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Impact/Purpose:

The Office of Research and Development (ORD) has initiated a multi-year planning effort to plan the direction of our research program in selected topic areas over five or more years. This approach promotes ORD's focus on the highest priority issues and provides coordination for achieving our long-term research goals. The focus of this effort is the development of Multi-Year Plans (MYPs).

The purpose of the MYPs is to provide a framework that integrates research across ORD's laboratories and centers and Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) goals in support of the Agency's mission to protect human health and the environment. The MYPs identify long-term goals, and present annual performance goals (APGs) and associated annual performance measures (APMs) for a planning window of approximately 5-10 years. By helping to identify the impact of potential annual planning decisions, MYPs aid in the evaluation of research options. MYPs also foster the integration of strategic risk-based environmental protection and anticipation of future environmental issues by communicating our research approach and timing for responding to environmental issues. MYPs are intended to be living documents and are updated as needed to reflect the current state of the science, resource availability, and Agency priorities.

MYPs include two major components: (1) a narrative description of the plan, and (2) a matrix of goals and measures. The narrative provides an introduction and background to the topic of the plan, describes the long-term goals, provides the logic/thinking used to array performance goals to achieve long-term goals, and describes the integration between goals and organizations. The matrix is used to indicate annual goals and measures needed to meet the long-term goals identified in the plan. These goals and measures are arrayed across time (i.e., fiscal years) and laboratories/centers and are based on total annual resource levels for the MYP topic area that will not exceed the resource level proposed in the most recent President's Budget.

Description:

The water quality research program provides approaches and methods the Agency and its partners need to develop and apply criteria to support designated uses, tools to diagnose and assess impairment in aquatic systems, and tools to restore and protect aquatic systems. Water quality research addresses a wide spectrum of aquatic ecosystem stessors. However, particular attention is accorded to stressors that the Agency most often cites as causing water body impairment: embedded and suspended sediment, nutrients, and pathogens and pathogen indicators. EPA's multi-year plan for water quality research establishes four long-term goals, three of which represent research to be conducted in support of clean and safe water. (The fourth long-term research goal, which focuses on exposures to and health risks presented by biosolids, is reflected under the Agency's Goal 3, Preserve and Restore the Land.) Within the scope of this MYP, EPA will: 1. Provide the approaches and methods to develop and apply criteria for habitat alteration, nutrients, suspended and bedded sediments, pathogens and toxic chemicals that will support designated uses for aquatic systems. 2. Provide the tools to assess and diagnose the causes and pollutant sources of impairment in aquatic systems. 3. Provide the tools to restore and protect impaired aquatic systems and to forecast the ecological, economic, and human health benefits of alternative approaches to attain water quality standards. 4. Provide the approaches, methods and tools to assess the exposures and reduce the human health risks from biosolids contaminants for use by the Office of Water, States and others in updating biosolids guidance and regulations.

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