United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Environmental Monitoring
Systems Laboratory
Las Vegas, NV 89193-3478
Research and Development
EPA/600/S4-917013 September 1992
Project Summary
Agroecosystem Monitoring and
Research Strategy:
Environmental Monitoring and
Assessment Program
Walter W. Heck, C. Lee Campbell, Robert P. Breckenridge, Gerald E. Byers,
Alva L. Finkner, George R. Hess, Julie R. Meyer, Thomas J. Moser,
Steven L Peck, John O. Rawlings and Charles N. Smith
To project, manage, and use agro-
ecosystem resources effectively, the
condition of these resources must be
known. Concern about the documented
and potential effects of anthropogenic
stressors in the environment, chang-
ing conservation and land use pro-
grams, and use of agricultural chemi-
cals has been a major reason for the
development of the EPA-Environmen-
tal Monitoring and Assessment Pro-
gram (EMAP)/the Agroecosystem com-
ponent. In addition to the anthropo-
genic stressors, the program is con-
cerned with how these may affect a
host of naturally occurring stressors.
The Agroecosystem component of
EMAP is developing an ecologically
based monitoring initiative to determine
status and trends in land use and agro-
ecosystem health. The Agroecosystem
Resource Group (ARG) has identified
over 100 possible indicators, has cho-
sen 16 high priority indicators and is
developing details on five of these for
use in a 1992 pilot study. The Techni-
cal Director for the ARG is with the
Agricultural Research Service of the
USDA and the ARG is both a
multidiscipline and multiagency group.
The purpose of this document is to
present a "Monitoring and Research
Strategy" for the agroecosystems of
the U.S. It should serve as an overview
for other State and Federal agencies
interested in participating. Monitoring
issues such as design, indicator selec-
tion and development, analysis, infor-
mation management, and assessment
are covered in the Strategy.
This Project Summary was developed
by EPA's Environmental Monitoring
Systems Laboratory, Las Vegas, NV, to
announce key findings of the research
project that is fully documented in a
separate report of the same title (see
Project Report ordering information at
back).
This document is both a conceptual
strategy and an implementation plan for
monitoring the ecological condition of
agroecosystems in the United States. It
represents the combined effort of the
Agroecosystem Resource Group (ARG).
The plan is viewed by the ARG as a living
document that will serve as a basis for
discussion of goals, objectives, concepts,
and approaches.
The agroecosystem monitoring program
described in this document is one compo-
nent of the Environmental Monitoring and
Assessment Program (EMAP), a national
program administered by the U.S. Envi-
ronmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Of-
fice of Research and Development (ORD).
In response to recommendations by the
EPA Science Advisory Board, Congress
and the public, EPA is designing EMAP in
cooperation with other agencies and or-
ganizations. EMAP is organized into seven
resource categories to facilitate interagency
cooperation and to make the best use of
scientific expertise. Interdisciplinary groups
of scientists, called "Resource Groups",
are responsible for developing strategies
for the collection, analysis and integration
/TV
Printed on Recycled Paper
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Inputs
Outputs
Management practices:
Tillage
Chemicals
Irrigation
Natural environment:
Precipitation
Temperature
Humidity
Soil processes
Pests
Beneficials
Crops and livestock
Non-crop vegetation
Abiotic resources
(soil, water, air)
Agroecosystem
Non-point source
loading:
Agri-chemicals
Sediments
Salts
Methane
Animal wastes
Figure 1. A conceptual model of agroecosystems.
of data from each of the ecological re-
sources. In addition, seven crosscutting
coordination groups have been established
to assist the resource groups and to en-
sure total quality management, consistency
and integration of activities across the pro-
gram.
For EMAP, agroecosystems are defined
as land used for crops, pasture and live-
stock; the adjacent uncultivated land that
supports other vegetation (hedgerows,
woodlots, etc.) and wildlife; and the asso-
ciated atmosphere, underlying soils,
groundwater, and drainage networks (first
and second order streams, ponds, and
irrigation drainage networks). A simplified
conceptual model (Figure 1) of an agro-
ecosystem shows both natural and an-
thropogenic inputs and both desirable and
undesirable outputs. The conceptual model
and the definition of agroecosystems illus-
trate how the Agroecosystem program is
being designed as a holistic approach that
considers all constituent components of
agroecosystems.
Agroecosystems have more impact on
our daily lives than any of the other ter-
restrial ecosystems, because they provide
us with food and fiber and influence the
quality of our environment. Farmers have
the stewardship of more of the global en-
vironment than any other group; in the
United States, crop land accounts for ap-
proximately 443 million acres, nearly 20%,
of the total U.S. land area.
Although agricultural systems are often
viewed as relatively simple, they are far
more complex than they may appear ini-
tially. The periodic and chronic distur-
bances that are an inherent part of agri-
cultural management place agroeco-
systems among the most rapidly changing
landscapes on earth. A healthy agro-
ecosystem balances sustainable crop and
livestock production with maintenance of
air, water and soil integrity and supports
populations of wildlife and vegetation in
associated non-crop habitats. The degra-
dation of any one component influences
the other components in the agroeco-
system and in adjacent, linked ecosys-
tems.
The mission for the ARG is to develop
and implement a program to monitor and
evaluate the long-term status and trends
of the nation's agricultural resources from
an ecological perspective through an inte-
grated, interagency program. The objec-
tives of the Agroecosystem program par-
allel the overall EMAP program objectives,
but focus more specifically on
agroecological resources. When fully
implemented, the program will meet the
following objectives: 1) estimate the cur-
rent status, extent, changes and trends in
indicators of agroecosystem condition on
a regional basis with known confidence;
2) monitor indicators of pollutant exposure
and habitat quality and seek associations
between anthropogenic stresses and
agroecosystem condition; and 3) provide
periodic statistical summaries and inter-
pretive reports on agroecosystem condi-
tion to the public, the scientific commu-
nity, and to policy-makers.
Assessment endpoints that encompass
the concept of agroecosystem health will
be developed to focus the interpretation
of indicator data. Assessment endpoints
are a quantitative or quantifiable expres-
sion of the environmental value, such as
agroecosystem health, to be monitored
and assessed. Good assessment end-
points have social and biological relevance,
an unambiguous operational definition, are
accessible to prediction and measurement,
and are susceptible to the environmental
stressors of concern. Assessment end-
points are long-term societal values that
will not change over time, even when spe-
cific stressors or specific issues do change.
After careful consideration of important
scientific, social, economic and environ-
mental issues concerning agriculture,
agroecosystems, and their associated sur-
roundings, three assessment endpoints
were identified that summarize the es-
sence of the issues. These are: 1) sus-
tainability of commodity production; 2) con-
tamination of natural resources; and
3) quality of agricultural landscapes. Al-
though members of the ARG agree on the
basic issues addressed, they are still de-
bating the terminology and organization of
these endpoints.
Sustainability of commodity production
refers to the capacity of a particular agro-
ecosystem to maintain a level of crop or
livestock productivity that provides for ba-
sic human food and fiber needs, and an
economically viable livelihood for farmers
without polluting or seriously depleting soil,
water, wildlife, fossil fuel or other re-
sources. Continual removal of biomass
from agricultural fields necessitates inputs
or adjustments to maintain productivity;
however, long-term sustainability of agro-
ecosystems can be masked in the short-
term by management practices. Inputs,
outputs, socioeconomic factors, and the
use of natural resources will be consid-
ered in the assessment of agronomic
sustainability.
Contamination is defined as the pres-
ence of anthropogenically-related stressors
that have direct or indirect effects on the
sustainability, productivity, structure or
function of the agroecosystem. Contami-
nants can be found in the air, soil, water,
and biota of agroecosystems, and may
include air pollutants, agricultural chemi-
cals, animal and municipal wastes, water
pollutants, and genetically-altered organ-
isms. Contaminants can also be trans-
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ported from agroecosystems. On a re-
gional and national scale, managed agri-
cultural systems contribute to nonpoint
source pollution through loss of agricul-
tural chemicals and sediments carried to
streams and rivers. On a local level, man--
aged agricultural systems can be pollution
point sources, such as pesticide drift from
aerial spraying, that can impact immedi-
ately adjacent areas.
The quality of agricultural landscapes
refers to the various ways in which the
landscape matrix is modified or employed
for agricultural and non-agricultural pur-
poses over time. Agricultural land use pat-
terns exert a major influence on ecologi-
cal processes. For example, landscape
heterogeneity may affect soil erosion, wa-
ter quality, crop-pest interactions, ecologi-
cal diversity and the spread of diseases.
A vital characteristic of landscape modifi-
cation is the extent to which the surround-
ing landscape can support populations of
non-crop vegetation and wildlife. An as-
sessment of agroecosystem health and
the development of sustainable agricul-
tural systems must consider landscape
level processes over time and the cou-
pling of natural and agricultural compo-
nents of the landscape.
The Agroecosystem program is de-
signed to evaluate the health or condition
of U.S. agroecosystems. The program is
designed to complement existing monitor-
ing efforts such as those carried out by
USDA/National Agricultural Statistics Ser-
vice (MASS), USDA/Soil Conservation Ser-
vice (SCS)-National Resources Inventory
(NRI), USDA/Economics Research Ser-
vice (ERS) and the USDC Bureau of the
Census by adding an essential ecological
dimension to current data collection, com-
pilation and interpretation. The program
will utilize existing monitoring data where
possible and will provide new data on
trends in the condition of crop and non-
crop resources which will be interpretable
from environmental, ecological, agricultural
or agroecological viewpoints.
The EMAP program has established a
four-tier approach to ecological monitor-
ing. Tier 1 emphasizes landscape charac-
terization and estimates of extent of re-
source and land use; Tier 2 provides esti-
mates of condition and trends; Tier 3 con-
centrates on detailed diagnostics; and Tier
4 represents research sites established to
answer specific cause-effect questions.
The Agroecosystem program currently fo-
cuses primarily on Tier 2 with some activi-
ties at Tier 1. Tier 2 involves field sam-
pling to provide measurements of status
and trends in indicators of agroecosystem
condition on a regional basis.
The planned data collection approach
is through a cooperative program with the
National Agricultural Statistics Service
(NASS) under which MASS enumerators
collect all or most of the Agroecosystem
indicator data. The Agroecosystem pro-
gram will cooperate with NASS in one of
two ways for Tier 2 sampling. NASS cur-
rently samples over 16,000 segments an-
nually in the June Enumerative Survey
(JES) and has been involved in agricul-
tural surveys since 1954. The first, the
Hexagon Plan, uses the NASS primary
sampling unit (PSU) located at the cen-
troid of the EMAP hexagons. Using the
NASS stratification, approximately 3,200
hexagons would be selected at random to
achieve optimum allocation. The selected
segment, identified by the centroid, would
then be used for the duration of EMAP.
The second plan, the Rotational Panel
Plan, takes advantage of the NASS sample
and uses approximately 20% (approx.
3,200) of the segments used in the NASS
JES sample. The NASS sample has five
interpenetrating replicates of the total
sample, designed such that each repli-
cate rotates out of the sample after five
years. Initial investigation seems to indi-
cate that the RPP may have advantages
over the Hexagon Plan. This is currently
being explored theoretically and will be
tested during the pilot.
Field sampling protocols for obtaining
indicator data at the field level from the
sample segment are being developed in
close cooperation with NASS. Among the
statistical issues involved are selecting the
field, choosing the sampling points and
determining the appropriate sampling den-
sity within the field. Field sampling tech-
niques will be evaluated during a 1992
pilot, as well as sampling protocols, the
effectiveness of the training manuals for
NASS, and interaction with the NASS enu-
merators. Throughout the survey process,
the ARG will be alert to the kinds of errors'
that may occur and will take steps to con-
trol, minimize and measure them.
Initial analyses of the monitoring data
will be directed toward the routine sum-
marization of indicator values that
measure ecosystem health. Interpretive
analyses will be aimed at understanding
the correlation structure among the indi-
cators, regional spatial patterns and con-
cordance of spatial patterns for stressor
and response indicators, time trends, and
the development of health indices for the
agroecosystem. In addition to the indica-
tor variables themselves, extensive infor-
mation will be collected on ancillary data
to facilitate interpretation of indicators.
The Agroecosystem program will ob-
tain, store, manipulate, integrate and ana-
lyze data. These data will come from many
sources, including joint Agroecosystem-
NASS collection efforts, from other EMAP
Resource Groups, other government agen-
cies, cooperating non-government agen-
cies, and academic institutions. The infor-
mation collected and created by the pro-
gram will be available, at some level, to
researchers in these same agencies and
institutions. Researchers must know what
data are available, where they are located,
and how they can be accessed. Informa-
tion about methods used to collect data,
including details about data quality, must
be available. To ensure that data are of
the highest quality, carefully designed pro-
cedures for the movement and manipula-
tion of data, from field collection through
analysis, are planned as an information
management effort. Because the data are
to be widely available, there must be a
policy and mechanism which protects the
privacy of the individual respondents. Thus,
confidentiality of data, and consequently
data security, are critical issues for the
ARG. The Agroecosystem program objec-
tives require that data be collected from
individual growers and operators.
From the standpoint of information man-
agement, working with NASS is the best
approach because: 1) the relationship of
NASS with the agricultural community will
facilitate data collection; 2) NASS provides
confidentiality of data to individual farm
operators; 3) NASS has a fully developed
infrastructure for the collection of agricul-
tural data, including strict quality controls;
and 4) NASS has developed the com-
puter resources to organize, analyze, and
quickly report on large volumes of data.
The database developed from the
Agroecosystem program will provide es-
sential data for conducting ecological risk
assessments. Such assessments estimate
the effects of both anthropogenic and natu-
ral activities on ecological resources and
allow the significance of those effects to
be interpreted with quantified uncertainty
estimates. The primary role of the Agro-
ecosystem program in the overall risk as-
sessment process is to identify and quan-
tify agroecological hazard related to the
assessment endpoints which can then be
used in risk assessment. Hazards will be
identified within agroecosystems through
the use of indicators of ecosystem condi-
tion. Overall risk assessment will be facili-
tated through effective information ex-
changes and monitoring linkages with other
ecosystem resource groups.
The ARG will communicate findings on
condition and status and trends through
at least four types of informational out-
puts. Annual statistical summaries and il-
lustrative maps will be published within
nine months after the collection of the last
sample information for each year. Inter-
pretative reports will be produced at ir-
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Table 1. Implementation Schedule and Budget Needs for 1991-1995
Year/Stage
No. of States
No. of sites
1990 Planning
1991 Final planning/
field research
1992 Southern pilot
1993-Sourthern Regional
200(100)
Demonstration
-North Central Pilot
1994-Southern Implementation
•North Central Regional
Demonstration
-Western Pilot
1995-Southern Full Implementation
-North Central Implementation
-Western Regional Demonstration
-Northeastern Pilot
8
1
8
4
1
13
9
3
1
400
100
400
200
100
400
300
200
100
Estimated Cost
(budgeted) $millions
$0.45
0.40
1.3(0.80)
2.4 (2.40)
5.5 (4.16)
7.0 (6.2)
Table 2. Long- Term Strategy: Technical and Administrative Personnel Needs "
91 92(approved) 93 94-Est.
Technical Director
Deputy TD (EPA)
Associate TD
Scientific Staff
Research Associates
Statisticians
Information Managers
QA/QC Staff
Logistics Staff
Technicians
Support Staff
Total
1.0
0.5
.35
1.25
1.75
2.0
0.5
-
-
1.5
1.0
9.85
1.0
1.0
.35
2.0
1.5
1.3
1.0
-
-
1.0
1.5
10.65
1.0
1.0
.35
4.0
6.0
3.5
2.0
0.5
0.5
3.0
3.0
21.85
95-Est.
1.0
1.0
.35
7.0
5.0
5.0
2.5
1.0
1.0
10.0
4.0
37.85
1.0
1.0
.35
9.0
8.0
5.0
3.0
2.0
2.0
18.0
7.0
56.35
regular intervals. Research papers will also
be prepared periodically.
Summary implementation schedule and
budget needs for 1991 through 1995 are
shown in Table 1; minimal personnel needs
to accomplish the planned implementa-
tion are shown in Table 2.
The information in this document has
been funded wholly or in part by the United
States Environmental Protection Agency
under interagency agreement DW129-
34170 with the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture, Agricultural Research Service,
Contract No. 68-CO-0049 to Lockheed
Engineering & Sciences Company, Con-
tract No. 68-C8-0006 to ManTech Envi-
ronmental Technology, Inc., Corvallis, OR
and Contract No. 68-DO-0106 to Man-
Tech Environmental Technology, Inc., Re-
search Triangle Park, NC. It has been
subjected to the Agency's peer and ad-
ministrative review, and it has been ap-
proved for publication as an EPA docu-
ment.
Mention of trade names or commercial
products does not constitute endorsement
or recommendation for use.
This does not include staff of the NASS who actually carry out the surveys.
•U.S. Government Printing Office: 1992—648-080/60136
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Walter W. Heck is with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research
Service, Raleigh, NC. C. Lee Campbell, Alva L. Finkner, George Hess, Steven L.
Peck, and John O. Rawlings are with North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC,
Robert P. Breckenridge is with the Idaho National Engineering Lab, Idaho Falls, ID.
Gerald E. Byers is with Lockheed Engineering & Sciences Co., Las Vegas NV. Julie
R. Meyer is with ManTech Environmental Technology, Inc., Research Triangle Park,
NC. Tom Moser is with ManTech Environmental Technology, Inc., Corvallis, OR.
Charles N. Smith is with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental
Research Laboratory, Athens, GA
Ann M. Pitchford is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Agroecosystem Monitoring and Research Strategy:
Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program, "(Order No. PB93-100071/AS;
Cost: $35.00, subject to change) will be available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA22161
Telephone: 703-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Environmental Monitring Systems Laboratory
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Las Vegas, NV 89193-3478
United States
Environmental Protection Agency
Center for Environmental Research Information
Cincinnati, OH 45268
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use $300
BULK RATE
POSTAGE & FEES PAID
EPA
PERMIT NO. G-35
EPA/600/S4-91/013
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