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Ecological Forecasting: Microbial Contamination and Atmospheric Loadings of Nutrients to Land and Water
Citation:
MATHUR, R., W. E. FRICK, G. LEAR, AND R. L. DENNIS. Ecological Forecasting: Microbial Contamination and Atmospheric Loadings of Nutrients to Land and Water. EM: AIR AND WASTE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATION'S MAGAZINE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGERS. Air & Waste Management Association, Pittsburgh, PA, , 36-40, (2007).
Impact/Purpose:
The National Exposure Research Laboratory's (NERL's) Atmospheric Modeling Division (AMD) conducts research in support of EPA’s mission to protect human health and the environment. AMD's research program is engaged in developing and evaluating predictive atmospheric models on all spatial and temporal scales for forecasting the Nation's air quality and for assessing changes in air quality and air pollutant exposures, as affected by changes in ecosystem management and regulatory decisions. AMD is responsible for providing a sound scientific and technical basis for regulatory policies based on air quality models to improve ambient air quality. The models developed by AMD are being used by EPA, NOAA, and the air pollution community in understanding and forecasting not only the magnitude of the air pollution problem, but also in developing emission control policies and regulations for air quality improvements.
Description:
The development of ecological forecasts, namely, methodologies to predict the chemical, biological, and physical changes in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems is desirable so that effective strategies for reducing the adverse impacts of human activities and extreme natural events can be developed to sustain ecosystem productivity. The temporal and spatial scales of such ecological forecasts would, in turn, depend on the ecosystem and the phenomenon being forecast. Since the development of comprehensive monitoring programs for ecological assessments and forecasting is expensive, scientists and managers would need to increasingly rely on theoretical models for understanding nutrient effects and forecasting trends. Systems that include detailed description of the pathways dictating the transport and fate of nutrients and contaminants from a combined atmosphere-land-water perspective are needed for integrated ecological assessments. Such systems must be able to accurately describe not only the cycling and residence time of the contaminants in the individual media, but also the interactions from an integrated multi-media perspective. Significant efforts have been devoted over the past two decades toward the development of detailed models addressing specific ecological problems. In recent years, several such efforts have been transitioned to provide short-term forecast of air and water quality. Linking the information from these evolving modeling systems could provide building blocks for the next generation integrated ecological forecast models. Additionally, the development of continual archives of the model output from these systems could provide vital long-term database whose analysis in conjunction with available monitored data will help better characterize both the short and long-term response of key ecological variables on spatial scales ranging from local to regional.