United States
                    Environmental Protection
                    Agency
                                            Office of Research and
                                            Development
                                            Washington, DC 20460
EPA620/R-01/001m
February, 2002
  &EPA     Coastal   Communications
                           National Coastal Assessment:
                                       Texas
                            ORD/TPWD/Rcgion 6/OW
                                                Texas
                                                 NCA2001
                                                                      Legend
                                                                      Sampling Sites
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 Texas
Parks and Wildlife Division (TPWD).  This
program integrates elements of existing
Texas estuarine and coastal monitoring and
assessment efforts. This joint effort will
determine the condition  of estuarine waters
in Texas 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
(Sulf Ecology Division in (Sulf 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 Texas.
                                                                  Estuaries
                                                                  |   |  100 SQ.Hlometers
                                                                  |   |  250 100 SQ.Klometeis
                                                                    ~]  250 SQ.Klometera
                                                                      Land
                                                           Scale
                                                         1:2,100,000
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 Jim Simons at the TPWD at (512) 912-7034 or
james.simons@tpwd.state.tx.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/qed/crc.htm.

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