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CONTEMPLATING THE ASSESSMENT OF GREAT RIVER ECOSYSTEMS
Citation:
Bolgrien, D W., T. Angradi, E. W. Schweiger, AND J. R. Kelly. CONTEMPLATING THE ASSESSMENT OF GREAT RIVER ECOSYSTEMS. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT 103:5-20, (2005).
Impact/Purpose:
To develop ways to better assess the status and trends of ecological conditions in great rivers
Description:
The science and practice of assessing the status and trends of ecological conditions in great rivers have not kept pace with perturbation wrought on these systems. Participants at a symposium sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the Council of State Governments concluded that useful and efficient assessments of great rivers require thoughtful alignment of sampling, designs, spatial and temporal scales, indicators, management needs, and ecosystem characteristics. Site-specific physical, chemical, and biological data long accumulated by assessment programs are valuable but may fail to provide the integrated system-wide perspective required by adaptive management. Use of existing data may be limited by access difficulties and the exclusive applicability of data to specific habitats or sites. The USEPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) is developing uses for probability survey designs to infer conditions across great river ecosystems. The selection of habitats, scales, and indicator suites in an assessment follows from the sampling design specifications and assessment objectives. Indicators of various taxa (in particular, fish and benthic invertebrates) and habitat requirements have been successfully developed for great rivers. However, optimizing the information ecological indicators convey to managers and the public is the subject of ongoing research.