data integration activities. Finally, there are a significant number of research activities that are focusing on various assimilation and integration techniques, both for improving and expanding model applications and for optimizing the design of the observing systems themselves. We focus here on current coastal modeling and data integration activities to link existing work to the IOOS construct and goals and to discuss limitations and areas needing improvement.
