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NATIONAL COASTAL ASSESSMENT: MONITORING AND MODELING IN SUPPORT OF TMDL CALCULATIONS
Citation:
Walker, H A., E H. Dettmann, R. B. Moore, K. W. Robinson, C. A. Oviatt, C. Deacutis, AND A. Simcox. NATIONAL COASTAL ASSESSMENT: MONITORING AND MODELING IN SUPPORT OF TMDL CALCULATIONS. Presented at EPA Science Forum 2004, Washington, DC, June 1-3, 2004.
Description:
The National Coastal Assessment (NCA) has three major goals: 1) assess ecological condition of the nation's estuarine resources based on comparable data of know quality; 2) determine reference conditions, 3) help build infrastructure in states and EPA Regions. Much of the initial effort has focused on these three goals. In addition, NCA has proposed a national strategy for research and monitoring in support of coastal water assessment that involves three tiers: Problem Characterization (Tier 1), involving probabilistic surveys to document broad-scale response properties; Diagnosis of Causes (Tier 2), using issue-specific studies; and Intensive Monitoring at Research Index Sites (Tier 3), collecting information at higher spatial and temporal resolution to determine specific mechanisms of interaction needed to build cause and effect models. We illustrate this strategy and how it can be used in the TMDL process using data on water quality (nutrients and dissolved oxygen) in New England estuaries, results from the New England SPARROW Model on sources of total nitrogen loading to the New England coast, and an estuarine nitrogen mass balance model