Science Inventory

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Diatom-based indices are widely used in ecological condition assessments of rivers and streams. Traditionally, indices for benthic diatoms are calculated using taxonomic identification and enumeration methods by taxonomists that is time-intensive and costly. Limited resources mea...

Due to the widespread nature of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), large nationwide datasets containing measured PFAS concentrations in many media and matrices have been collected. To explore the extent of PFAS contamination in the USA and threats to aquatic resources, w...

Low-gradient coastal stream systems support important landscape level ecological functions by connecting uplands and marshes directly to large tidal rivers, estuaries, and coastal waterbodies. In this study, we develop and evaluate innovative monitoring and assessment methods to ...

There is a common saying in business that “what matters gets measured”. Environmental protection and sustainability certainly should qualify as important concerns for both businesses and governments. The 1970s marked the genesis of the modern environmental movement, w...

Peer review of alternative dissolved oxygen indicators and assessment approaches for the National Lakes Assessment.

This presentation will discuss the benefits of incorporating the NNI into StreamCat, providing annual time series (1987-2017) of nitrogen and phosphorus inputs, removal by crop harvest, and management relevant metrics for all 2.6 million stream catchments and watersheds across th...

EPA’s National Aquatic Resource Surveys has identified excess nitrogen in surface waters as a common stressor in the nations water.  However, understanding the origin of the nitrogen, and what processes might mitigate the transport of nitrogen to surface waters is crit...

Communities of invertebrates are notably shaped by temperature, driving trends in composition and diversity. Yet few studies have examined how thermal niches of taxa may vary across distinct ecosystems, such as lakes and streams. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s N...

Monitoring and assessment is essential (1) to evaluate progress in meeting goals put into place to protect aquatic resources and (2) to respond and detect changes in the environment due to anthropogenic pressures, climate change, and other unforeseen stressors.  In this semi...

Publication of EPA’s Nutrient Inventory is a critical step towards thorough mapping and accounting of sources of N and P to US landscapes. However, summaries of nutrients within accumulative watersheds are needed to develop accurate watershed-level nutrient budgets and rela...

The purpose of this code and resulting report is to provide a reproducible framework for quality assuring the National Lakes Assessment (NLA) surface water quality data. The data are inclusive of physical and chemical parameters as well as chlorophyll a. Data are evaluated for co...

Watershed nutrient metrics are crucial components of state-led efforts to improve nutrient reduction strategies, however, they are challenging to assemble across the scales management and research require. Therefore, we downscaled and dasymetrically allocated the EPA’s NextGen Na...

Understanding wetland carbon stores and dynamics are critical to managing global carbon flux. Non-floodplain wetlands (NFWs) are hydrologically dynamic and globally prevalent inland wetlands distal to fluvial flowpaths, lacustrine-fringing areas, and geomorphic floodplains; >5...

When first developed to support the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS), the NARS Data Extraction Tool required a public-facing platform in order to be accessible by state and tribal crews. At that time, the only option available was cloud.gov. Using cloud.gov was very compl...

In support of the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS), ORD personnel and the NARS IM contractor have created several R packages and sets of code to maintain consistency from one cycle to the next. Three R packages contain code used to calculate metrics and indicators for phy...

EPA's StreamCat and LakeCat datasets can be leveraged by state and tribal partners to facilitate their work to achieve their water quality goals. This training was organized by Region 5, at the request of several states. This introductory training will provide an overview of the ...

Total nitrogen (N) concentration is one of the most significant stressors to biological condition of US waterways.  Anthropogenic input of N added to a watershed is a strong determinant of aquatic N concentrations, but concentrations can vary by over an order of magnitude fo...

Throughout the 1990's and 2000's, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Office of Research and Developed (ORD) conducted extensive research to enhance approaches used for environmental monitoring and assessment in estuarine resources. The four feature layers offered he...

The Great Lakes are an important resource for communities and the environment, as the largest system of fresh water in the world. There are many threats to the health of the Great Lakes, including contaminants, habitat degradation, invasive species, and eutrophication. The Nation...

This presentation provides background on the development of electronic data capture for the National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS). When NARS began, paper field forms were used, but this was an inefficient approach prone to data entry errors. Starting in 2017, NARS converted to...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is conducting national surveys to capture the existence value of inland freshwaters. Recent work has found that people’s willingness to pay for improvements in water quality depends upon the biological conditions near them. The...

The EPA’s National Wetland Condition Assessment (NWCA) characterizes a suite of water quality metrics as part of its 5-year sampling cycle for wetlands across the lower 48 USA states.  Analyses to date have documented considerable water quality variability – as w...

This is legacy code used to screen biological metrics and develop multimetric indices using a "best subsets" approach. This code has been used to develop several multimetric indices related to NARS surveys. 

This is an R package that is used to calculate physical habitat metrics and indicators for the National Lakes Assessment and the National Rivers and Streams Assessment. 

Freshwater fish in the United States are at risk from changing stream temperatures and introduced fish, but effects across broad spatial extents remain unclear. We analyzed biodiversity (abundance, richness, uniqueness, functional diversity) of 389 species across 27 years and 299...