You are here:
The National Wetland Condition Assessment: National Data on Wetland Quality to Inform and Improve Wetlands Protection
Citation:
SCOZZAFAVA, M. E., M. E. KENTULA, E. Riley, T. MAGEE, A. Jacobs, G. SERENBETZ, R. R. SUMNER, C. FAULKNER, M. PRICE, AND L. HALL. The National Wetland Condition Assessment: National Data on Wetland Quality to Inform and Improve Wetlands Protection. Environmental Law Institute, Washington, DC, (33(2)), 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with states, tribes, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (US FWS), and other federal partners will conduct the first-ever National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) in 2011.
Description:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in collaboration with states, tribes, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (US FWS), and other federal partners will conduct the first-ever National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) in 2011. The NWCA is designed to build on the success of the US FWS Wetland Status and Trends (S&T) Report. Just as the S&T Report characterizes wetland acreage by category across the conterminous United States, the NWCA will characterize wetland condition nationwide for many of the same wetland classes. When paired together, the two efforts will provide the public and government agencies with comparable, national information on wetland quantity and quality. Combining wetland quantity and quality data provides a stronger basis for informing effective wetland protection strategies and will inform broad scale environmental goals and priority-setting. In many ways, the NWCA is pushing the limits of our conceptual and technical knowledge by producing a condition assessment at the national scale in one field season. While subsequent national wetland condition surveys will no doubt benefit from the lessons learned during this precedential effort, the 2011 survey will mark a significant leap forward in our understanding of wetland science and assessment at the national scale.