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ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION AND PROTECTION STRATEGIES AT MULTIPLE SCALES IN RHODE ISLAND WATERSHEDS
Citation:
Lussier, S M., H A. Walker, G G. Pesch, W B. Galloway, Adler, R Comeleo, AND J Copeland. ENVIRONMENTAL RESTORATION AND PROTECTION STRATEGIES AT MULTIPLE SCALES IN RHODE ISLAND WATERSHEDS. Presented at Northeast Atlantic Chapter of the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry Annual Meting, Boston MA, June 25-26, 1999.
Description:
Public concerns for the environment are often the basis for environmental regulations. The Clean Water Act seeks to ensure that water quality and quantity fully support aquatic life and human health. The legislative requirements help focus limited resources on areas where problems are apparent or anticipated. An additional approach has been adopted by EPA New England to identify areas of healthy natural resources in the New England states. This "New England Resource Protection" approach represents a change of focus from remediating areas not sustaining aquatic life or human use to protecting healthy ecosystems. Diverse stakeholders are involved in an open process designed to identify and characterize healthy ecosystems in both a human health and ecosystem context. This approach facilitates clear communication concerning environmental conditions and threats to healthy ecosystems and promotes public stewardship for the environment. Public concerns can then be translated into a set of specific questions that can be answered through research. The issues and concerns of stakeholders differ at each spatial scale. At the state level, the resources protection process helps identify relatively pristine areas that may benefit from additional protection. At the subbasin scale, areas of specific nonattainment can be identified and probable causes determined. In our Rhode Island case study, we use the Geographic Information System to illustrate how public concerns, Clean Water Act reporting, and New England Resources Protection can be integrated to identify different types of environmental assessment questions and research issues at state, watershed, and subbasin scales.