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DEVELOPMENT OF A AGGREGATED INDEX OF ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION OF THE UNITED STATES
Citation:
Paul, J F. DEVELOPMENT OF A AGGREGATED INDEX OF ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY FOR THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION OF THE UNITED STATES. Presented at Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, Philadelphia PA, November 14-19, 1999.
Description:
A series of reports on the condition of resources for the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States is being produced. These reports focus on individual resources (e.g., estuaries, streams, forests, and landscapes), summarizing
with an environmental report card for each resource across the entire region and within major geographic subregions. An approach has been developed for reporting on the overall condition of the region (multi-resource assessment) using the information presented in the individual resource environmental report cards. This approach is called the aggregated index of environmental integrity for the Mid-Atlantic. The development of the index builds upon the concepts underlying the development of the index of biotic integrity (IBI): index is simple summation of individual metric values, individual metrics respond in monotonic fashion to environmental stress, uniform scaling for metrics, and application of index doesn't lose information contained in the individual metrics. The aggregated index relies upon the validity of information that went
into the individual resource environmental report cards. The approach has been applied to those resources in the Mid-Atlantic region for which reports have been prepared. The results provide for the ability to report on the overall condition of the region as well as compare the condition of different resources. The strengths and weaknesses of the aggregated index approach are
presented.