United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Atmospheric Research and Exposure
Assessment Laboratory
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
Research and Development
EPA/600/S4-91/026 Oct. 1991
&EPA Project Summary
Example Environmental
Assessment Report for Estuaries
Jeffrey B. Frithsen, Jeroen Gerritsen, A. Frederick Holland, Stephen B.
Weisberg, Mary C. Fabrizio, and Gary Saul
The Environmental Monitoring and
Assessment Program (EMAP) Is a com-
prehensive, multiagency program de-
signed to assess the condition of the
nation's ecological resources at na-
tional, regional, and subregional scales.
Data and information collected by
EMAP will be integrated with data from
other monitoring programs and envi-
ronmental information of other types
to produce periodic environmental as-
sessment reports. These reports will
assess the extent and magnitude of
pollution impacts, report trends, de-
scribe relationships among indicators
of ecological condition, contaminant ex-
posure, and environmental stress, Iden-
tify the likely causes of poor ecological
condition, and evaluate the overall ef-
fectiveness of regulatory and controL
programs on regional scales. This re-
port presents an example environmen-
tal assessment report for estuaries, one
of seven types of ecological systems
or resource categories to be monitored
by EMAP. Using hypothetical data and
a fictional estuarine system, the ex-
ample demonstrates the types of infor-
mation that will be provided by EMAP
and how that Information can be Inter-
preted in the context of national envi-
ronmental policy. The preparation of
the example report helped to develop
an analytical framework for environ-
mental monitoring data and to identify
analytical and statistical tools needed
to conduct regional environmental as-
sessments. The framework and tools
are discussed in separate sections of
the report that describe how the ex-
ample report was prepared and the les-
sons learned by EMAP scientists in pre-
paring it.
This Project Summary was developed
by EPA's Atmospheric Research and
Exposure Assessment Laboratory, Re-
search Triangle Park, NC, 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).
Introduction
The Environmental Monitoring and As-
sessment Program (EMAP) is a compre-
hensive, multiagency program designed
to assess the condition of the nation's
ecological resources. The program is be-
ing designed by the EPA and other Fed-
eral agencies and is coordinated by EPA's
Office of Research and Development.
EMAP was initiated out of the need to
make conclusive, statistically supportable
statements about the cumulative effective-
ness of regulatory programs, the overall
condition of-the nation's environmental re-
sources, and long-term trends in ecologi-
cal condition. Such statements are not
possible using the data and information
from existing regulation and monitoring
activities.
The monitoring and assessment activi-
ties of EMAP are designed to provide
answers to the following questions:
• What is the current status, extent,
and geographic distribution of the
nation's ecological resources?
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• What proportions of these resources
are degrading or improving, where,
and at what rate?
• What are the possible reasons for
adverse or improving conditions?
• Are adversely affected ecosystems
responding as expected to control
and mitigation programs?
EMAP will be implemented in seven
types of ecosystems or ecological re-
sources: estuaries and coastal waters,
inland surface waters, the Great Lakes,
wetlands, forests, arid lands, and agricul-
tural lands. Information on the condition
of each resource category will be pro-
vided in the form of statistical summaries
and environmental assessment reports.
Statistical summaries will, be produced an-
nually and will provide timely dissemina-
tion of EMAP data in tabular and graphic
form. Environmental assessment reports
will be produced to integrate EMAP data
with data from other monitoring programs
and with environmental information of other
types (e.g., NPDES permit discharge re-
ports, USGS National Water Quality As-
sessment (NAWQA) data, NOAA Status
and Trends Program data). Assessment
reports will:
• assess the extent and magnitude of
pollution impacts,
• report trends,
• describe the relationships among in-
dicators of ecological condition, ex-
posure, and stress,
• identify the likely causes of poor eco-
logical condition,
• help identify emerging problems, and
• evaluate the overall effectiveness of
regulatory and control programs on
regional scales.
As currently envisioned, assessments
will be conducted at four levels of environ^
mental complexity. At the first level, as-
sessments will be focused on a particular
environmental resource (forests, for ex-
ample) within one biogeographic province
or region. At the second level of integra-
tion, assessments will focus on a particu-
lar environmental resource across mul-
tiple regions. For example, an assess-
ment might be made of all east coast
estuaries by integrating information col-
lected in the Acadian, Virginian, Carolin-
ian, and West Indian Provinces. The third
level of assessment activity to be con-
ducted by EMAP requires the integration
of information and data across resource
groups, for a complete assessment of con-
ditions within a biogeographic province or
region. This level of assessment may be
made for particular EPA regions and would
not only integrate and compare conditions
within multiple types of environmental re-
sources, but also attempt to identify how
conditions and changes in conditions in
one resource affect another. A specific
assessment might address how changes
in land use in watersheds impact the con-
dition of surface waters and estuaries.
Assessments that require integrating in-
formation about multiple resources across
multiple biogeographic provinces or re-
gions are the fourth level of assessment
activity envisioned for EMAP. These as-
sessments will describe the conditions of
environmental resources at the national
level.
About a year ago, EMAP scientists as-
sembled to discuss how EMAP assess-
ments might be conducted and what types
of analytical and statistical tools would be
needed for these assessments. The ob-
jective of these discussions was to design
and produce an example EMAP assess-
ment report for one ecological resource in
one biogeographic region (a first level as-
sessment). The purpose of this document
is to outline how the example report was
developed, and document the lessons
learned in preparing it.
Procedure
Estuaries were chosen as the ecologi-
cal resource for the example assessment
report because the first demonstration
project for EMAP was being conducted in
estuaries. The development of the ex-
ample, assessment report required the
analysis of a data with spatial and tempo-
ral scales similar to those expected for
EMAP data sets; however, no comparable
studies of estuarine systems over large
regional scales and decades exist. Most
existing datasets that have .broad spatial
coverage include only a few years of data,
and data collected over long time periods
usually have restricted geographic cover-
age. Consequently, a dataset was fabri-
cated to provide the spatial and temporal
resolution needed to complete the example
assessment report.
The dataset developed for the example
assessment spans 12-years, representing
three cycles of the four-year interpenetrat-
ing sample design of EMAP. The dataset
was developed in four steps. First, a
subset of the indicators proposed for the
estuarine component of EMAP was se-
lected based upon knowledge of the data
commonly available, for estuaries. The
selected indicators included bottom dwell-
ing (benthic) community abundance, bio-
mass and number of species, three con-
taminants in fish tissues (mercury, lead,
and total DDT), and one fictitious fish tis-
sue contaminant (contamexx) represent-
ing a contaminant that would contribute to
environmental degradation in the future.
These indicators of ecological response
were supplemented with indicators of en-
vironmental exposure (i.e., concentrations
of mercury, lead, total DDT, and
contamexx in sediments, sediment toxic-
ity, and dissolved oxygen concentrations)
and habitat indicators (i.e., salinity and
sediment type).
Second, data for the selected indicators
from various east coast estuaries were
assembled to define spatial and temporal
ranges and variability that can be expected
in EMAP data. East coast estuaries were
selected because more information is gen-
erally available and because"an "EMAP
demonstration project was occurring at the
same time in the Virginian Province (Cape
Cod to the mouth of Chesapeake Bay).
Using these data and various interpola-
tion techniques, a one-year base dataset
was developed for all EMAP sample sta-
tions in the estuaries of the Virginian Prov-
ince.
The third step consisted of superimpos-
ing various trends onto the base dataset
for years 2 through 12. Trends were
introduced into the fabricated dataset by
imposing proportionate changes on val-
ues in the base dataset. Trends repre-
sented:
• monotonic increases or decreases
of a constant amount for each year
and for all stations,
• improvements of conditions at the
worst stations due to the overall suc-
cesses of regulatory and control
measures,
• degradation of conditions at the best
stations due to population growth and
• significant increase in the manufac-
ture and agricultural use of
contamexx in one of the administra-
tive regions of the province.
The fourth step in development of the
fabricated dataset was to convolute the
geography of the Virginian Province while
maintaining the proportionate distribution
of the number and area of estuaries among
the three classes of estuaries (large estu-
aries, large tidal rivers, and small estuar-
ies). This convolution was necessary to
prevent the example assessment from be-
ing mistaken for an actual assessment of
estuaries within the Virginian Province. A
fictional island was created by rearranging
portions of coastline from the Virginian
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Province. Land use and watershed bound-
aries were established arbitrarily, and the
island was split into two administrative
regions. Collectively, these regions were
called Estuaria in the example report.
Early in the development of the example
assessment report, it became apparent
that information about various indicators
would have to be integrated to make mean-
ingful statements about the overall condi-
tion of estuaries. Such integrated state-
ments were made using indices, or math-
ematical aggregations of response indica-
tors. Although individual response indica-
tors provide information concerning spe-
cific aspects of environmental condition,
overall statements regarding the condition
of resources are more useful to managers
and non-scientific audiences. Single, in-
tegrated statements can be communicated
and understood more easily, and are more
appropriate for measuring and communi-
cating progress towards environmental
goals.
The degree to which information and
data will be aggregated by EMAP scien-
tists to create indices of ecological or en-
vironmental condition is unknown. In the
example report, a benthic community in-
dex was developed and used to represent
a biological condition index. A human
use index based on fish tissue contami-
nants was developed to represent aspects
of estuaries valued by society. However,
an overall estuarine condition index was
not developed because of reservations
concerning combining disparate indices
such as the biological condition index and
human use index. Most likely, the devel-
opment of an overall index will involve a
cadre of specialists from both the natural
and social sciences and will not be com-
pleted by resource group scientists alone.
Discussion
The development of assessment meth-
odologies is an important part of the plan-
ning and research activities of EMAP. The
preparation of this example report repre-
sents a first step in this development. It is
unlikely that this example report will be-
come the template for future EMAP as-
sessment reports. However, the lessons
learned from producing the report will be
useful in shaping assessment methodolo-
gies and approaches.
The resulting example report is valu-
able to potential EMAP clients and per-
forms the following important functions.
The report provides a "preview" of EMAP
data and assessment reports to potential
clients; a tool (i.e., the example dataset)
for evaluating alternative analytical ap-
proaches and selected aspects of the sam-
pling design; identifies technical problems
and helps establish priorities for address-
ing those problems; and begins to edu-
cate and train a team of scientists to per-
form actual EMAP assessments.
The lessons learned in preparing this
example report are applicable to other
EMAP resource groups. The exercise of
producing the example report resulted in
the following guidelines for analyzing
EMAP data and producing an actual as-
sessment:
• Because of the diverse nature of the
data, the approach for analyzing, in-
terpreting, and presenting the data
must be flexible. This is especially
important for long-term programs,
.such as EMAP, in which program
elements may change over time.
• Assessments of ecological condition
that are useful to resource manage-
ment and policy development require
a clear definition of nominal and
subnominal conditions and establish-
ment of subnominal-marginal thresh-
olds for indicators and indices.
• Investigation of associations will re-
quire data for applicable stressor in-
dicators (e.g., human population den-
sity, atmospheric deposition, load-
ings).
• Statistical methods will need to be
identified for investigation of asso-
ciations between stressor indicators
at regional or watershed resolution
and exposure and response indica-
tor data at much finer spatial resolu-
tion.
• Sufficient time must be allowed for
exploratory statistical analyses and
for the assessment of information.
Analytical investigations of
complex and varied data cannot be
constrained by rigid strategies for
data analysis; analysts must be free
to explore the data in ways that may
be dead ends but also may lead to a
new understanding of the relation-
ship between natural and anthropo-
genic stresses and environmental
condition.
Assessment reports communicate infor-
mation that culminates years of effort by
each resource group. The production of
these reports will require far more sophis-
ticated analyses and careful decision-mak-
ing than data reporting in annual statisti-
cal summaries. As an example of this
difference, we call attention to the experi-
ence of NAPAP (National Acid Precipita-
tion Assessment Program), which required
tremendous effort at the end of the pro-
gram to produce an integrated assess-
ment of acidic deposition. EMAP, with a
broader scope than NAPAP, will require
not only greater efforts, but continuous
dedication to the objective of integrated
assessment in order to provide useful in-
formation and insightful assessments of
ecological condition.
iril.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1991 - £48-080/40105
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Jeffery B. Frithsen, Jeroen Gerrhsen, A. Frederick Holland, and Stephen B.
Weisberg are with Versar, Inc., Columbia, MD 21045. Mary C. Fabrizio is with
Mantech Environmental Technology, Inc., Research Triangle Park, NC 27709.
Gary Saul is with FTN Associates, Ltd., Austin, TX 78741.
Linda KIrkland is the EPA Project Officer (see below).
The complete report, entitled "Example Environmental Assessment Report for
Estuaries,''(OrderNo. PB92-100338/AS; Cost: $19.00;subject to change) will
be available only from:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Telephone: (703)-487-4650
The EPA Project Officer can be contacted at:
Office of Modeling, Monitoring Systems and Quality Assurance
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC 20460
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Center for Environmental
Research Information
Cincinnati, OH 45268
BULK RATE
POSTAGE & FEES PAID
EPA
PERMIT No. G-35
Official Business
Penalty for Private Use $300
EPA/600/S4-91/026
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