IEP publications describe and interpret the results of projects in the San Francisco Estuary that fall into at least one of three categories:
- a project that was funded all or in part by the IEP and/or received Endangered Species Act (ESA) coverage via the IEP;
- a project that made use of substantial amounts of data or information provided by the IEP, or;
- a project that was conducted by IEP-affiliated authors and who chose to identify their affiliation as being with the IEP.