United States
                      Environmental Protection
                      Agency
                                                 Office of Research and
                                                 Development
                                                 Washington DC 20460
EPA/620/R-01/001L
    January, 2002
                      Coastal  Communications
                         National  Coastal Assessment:
                                       Louisiana
                            ORD/LDWF/Region 6/OW
                                                        Louisiana
                                                           NCA2001
                                                                            Legend
                                                                        Estuary Class
                                                                        |  |  mo 5Q.Kilometer
                                                                        [  |  ISO 100 Sip.Kilo
                                                                        |^B]  ISO SQ,Kilometer
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 6, and the
Louisiana Department of Wildlife and
Fisheries (LDWF).  This program
integrates elements of existing
Louisiana estuarine and coastal
monitoring and assessment efforts. This
joint effort will determine the condition
of estuarine waters in Louisiana and
permit comparison to other U.S. coastal
areas. The 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
The 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 will
be made available for public access on the Internet. The map shows the coastal areas included in the 2001
survey and the number of sampling sites in estuarine waters of Louisiana.
                                                            Scale
                                                           1:2,000,000
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 Terry Romaire at the LDWF at (225) 765-2952 or
romaire_tl@wlf.state.la.us ; or Bill Walker at the ORD National Health and Environmental Effects
Laboratory's (Sulf Ecology Division at (850) 934-9247 or walker.bill@epa.gov. Visit the coastal
communications web site at http://www.epa.gov/ged/crc.htm.

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