Clean Coastal Waters Understanding and Reducing the Effects of Nutrient Pollution (2000) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Combating Nutrient Over-Enrichment: Findings and Recommendations
2 Combating Nutrient Over-Enrichment: Findings and Recommendations
Pages 37-62
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 37... ...
If the nation is to address coastal nutrient over-enrichment successfully, efforts by local, state, and federal agencies must be coordinated nationwide. Thus, by keying the major components of a national nutrient management strategy to a common decision process followed by the managers working on-the-ground at local, state, and regional levels, the committee hopes to emphasize that, with a few important exceptions such as where problems span multiple jurisdictions, involve multiple sectors of the economy, threaten federally held resources, or fall under federal regulations like the Clean Air Act, nationwide improvement can best be achieved through coordinated local and regional actions.
|
From page 38... ...
At present, there is little accessible information or easily implemented and reliable methods for a decisionmaker or program manager in a coastal area to determine the sources of excess nutrients or the potential impacts of those nutrients to a specific coastal waterbody.1 Although many federal agencies are making significant independent efforts to help local jurisdictions deal with the effects of nutrient over-enrichment in coastal settings, the degree of coordination among these agencies and efforts remains inadequate. The severity of nutrient-related problems and the importance of the coastal areas at risk demand the development and implementation of a National Nutrient Management Strategy.
|
From page 39... ...
Further, national policies are necessary to deal with nutrient sources from agriculture and from the combustion of fossil fuels, to ensure that pollution sources are not simply shifted from one region to another. The National Nutrient Management Strategy must also facilitate the development of a national, coordinated effort to provide local decisionmakers and managers with the information they will need to determine appropriate source reduction goals and methods at the local level.
|
From page 40... ...
A1144 of the areas identified by NOAA's National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment as exhibiting severe symptoms certainly should be considered as areas where greater effort is needed. Additional study could help further target priorities, especially if it included careful consideration of economic issues and opportunities for stakeholder input.
|
From page 41... ...
How would these goals be accomplished? The key to addressing coastal nutrient problems is understanding that nutrient inputs to coastal waters are affected directly and significantly by activities in the watersheds and airsheds that feed the nation's streams and rivers, and building this recognition into planning as well as implementation of management solutions.
|
From page 42... ...
Second are recommendations that address the development and implementation of federal activities to provide the long-term information, data, and analyses needed to address nutrient over-enrichment in coastal waters and support effective nutrient management strategies at the national, regional, and local levels. A RECOMMENDED APPROACH FOR LOCAL MANAGERS Figure 2-1 shows a decision-making framework that outlines the elements necessary in a process to help local, state, and regional managers make decisions about what steps and methods are appropriate to manage nutrients effectively in their area, recognizing their particular problems.
|
From page 43... ...
Continue management strategy. FIGURE 2-1 Key decision points for developing and implementing a site-specific nutrient management strategy.
|
From page 44... ...
Existing standards and criteria vary from water body to water body; and many coastal areas currently do not have regulatory or non-regulatory guidelines for eutrophication or nutrient loading (Chapter 8~. include: Existing tools and information to assist with characterization of eutrophic symptoms include NOAA's National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment and an initial susceptibility index as developed by NOAA (see also Chapters 4 and 6~.
|
From page 45... ...
If the water body is not meeting standards or goals and the causes appear to be anthropogenic, the strategy moves to the "restoration" series of steps, labeled R1 through R7. If the water body is meeting standards or goals, then the decision-maker moves to the maintenance or "preservation" series of steps, labeled PI through P4.
|
From page 46... ...
to coastal surface waters (to better identify the relative role atmospheric sources play in contributing nutrients; Chapter 5~; · evaluation of processes and retention of atmospheric deposition on various land-use covers (Chapter 5~; · expanded USGS flow and nutrient concentration data collection in coastal watersheds (Chapter 7~; · assessment of modeling approaches to address eutrophication (Chapter 7~; and · evaluation of transferability of findings between existing studies, including scaling (Chapter 6~.
|
From page 47... ...
Estimating the relationships between nutrient loads and responses in the water body (i.e., developing dose/response curves) and the relative susceptibility to changes in nutrient inputs for various classes of coastal waters will provide managers with critical tools to help answer "what if" questions concerning nutrient reductions or increases (Chapter 6~.
|
From page 48... ...
Existing tools and information include those sources listed under R1. Needed resources and research, in addition to many of the recommendations listed in the previous steps, include: · compilation and assessment of methods used to identify relative contributions from each type of nutrient source (to support more effective management strategies; Chapters 5, 8, and 9~; · compilation of economic studies that examine the relative costs of various approaches in a variety of settings, organized so that coastal decisionmakers can more readily identify relevant results and approaches; · identification, compilation, and making accessible a list of potential management options for each type of source, including costs and effectiveness of existing best management practices for urban, agricultural, and residential areas (to help achieve source reductions; Chapter 9)
|
From page 49... ...
These steps are: P1. Evaluate Potential for Future Nutrient Over-Enrichment Because the water body is currently meeting standards and goals, steps taken in this sequence should be simple and cost-effective, and designed to evaluate future potential for eutrophication.
|
From page 50... ...
1999) and used to assess current and future status of the nation's estuaries in NOAA's National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment, in conjuction with other approaches discussed in Chapter 6, may be a useful starting point for determining the risk faced by a given water body and should be considered during this preliminary evaluation.
|
From page 51... ...
Furthermore, because many of the problems faced locally reflect regional processes beyond the purview of local jurisdictions, the strategy should include mechanisms to coordinate efforts at local, regional, and national levels. To minimize potential competition between agencies for limited funds, and to reduce unnecessary and costly duplication of effort, the mechanisms chosen to implement the National Nutrient Management Strategy will be critical and should build on existing efforts, like the Clean Water Action Plan (Box 2-1~.
|
From page 53... ...
, federal programs, such as EPA's Great Waters program, are encouraged to increase their efforts to quantify atmospheric deposition of nutrients to the nation's coastal waters. Local programs should be encouraged to participate in a national monitoring program (such as the National Atmospheric Deposition Program)
|
From page 54... ...
Constructing effective regional or national policies or regulations to deal with the problems associated with nutrient over-enrichment will involve many of the issues addressed by these three acts. Thus, the implications of nutrient over-enrich
|
From page 55... ...
As one of its initial actions, those implementing the National Nutrient Management Strategy should create mechanisms to provide consistent and competent technical assistance from federal agencies to local decisionmakers and agency staff. This might include development of a national clearinghouse and access to onrequest assistance and review.
|
From page 56... ...
As various databases are developed to meet emerging local, state, regional, or national needs for information relevant to nutrient over-enrichment, they should be linked to both the metadata website and included in the clearinghouse discussed above. Expand Federal Leadership Federal leadership is critical to address issues that span multiple jurisdictions, involve several sectors of the economy, threaten federally held resources, or fall under existing federal regulations such as the Clean Air Act.
|
From page 57... ...
One consequence is that the full economic and ecological impact of nutrient over-enrichment is not currently demonstrable. Implementation of a nationally consistent monitoring program will be a critical component of the proposed National Nutrient Management Strategy because monitoring brings better characterization of the spatial extent and temporal trends of nutrient over-enrichment in estuaries and coastal waters.
|
From page 58... ...
Representative coastal systems (e.g., index sites) should be selected to serve as sites for long-term, intensive research programs to better understand the effects of nutrient enrichment on estuarine structure and function, and to track how changes in management affect coastal systems.
|
From page 59... ...
Improve dry deposition monitoring and model efforts (Chapter 5~. Conduct Periodic Comprehensive Assessments of Coastal Environmental Quality One key deficiency in the nation's approach to coastal water quality deficiencies is the lack of periodic, comprehensive analysis like the recent NOAA National Estuarine Eutrophication Assessment.
|
From page 60... ...
A widely accepted estuarine classification scheme is a prerequisite for a systematic approach to extending lessons learned and management options from one estuary or affected coastal water body to others. Such a classification scheme should allow categorization of relatively poorly known systems on the basis of a minimum suite of measurements.
|
From page 61... ...
The implications for reducing the effects of nutrient over-enrichment through implementation of the Clean Air Act should be a major component of the national dialog concerning coastal environmental quality. Additional research is needed to address the relative role that nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients play in specific freshwater and marine systems, and how those roles vary seasonally (Chapter 3~.
|
From page 62... ...
The local, state, and federal elements of the proposed National Nutrient Management Strategy could provide information and assistance with the development and implementation of effective management at all levels, and a means for objective independent review. As noted many times in this report, effective management is site-specific and unique for every estuary and coastal water body, with no universal "right answers." An adaptive management approach, using accessible and emerging tools, knowledge of successful techniques, coupled with and supported by a strong monitoring program, appears to provide the highest probability of long-term success.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.