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EPA'S REGIONAL VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT PROGRAM: TOOLS TO FACILITATE REGIONAL TO LOCAL DECISION-MAKING
Citation:
O'Connell, M. AND E R. Smith. EPA'S REGIONAL VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT PROGRAM: TOOLS TO FACILITATE REGIONAL TO LOCAL DECISION-MAKING. Presented at First Working Group Meeting of the NATO/CCMS Pilot Study on the use of Landscape Sciences for Environmental Assessment, Las Vegas, NV, April 3-5, 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:
EPA's Regional Vulnerability Assessment (ReVA) program is developing and testing approaches to conducting comparative environmental risk assessments at the regional scale, considering impacts to ecological human, and fiscal health endpoints. It seeks an objective and quantifiable answer to answer the question, "What are the greatest threats accompanying socioeconomic growth in a region and which ecosystems are most vulnerable?" ReVA builds oil the environmental monitoring base developed by the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) and monitoring done, by other agencies, and incorporates the latest developments in remote sensing, landscape ecology, spatially-explicit modeling, and ecological risk assessment. The, research is being conducted in concert with EPA Region 3 as part of the Mid-Atlantic, Integrated Assessment (MAIA) and includes collaboration across ORD and with other federal agencies (USFS, USGS, TVA).
lN addition to peer-reviewed publications an these new approaches, ReVA is producing a number of decision-support tools that illustrate trade-offs associated with alternative management actions and policies. ReVA's prototype web-based application facilitates decision-making by allowing, users to view maps of, and relationships between individu4 indicators, or integrated indices of relative vulnerability. Trade-offs can be evaluated by comparing different sets of indicators (e.g those relating to water quality or human health) and by differentially weighting selected indicators (or derision criteria) based on stakeholder input, The web-site will soon incorporate future scenarios as well, allowing insights into the impacts associated with projected land use change and population growth. The web-based application has been developed as a flexible framework that can be used in any region, and with any scale data, This tool will be a critical aid to state and local governments, and regional EPA offices and planning bodies in developing efficient and effective strategies for community-based environmental protection.