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THE ESTUARINE COMPONENT OF THE U.S. EPA'S ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
Citation:
Paul, J., K. Scott, A. Holland, S. Weisberg, J. Summers, AND A. Robertson. THE ESTUARINE COMPONENT OF THE U.S. EPA'S ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAM. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., EPA/600/J-93/136 (NTIS PB93185833), 1992.
Description:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development has initiated the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) to monitor status and trends in the condition of the nation's near coastal waters, forests, wetlands, agro-ecosystems, surface waters, deserts and rangelands. he programme is also intended to evaluate the effectiveness of Agency policies at protecting ecological resources occurring in these systems. onitoring data collected for all ecosystems will be integrated for regional and national status and trends assessments. he near coastal component of EMAP consists of estuaries, coastal waters, and the Great Lakes. ear coastal ecosystems have been regionalized and classified, and an integrated sampling strategy has been developed. PA and NOAA have agreed to coordinate and, to the extent possible, integrate the near coastal component of EMAP with the NOAA National Status and Trends Program. emonstration project was conducted in estuaries of the mid-Atlantic region (Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod) in the summer of 1990. n 1991, monitoring continued in mid-Atlantic estuaries and was initiated in estuaries of a portion of the Gulf of Mexico. reliminary results indicate: there are no insurmountable logistical problems with sampling on a regional scale; several of the selected indicators are practical and sensitive on the regional scale; and an efficient effort in future years will provide valuable information on condition of estuarine resources at regional scales.