Review of EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program Surface Waters (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-11
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provide an ongoing review of its developing program. In response to that request, the NRC appointed the Committee to Review EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program in 1991.
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The committee recognizes that not every issue can be addressed in a single pilot study, but it is concerned that there appears to be no overall plan to address these issues sequentially in subsequent pilot studies. In addition, oversight and involvement of senior scientists from a central management team at EMAP Center might have enhanced the scientific rigor of the pilot study, improved the design, analysis and reporting phases of the pilot study, and produced more useful models for the full program.
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are to: · estimate the current status, trends, and changes in selected indicators of condition of the nation's lakes, reservoirs, streams, and rivers on a regional basis with known confidence; · estimate the extent (number and surface area of lakes and reservoirs, miles of rivers and streams} of the nation's lakes, reservoirs, streams, and rivers with known confidence; · seek associations between selected indicators of natural and anthropogenic stresses and indicators of the condition of ecological resources; and · provide annual statistical summaries and periodic assessments on the condition of the nation's lakes, reservoirs, streams, and rivers. ASSESSMENT END POINTS EMAP-Surface Waters has designated three assessment end points for the lakes portion of their program: biological integrity, trophic condition, and fishability.
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Nonetheless, the committee concludes that further efforts are needed to refine the definitions and measurement strategies for both end points. In addition, although EMAP's financial resources will be limited, the committee thinks it is imprudent to exclude drinking water from consideration as a societal value in its surface water assessment program.
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Therefore, the committee recommends that explicit conceptual models of the ecological systems being monitored be used to guide indicator development. The committee shares the concern raised by EPA's peer review pane' regarding heavy reliance on indices with unknown properties.
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Because surface water systems are linked with their watersheds, the committee believes that the lack of a watershed perspective will severely limit the identification of likely causes of detected changes in the EMAP lakes. Without this watershed perspective, landscape characterization data cannot be used to evaluate the status of individual aquatic resource units.
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The committee recommends that similar tests with published or simulated biological (population and community level) data be vigorously pursued, because EPA indicates that these data will be important in formulating indicators similar to Karr's Index of Biological Integrity.
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However, a substantial portion of the data was not analyzed in time to meet deadlines for the pilot study report. This suggests that a larger investment in data analysis will be necessary if a larger scale implementation is to be completed in a timely fashion.
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Based on the limited information now available, the committee concludes that it was premature to embark on a stream pilot study at this time. The currently conceived sampling strategy appears inadequate to characterize stream quality either chemically or biologically.
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Therefore, the committee recommends that EMAP-Surface Waters and the EPA Office of Water work together to insure that data collected under the 305b program can be useful not just for compliance monitoring (the primary focus of current programs in most states) , but also to assess temporal and geographic trends in water quality.
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However, the committee believes it is critical that the guidance panels also include representatives of EMAP clients, i.e., policy makers and the larger scientific community. Most pane!
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