You are here:
MID-ATLANTIC REGIONAL VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT
Citation:
Smith, E R. MID-ATLANTIC REGIONAL VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT. Presented at EPA Critical Ecosystems Workshop, Keystone, CO, June 17-21, 2002.
Impact/Purpose:
Provide regional-scale, spatially explicit information on the extent and distribution of both stressors and sensitive resources.
Develop and evaluate techniques to integrate information on exposure and effects so that relative risk can be assessed and management actions can be prioritized.
Predict consequences of potential environmental changes under alternative future scenarios.
Effectively communicate economic and quality of life trade-offs associated with alternative environmental policies.
Develop techniques to prioritize areas for ecological restoration.
Identify information gaps and recommend actions to improve monitoring and focus research.
There are two task objectives that reflect the work done by LCB in support of the ReVA Program objectives:
Provide information management, spatial analysis support, and data and information accessibility for the ReVA Program
Provide program management support, technology transfer, and outreach.
Description:
ORD's Regional Vulnerability Assessment (REVA) Program is developing and demonstrating approaches to assess current and future environmental vulnerabilities so that risk management activities can be targeted. The sister program to EMA.P (Environmental Monitoring Assessment Program), REVA is being piloted in the Mid-Atlantic region and is the second phase of the Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment (MAIA) led by Region 3. REVA defines Vulnerability as a function of current condition, ecosystem sensitivity and resiliency, and estimated stressor distributions, such that it can be considered somewhat analogous to sustainability. To estimate vulnerability REVA uses primarily existing data or model results and integrates spatial coverages using a suite of methods ranging from simple overlays to complex combinations of multivariate statistics and fuzzy set theory. Building on the work of EPA's Landscape Sciences Program, REVA supports the development of broad-scale models that provide spatially-explicit estimates of condition for every point on the map. The assessment focuses on both an evaluation of current conditions and vulnerabilities, and a suite of alternative future scenarios developed in cooperation with clients and decision--makers. Our decision-support tools include the Capability to have the user specify weightings for variables or groups of variables, allowing an assessment of different endpoints that reflect differences in what society values, With this we provide a flexible integration framework with which ranks ecosystems based on condition and vulnerability, so that alternative risk management scenarios and their associated trade-offs can be evaluated.