Region 5 – Landscape Analysis for Decision Making
	This seminar will provide an overview of the Region 5 Critical Ecosystems Assessment Model (CrEAM), which is a screening tool that rates undeveloped landscapes according to ecological significance. The seminar will be used to discuss lessons learned developing and evaluating the CrEAM model in Region 5 and the potential applicability and extension of such analyses to other areas of the United States. Complementary presentations will be given on EPA’s Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) program and a new project by the Office of Water developing tools and methods that take into account the recovery potential of impaired systems as a results-oriented approach to decisions and setting priorities. Featured Speakers include: Mary White and Charles Maurice from EPA Region 5, Doug Norton from the Office of Water, and Elizabeth Smith from EPA‘s National Exposure Research Laboratory (ORD). PowerPoint slides will be available by September 13, 2004 – email Elsie Sunderland (Sunderland.Elsie@epa.gov) if you would like to have these sent to you directly before the presentation.
Agenda
100-110		Welcome & Introduction to Regional Seminar Series Gary J. Foley, CREM Co-Chair
110-120		Regional Modeling Overview Mary L.White, Region 5, Office of Strategic Environmental Analysis
120-145		CrEAM – Allowing Ecosystems to Float to the Top of Environmental Protection Charles G. Maurice, Hazardous Substances Technical Liaison, Region 5
145-150		Questions and Discussion
150-215		Assessing Recovery Potential of Impaired Waters Douglas Norton, Assessment & Watershed Protection Division, Office of Water
215-220		Questions and Discussion
220-245		Regional Vulnerability Assessment: Using Existing Data and Model Results to Target Risk Management Activities Elizabeth R. Smith, Office of Research and Development (NERL)
245-300		Questions and Open Discussion

Presentations
	CrEAM – Allowing Ecosystems to Float to the Top of Environmental Protection The Region 5 Critical Ecosystems Assessment Model (CrEAM) is a screening tool that rates undeveloped landscapes according to ecological significance. For purposes of this geographic information system (GIS) tool, landscape-level ecological significance was defined in terms of three equally weighted criteria, predicted potential for: 1) ecological diversity; 2) self sustainability; and 3) rarity. Ecological diversity incorporates the predicted diversity of populations, communities, and ecosystems. Self sustainability is based on amount of fragmentation and occurrences of stressors or stressor sources. Rarity incorporates land cover and biological rarity. The base map consisted of 30m x 30m pixels from the National Land Cover Database (NLCD) aggregated into 300m x 300m cells, thereby yielding over 3 million cells across Region 5. Eighteen pre-existing, readily available data sets were processed to generate 20 geospatial layers, each possessing a numeric rating for all of the cells. These 20 layers were used as indicators or measures of the three criteria. The final composite map was generated by combining the indicator layers by criterion and then combining the criteria. The analysis was conducted for EPA Region 5, but all of the data are nationally available so that similar analyses can be conducted anywhere in the United States. During development of this tool, advice and peer review has been obtained from ORD scientists associated with six laboratories (RTP, Las Vegas, Corvallis, Cincinnati, Duluth, and Narraghansett) and State and NGO representatives from Region 5 states, as well as scientists from EPA Region 5. The CrEAM methodology has been peer reviewed by external scientists, including a separate formal peer review by the Ecological Processes and Effects Committee of the EPA Science Advisory Board. Field validation is scheduled for next summer using newly developed Quick Field Assessment Protocols for Ecosystems. The CrEAM can be used as a screening tool to assist workload prioritization, help identify geographic initiatives, and focus geographic targeting.
	Assessing Recovery Potential of Impaired Waters State water programs, EPA regions and others observe that many environmental programs backed by EPA have a “worst first” approach to setting priorities among many sites. This philosophy is believed to generate two outcomes: 1) Limited resources are expended on severely impaired systems that may never recover and thus generate little positive news from environmental programs (i.e. can’t act until it’s ruined); 2) Systems that are less severely impaired and therefore probably more recoverable often get less attention or investment, and some of the potential gains in environmental quality are unrealized. Although this project does not challenge the merit of remediating severely impaired waters, it does challenge the wisdom of attempting to restore waters without considering which ones are unrecoverable versus working where efforts may succeed. We suggest that considering recovery potential should become a more deliberate, routine step in impaired waters remediation decisions, ranging from priority-setting for TMDL implementation, to 319 nonpoint control project funding, to local or state restoration project support. The early stages of our efforts do not yet constitute a model or tool. Tools for considering recovery potential per se are currently nonexistent, but probably adaptable from current geo-spatial tools, data sets and models that predict vulnerability, risk, and alternative outcomes. Explanatory variables in four categories relevant to recovery also need to be identified and validated: these categories are ecological capacity to regain function, stressor exposure, socio-economic context, and BMP/restoration practice effectiveness. Validated explanatory variables from these categories that can also be extracted from geo-spatial data sets may provide the makings of a GIS-based recovery potential screening tool that may help states and others better apply their limited resources for positive results. The current project will explore this premise using statewide landscape analyses of the watersheds of State of Illinois’ 303d-listed streams for selected variables. Alternate approaches to decisions and priorities are therefore needed. This presentation will explore the concept of recovery potential as a results-oriented approach to decisions and setting priorities. Concepts of environmental quality and stressor intensity are important to priority-setting and recovery potential. An example of geospatial screening for recovery potential will be given.
	Regional Vulnerability Assessment: Using Existing Data and Model Results to Target Risk Management Activities Since 1998, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) Program has been developing approaches to inform environmental decision-making at multiple scales through broad-scale comparative and cumulative risk assessment. Efforts have focused on 1) integration of existing data and model results to address a suite of assessment questions, 2) development of spatially-explicit models that use available monitoring data to estimate environmental conditions and exposures to multiple stresses, 3) development of new indicators that effectively communicate the risks of environmental degradation, 4) development of decision-support tools that improve the accessibility of research results, and 5) client partnerships that focus on the use of regional–scale information, combined with finer-scaled data to address decision-making at the local level. ReVA is now looking at future projections of the major drivers of change (land use change, spread of non-indigenous species, pollution and pollutants, resource extraction, and climate change) in the mid-Atlantic region along with scenarios of alternative risk management options. This presentation will focus on research results to date and will highlight some of the current uses of these results.
Featured Speakers
	Charles G. Maurice, Ph.D. EPA Region 5 (SR-4J) 77 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL 60604 312-886-6635 Tel. 312-353-9281 Fax. maurice.charles@epa.gov Dr. Charles (Chuck) Maurice received his doctorate in Plant Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989, specializing in phytotoxicology and plant cytology. He received his Master of Science in Biological Sciences from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) in 1982, specializing in aquatic toxicology and ecology. He majored in environmental biology and minored in Chemistry at Eastern Illinois University where he received his baccalaureate in 1980. In 1989, Dr. Maurice began his professional career as a senior ecologist and ecological risk assessor with the Superfund contractor, Ecology and Environment, Inc. In January of 1993, Dr. Maurice joined EPA Region 5 in the RCRA Program where he was a corrective action project manager and provided ecological support, especially regarding ecological risk assessment. In 1995, he was selected to be one of the charter members of the Office of Strategic Environmental Analysis (OSEA). In April 2004, he transferred to the Office of Research and Development (ORD) to become the Hazardous Substances Technical Liaison (HSTL) to Region 5. During the course of his career, Dr. Maurice has developed, coordinated, and taught courses in ecological risk assessment; has been involved with the development of Risk Assessment Forum and Region 5 ecorisk guidance documents; spearheaded the first ecological risk assessment conducted on a hazardous waste incinerator; has been an active member of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC) for 13 years, serving on the Midwest Chapter’s Board of Directors from 1998 - 2001; has published papers in peer reviewed scientific journals and given numerous professional scientific presentations; and has co-chaired scientific conferences, workshops, and platform sessions. Dr. Maurice co-led a cross media group of Region 5 scientists who developed the Critical Ecosystem Assessment Model (CrEAM), a GIS-based model that evaluates the relative ecological significance of ecosystems at the landscape level across Region 5.
	Douglas Norton Assessment and Watershed Protection Division Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds U.S. EPA Office of Water (4503T) Ariel Rios Building 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W. Washington, DC 20460 202-566-1221 norton.douglas@epa.gov Doug Norton has served as a senior environmental scientist in the Watershed Branch of EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans and Watersheds (OWOW) for the past twelve years. Throughout his career he has specialized in applying geo-spatial technologies such as remote sensing and landscape analysis to environmental protection and management. Before joining the Office of Water he started and directed EMAP’s Landscape Characterization Program, which went on to produce the National Land Cover Dataset (NLCD), now a key data set for many EPA landscape models. He has participated in efforts involving water temperature remote sensing and modeling, and sediment assessment and modeling, as part of his work in OWOW. In earlier positions he worked with remote sensing and mapping from local to international scales in support of county planning, wetlands enforcement cases, Superfund hazardous waste sites, Nature Conservancy preserves, National Wildlife Refuges, and mapping the land cover of the country of Yemen. He holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from Cornell University in Natural Resources Analysis and Planning. Currently, among other tasks, he is working on application of landscape analysis techniques to support watershed analysis, monitoring, planning and restoration at statewide and national scales, and has a personal interest in advancing EPA’s analysis of impaired waters recovery potential.
	Elizabeth R. Smith, Ph.D. National Exposure Research Laboratory U.S. EPA (E243-05) 109 T.W. Alexander Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27711 phone: 919-541-0620 fax: 919-541-1138 smith.betsy@epa.gov www.epa.gov/reva Betsy Smith has served as director of EPA’s Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) Program since 1998. ReVA is a cross-ORD research program that is developing and testing approaches to conducting comparative environmental risk assessments and targeting risk management activities at the regional to local scales. Prior to joining EPA, Dr. Smith worked with the Tennessee Valley Authority for 14 years in the areas of regional scale monitoring and assessment, research on air pollution impacts to forests, and landscape analyses. With a background in forest biometrics and quantitative ecology, Dr. Smith has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers and has served on a number of interagency committees designed to recommend monitoring and ecosystem research needs at a national level. As team leader for TVA’s Landscape Sciences group, Dr. Smith led TVA’s participation in the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), the SAMAB (Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere) Southern Appalachian Assessment and chaired the SAMAB interagency Research and Monitoring Committee. Dr. Smith received her Ph.D. in ecology from the University of Tennessee in 1990.