Preparing for the Third Decade of the National Water-Quality Assessment Program (2012) / Chapter Skim
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program assesses the historical and current waterquality conditions and future water-quality scenarios in representative river basins and aquifers across the country. The program was implemented in 1991, primarily in recognition of the importance of understanding the nation's water quality and in response to the conclusion by USGS scientists that their ability to provide information about the nation's water quality at that time was limited.
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During Cycle 2, the program enhanced modeling efforts to extrapolate water quality conditions across the country and expanded communication efforts to disseminate products. In 2004, the program shifted away from the study unit design, restructuring the program design around 8 Major River Basins and 19 Principal Aquifers.
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By comparison, pesticides were present in approximately one-third of samples from undeveloped or mixed land use areas. NAWQA also identified improvements in the nation's water quality.
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Furthermore, hydrologic alteration and land use change are the major drivers of alterations in ecological condition. NAWQA distributed and communicated water-quality data through its data warehouse,3 which makes program data widely available online with sufficient nodes to approximate national coverage and, in some cases, with sufficient regional coverage to assess changes in water quality over time in major watersheds.
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The following sections of this summary correspond to Chapters 4 and 5 of the report, and reflect the committee's advice on a path forward, including specific recommendations in bold. A WAY FORWARD The reason for the continuation of the NAWQA program today echoes that which originally motivated the creation of the program: the need to characterize water quality at a national scale.
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a national assessment of water quality. Restoration of resources will not reverse this inability to achieve the program's core mission, once the tipping point is crossed.
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Similarly, does NAWQA have adequate waterquality monitoring data to support its water-quality models? A successful national water-quality assessment in Cycle 3 would be a national-scale water-quality surveillance program that evaluates and forecasts how changing land use conditions and climate variability may affect water quality in different settings, and that informs water policy and decision makers as they evaluate policy options impacting the nation's water resources.
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The Science Plan provides a forward-thinking vision for NAWQA science in the next decade of assessing the nation's aquatic resources: Science-based strategies can protect and improve water quality for people and ecosystems even as population and threats to water quality continue to grow, demand for water increases, and climate changes. The Science Plan builds on the existing two decades of data, experience, and NAWQA products.
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However, given the current federal fiscal climate and the scale of the Science Plan, full-scale implementation of the Science Plan is unlikely.5 As directed by the statement of task and to be sensitive to available funding, the committee considered the relative importance of the different scientific objectives within the Science Plan and in terms of trade-offs that implementing one versus the other would represent. The committee categorized the 20 objectives as "essential," "not essential," and those needing "further justification." An objective is essential if it contributes to, for example, monitoring status and trends of surface and groundwater quality and relevant aquatic ecosystem indicators or modeling capabilities and forecasting consequences of future scenarios.6 An objective that is not essential provides important benefits to the nation and there would be consequences if it were not accomplished, but it is not essential to NAWQA's achievement of its core mission as a national water-quality program.
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(d) Apply understanding of how land use, climate, and natural factors affect water quality to determine the susceptibility of surface-water and groundwater resources to degradation.
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SOURCE: Design of Cycle 3 of the National Water Quality Assessment Program, 2013-2023: Part 2: Science Plan for Improved Water-Quality Information and Management 3c, and 3d) because of their scientific importance but also partly because the scientific activities described in these objectives are intimately linked with one another (i.e., one cannot proceed without the other)
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needs "further justification" before implementation in Cycle 3, particularly given the scale proposed in the Science Plan. The Science Plan proposes national status and trends monitoring of mercury in fish tissue, expanded from the regional topical study of mercury in fish tissue in Cycle 2.
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Although the Implementation Plan for Cycle 3 was not yet prepared at the time of this review, the Science Plan contained preliminary discussion of how to implement the scientific agenda. The Science Plan proposes increased coverage of the NAWQA sampling network to an extent that is similar to that of the original design, coupled with intensive yearly sampling schedules (as opposed to intensive sampling every 2 to 4 years)
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This commitment continues and builds on a history of success in these endeavors within USGS, with the Department of the Interior, and with other federal, state, and local agencies. The Science Plan for Cycle 3 is a plan for addressing national water quality needs that deliberately goes beyond what NAWQA can accomplish, providing a framework for other agencies to identify objectives to be met as part of addressing the nation's water quality issues.
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To meet the national needs outlined in the Cycle 3 Science Plan, NAWQA will need to emphasize collaboration in two modes: as a leader that partners with other USGS and external programs, and as a follower with other federal agencies, state and local governments, and the private sector. As part of this approach NAWQA would need to: · focus on core mission areas where it has unique capabilities, for the program's own implementation efforts; · leverage resources with other agencies to achieve more of the objectives of the Cycle 3 Science Plan; · foster higher levels of involvement and investment by other agencies; and · help others design their own mission-critical programs to meet identified national objectives of the Cycle 3 Science Plan without NAWQA's direct involvement; and 8 EPA's Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water is charged with developing a list of contaminants every 5 years that may require regulation, the CCL.
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The Cycle 3 Science Plan is a forward-thinking comprehensive water-quality strategy. Because it was authored during a climate of strained federal resources, this is an opportune time for NAWQA to bring together the federal agencies involved in water-quality monitoring and research and, using the Science Plan as a starting point, to develop a collaborative waterquality strategy for the nation.
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