single toxicant before it, yet one that has now been brought under effective control-at least in estuaries and the nearshore environment. The problem with TBT and its cause was first recognized in France, then in the United Kingdom and the United States of America; and in these and other countries legislation is now in place (see Abel, Chapter 2; Champ and Wade, Chapter 3), but in many countries the hazard is only now being identified. This volume has the important function of making available to all a summary of the results of work on TBT and the main conclusions. It will help to minimize the duplication of research and speed the introduction of legislation around the world to control organotin pollution. It is the more valuable because research on TBT has often been published in less accessible journals and symposium proceedings. This volume brings together accounts of these findings by the major contributors to the TBT story, providing the most comprehensive account to date. The TBT problem has proved to be instructive in a number of different ways beyond the bounds of the specific issue (Stebbing, 1985). Most important is that TBT can be seen as a challenge to monitoring systems for nearshore waters, by which it can be judged how effective monitoring has been in fulfilling its purpose, and what improvements should be made. Most instructive was the time it took to bring TBT under control.
