United States
                      Environmental Protection
                      Agency
                                                 Office of Research and
                                                 Development
                                                 Washington DC 20460
EPA/620/R-01/001e
     August, 2001
                      Coastal  Communications
                            National  Coastal Assessment:
                                         Alabama
                              ORD/ADEM/Region 4/OW
                                                               ALABAMA
                                                             NCA 2000-2004
                                                                           Legend

                                                                        •  sampling Location

                                                                        Estuaries
                                                                        |  | IOO SQ.kilometers
                                                                        |  | ISO 100 sg.Kilometer
                                                                        |  | ISO SQ.kilometers
                                                                        I  I L'"a
Background
The U.S. EPA's National Coastal Assessment (NCA), is
a multi-year partnership among EPA's Office of
Research and Development (ORD), EPA's Office of
Water (OW), EPA's Regional Offices, all coastal
states, and selected territories.  As part of this
effort, ORD has developed a coastal monitoring
program with EPA Region 4 and the Alabama
Department of Environmental Management (ADEM).
This joint effort will determine the condition of
estuarine waters in the coastal resources of Alabama,
and permit comparison to other U.S. coastal areas.
This effort is being coordinated by the ORD National
Health and  Environmental Effects Research
Laboratory's Gulf Ecology Division in Gulf Breeze,
Florida.

National Coastal Assessment Strategy
National Coastal Assessment is a strategic partnership
between EPA and the coastal states and other federal
agencies. Each state uses a  compatible probabilistic
design and a common set of environmental indicators
(see Table below) to survey its coastal resources and
assess their condition. These estimates can then be
aggregated to assess conditions at the EPA Regional, biogeographical, and national levels. All data
made available for public access on the Internet. The map shows the coastal areas included in the
the number of sampling sites intended for estuarine waters of Alabama.
                                                                                 will be
                                                                                 survey and
Water Quality
Dissolved oxygen
Salinity, temperature, depth
PH
Nutrients
Chlorophyll
Sediment Quality
Grain size
Total organic carbon
Sediment chemistry
Benthic community structure
Sediment toxicity
Biota
Benthic community structure
Fish community structure
Fish external pathology
Fish tissue chemical analyses

Further Information
For further information, please contact Scott Brown at the Alabama Department of Environmental
Management at (334) 450-3400 or jsbŠadem.state.al.us: or William Walker at the ORD National Health and
Environmental Effects Laboratory's Gulf Ecology Devision at (850) 934-9247 or Walker.BilKgepQ.gov. Visit
the coastal communications web site at http://www.epa.qov/qed/crc. htm .

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