The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has initiated the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) to monitor the status and trends of the nation's near coastal waters, forests, wetlands, agroecosystems, surface waters, and arid lands. The program is also intended to evaluate the effectiveness of Agency policies at protecting ecological resources occurring in these systems. Monitoring data collected for all these natural resources will be integrated for national status and trends assessments. The near coastal component of EMAP consists of estuaries, coastal waters, coastal and estuarine wetlands, and Great Lakes. The country's near coastal resources have been regionalized and classified, an integrated sampling strategy has been developed, and quality assurance/quality control procedures and data management designs have been implemented. EPA and NOAA have agreed to coordinate and, to the extent possible, integrate near coastal component of EMAP with NOAA National Status and Trends Program. A demonstration project was jointly conducted in the estuaries of the mid-Atlantic states (Chesapeake Bay to Cape Cod) in the summer of 1990. In 1991, monitoring will continue in the mid-Atlantic estuaries and will be initiated in estuaries in part of the Gulf of Mexico.

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