Connecting nitrogen deposition and Final Ecosystem Goods and Services for air quality standards review
Citation:
Compton, J., D. Landers, AND D. Sobota. Connecting nitrogen deposition and Final Ecosystem Goods and Services for air quality standards review. EM Magazine. Air and Waste Management Association, Pittsburgh, PA, , July 21-27, (2015).
Impact/Purpose:
EPA authors were asked by editors of the Air and Waste Management association to write a short paper for their magazine EM about the connection between the air quality secondary standards and the concept of ecosystem services as might be used in the air quality standards review process. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing the secondary National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for oxides of nitrogen and sulfur (NOx and SOx). In addition to the primary NAAQS based on human health effects, the Clean Air Act calls for setting secondary standards based on the adverse effects on public welfare. While the statute has been in existence for 40+ years, scientists are just now beginning to clearly connect existing environmental data to this term public welfare and to create a framework that allows for quantification of pollutant impacts on many aspects of public welfare. The application of the Final Ecosystem Goods and Services concept, by connecting impacts to those people affected, allows for organizing and quantifying these effects on public welfare in a more useful way. This paper outlines the connections between nitrogen deposition and ecosystem services, explaining how this approach could be used to inform the air quality standard review process.
Description:
There has been a great deal of effort to document changes in ecosystem structure and function in response to increasing or decreasing N deposition, yet less work connects the specific effects on the value to people of these changes in the ecosystem. Although there are studies tackling key pieces of this picture, a recent assessment concluded that current information about response of ecosystem services related to changes in nitrogen and sulfur deposition was insufficient to make comparisons to human health and cost information (NAPAP 2011). The NAPAP report called for ecological and economic research that would allow adequate assessment of monetary benefits to ecosystem services of changes in nitrogen and sulfur deposition. In addition to comprehensive large-scale efforts, more study is needed at local and regional scales to identify the specific damages and benefits associated with N and S emissions and deposition. And as more studies are completed, they can be placed into this a systems-level framework for identifying beneficiaries in order to economically value these ecosystem services.
