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GEO-CAPE Coastal Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics White Paper: EPA Section
Citation:
Schaeffer, B. GEO-CAPE Coastal Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics White Paper: EPA Section. NASA, Washington, DC, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
Describe satellite requirements for EPA.
Description:
The Clean Water Act protects all navigable waters in the United States (CWA, 1988). The objective of the CWA is to "restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation's waters." This Federal mandate authorizes states, tribes, and U.S. territories, with guidance and oversight from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), to develop and implement water quality standards to protect the human and aquatic life uses of the Nation’s waterways. Water quality standards include designated uses, defined as the services that a water body supports such as drinking water, aquatic life, harvestable species, and recreation. These standards under the CWA Section 304(a) are applicable within state waters, defined as less than 3 nautical miles from shore. Therefore, a majority of research by the EPA addresses near-shore coastal waters within 3 nautical miles, estuaries and lakes where applicable water quality regulation could be implemented. Policy makers and environmental managers in EPA’s program and regional offices need tools enabling them to assess the sustainability of watershed ecosystems, and the services they provide, under current and future land use practices. The typical 1km resolution and current Case 1 algorithms of SeaWiFS, MODIS, and VIIRS provide limited assessments of near-shore coastal waters, estuaries and lakes. It has proven difficult to adequately resolve and derive products in smaller estuaries or waters in proximity to the land-water continuum where humans interface with the aquatic environment using these platforms. Straylight contamination and bottom reflectance typically confound derivation of products where EPA needs are greatest along the land-water continuum (Schaeffer et al, 2011). MERIS full resolution data (300 m at nadir) has greater potential for applications in estuaries (Wetz et al 2011) and lakes (Wynne et al, 2010). Hence, EPA GEOCAPE product requirements should (1) include coverage in all estuaries out to 3 nautical miles from coast (limit of the Clean Water Act); (2) have a resolution no greater than 250m local with optimal resolution at 30m; (3) have the ability to minimize the effects of straylight contamination and bottom reflectance near land; and (4) have daily sampling of at least three times for propagation of error estimates. The following is a list of required products: chlorophyll a, PAR diffuse attenuation, PAR, CDOM absorption, phytoplankton absorption, detritus absorption, primary production, salinity proxy, suspended particulate matter, dissolved organic carbon, coastal HAB concentration and identification, lake cyanobacterial concentrations and identification, pathogen detection, petroleum detection, type and thickness, effluent detection, pCO2, seagrass extent, coral reef habitat mapping, UV attenuation, and nutrient proxies.
