United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
What is the State of the
Environment in the Mid-Atlantic
Region?
Healthy and Sustainable?
No-Not Yet!
The state of the environment in the
Mid-Atlantic region is improving; it just hasn't
: reached a healthy and sustainable state!
Wait a minute!
What kind of double talk is this?
State of the environment - Improving? Yes!
Results from physical and chemical monitoring indicate that
the state of the environment in the Mid-Atlantic has
improved: municipal and industrial discharge water quality
has improved; best management practices are being
implemented to control runoff; and wetlands are being
restored. But, these monitoring methods are not adequate
to identify when the goal of a healthy and sustainable
environment for humans and other living organisms has
been reached. Sustainable is defined as a method of
harvesting or using a
resource so that the
resource is not depleted
or permanently damaged.
Over the past 10 years, a new way of monitoring has been taking place in the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency's Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment (MAIA).
Instead of just measuring physical and chemical indicators in hand-picked locations
in forests, streams and estuaries, the condition of living organisms arid physical and
chemical indicators has been measured in a way that can be related to the condition
of the environment for the entire region. In addition, new approaches have been
developed for using and evaluating satellite pictures to assess environmental condition.
MAIA Region Map
Seven of the lessons learned over the past 10 years from these new ways of monitoring are:
Condition of Estuarine
Benthic Communities
10 20 30 40 50
Impacted Benthic
Community
Biological organisms—fish, birds,
insects, trees—are stressed
throughout the region. Estuarine
bottom organisms, stream fishes,
and bird communities all show signs
of being stressed (Figure 1). It
doesn't matter if we look at the
region as a whole, on a watershed
by watershed basis, or look at
individual states, the condition is the
same—biological organisms are
stressed!
Figure 1. Over 20% of the Mid-Atlantic estuarine area has be.njhic communities which are
iinpacted (EPA/600/R-98/147, November 1998).
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Birds, ecological condition, and land
use and land cover are all linked
(Figure 2). The types of birds found in
an area indicate the ecological condition
of that area. Bird communities and
ecological condition are also linked to
land cover. As the land cover of an area
changes, so do the types of birds
in that area.
Figure 2. Bird community index scores for the Mid-Atlantic Highlands
indicate that over 50% of the area is ranked in fair to poor condition
(EPA/620/R-00/003, June 2000).
Living organisms integrate chemical,
physical habitat, pathogenic and other
effects around them and provide a
cumulative or longer-term record of
what has been going on in the
environment. Chemical spills,
stormwater discharges of pollutants, or
other short-term events can be missed
if only chemical or physical indicators
are measured. Living organisms provide
a more complete picture of the condition
of the place in which they live.
Chemical and physical indicators
do not provide a complete picture
of environmental condition, which is
the flip-side of Lesson 3. Yet, many
monitoring programs only measure
chemical and physical indicators. We
need to invest more in measuring
biological indicators. We need a better,
more complete picture.
Habitat loss and degradation is a major problem throughout the Mid-Atlantic
region. In the eastern half of the region, urban sprawl is contributing to this loss
and degradation (Figure 3). In thfe
western half of the region, resource
extraction—from timber harvesting to
mining—'contributes to this loss and
degradation. Forest fragmentation—
cutting swaths and patches out of the
forest—contributes to habitat
degradation.
Imp§rvl9u§ Qovtr Indlsafss Htilth
Figure 3. Urban sprawl leads to more area that is impervious to rainfall and increases runoff of
pollutants. When the impervious cover is over 2%, brook trout disappear from streams, when it is
above 15%, stream health is never rated good, and when impervious cover is over 25%, only a few
species can live in the stream (EPA/903/R-99/023, December 1999).
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Forest fragmentation is widespread
throughout the region (Figure 4). The
forests in the Mid-Atlantic region are a world-
renowned resource. There is only one other
place in the world that has as much
continuous mid-latitude forest. The Mid-
Atlantic forest is rapidly being reduced from
large continuous stands to smaller, non-
contiguous stands that do not provide
sufficient habitat for many species. These
species, from migratory birds to black bears,
require large blocks of continuous
forest to sustain their populations.
Non-native and exotic species have
invaded the Mid-Atlantic region and are
a major problem. These species range from
pathogens to plants to fish to birds and can
out-compete native species because their
natural enemies are not present. Combining
habitat loss with the introduction of non-
native species results in the loss—in many
cases permanent—of native species.
Fragmentation Index
% Watershed Area
m < 7.8
_ 7.8 -11.2
D 11.2 -13.8
13.8 - 21,4
>21.4
, Figure 4. An ujdex of forest fragmentation shows, the greatest fragmentation
(red) occurs nfareas around major metropolitan areas and areas undergoing
rapid growth There are still areas where forest fragmentation is low (green)
(EPA/600/R-97/13tTNovember 1997)
Ranking of Stressors
_. __Qt Mid-Atlantic ^Highland Streams^
'"Stream
Acidic Imposition
Tissue Cdfitaminalfon
There are many factors that contribute to
the stress observed in living organisms.
It's difficult to identify any one thing—
stressors are interrelated and overlapping.
For example, some streams are clearly
dominated by a single stressor, but most
suffer from the cumulative, combined
effects of multiple stressors.
Figure 5. Habitat degradation—both from sedimentation in the stream .bed
(mstream) and erosion along its banks (riparian)—is the stressor that has
damaged the most miles of streams in .the, Mid-Atlantic Highlands.
Introduced species (gray bar above) are found in over 30% of the stream
ijniles .and include brown and rainbow trout, introduced by the states as
game/sport fish (EPA/903/R-OQ/013, August 2000);
* The Mid-Atlantic Highlands study region includes the area from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the east to the Ohio River
In the west and from the Catskill Mountains in the north to the Virginia—North Carolina/Tennessee border in the south.
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First, environmental managers can review existing environmental management programs. Do they protect all
living organisms and provide a sustainable environment? If there is compliance with environmental permits,
but living organisms are stressed, something additional may be needed.
Environmental managers need to rank the stressors. Cause-effect relationships between the factors causing
stresses and the biological/ecological endpoints that relate to society's needs and desires (e.g., food to eat,
housing, clean water, streams with fish, birds and animals to watch, large continuous forested watersheds)
must be determined. Then, human needs must be balanced with the stressors that cause the highest ecological
damage.
Environmental managers need to manage the
environment in a more integrated way. Managing on a
pollutant-by-pollutant, or media-by-media (e.g., water, air,
solid waste) basis is not enough anymore. Flexible,
integrated environmental management programs, similar
to those in the Chesapeake Bay watershed (Figure 6), also
need to be implemented in the Highlands and throughout
the Region.
Finally, environmental managers need to present information
in a way that is clear and understandable to the public and
decision makers. Sound, understandable information can
contribute to decisions on the effects of urban sprawl, where
to put transportation corridors, and how to protect large,
continuous stands of forests from being cut into small
patches. Clearly, everyone-government at all levels, civic
organizations, schools, the private sector, and individuals-
needs to be involved in these solutions if a better place for
our children to live is to be the result.
,Community Engagement, g
Figure 6. Integrated environmental management has been
implemented by the EPA Chesapeake Bay Program and its federal,
state, and local partners through "Chesapeake 2000."
M^S8StiiU^^^^^H§[
EPA's goal is to manage for a healthy and sustainable environment for humans
and other living organisms. The Lessons Learned through the EPA's Mid-Atlantic
Integrated Assessment initiative will help move us toward that goal. The facts and
conclusions presented above are based on the peer reviewed publications cited and
the management recommendations were developed by EPA Region
The Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment (MAIA) is an
interagency, multi-disciplinary research, monitoring and
assessment program to develop high-quality scientific
information on the region's natural resources: current
condition, stressors, trends, and vulnerabilities. MAIA
results and information are intended to satisfy a broad
group of stakeholders' needs, convey important
information relevant to their assessment questions and
issues, and be useful in making management decisions.
Region 3, Philadelphia, PA 19103
EPA/903/F-01/003
December 2001
For More Information, Please Contact
Patricia Bradley
Ph: 410.305.2744
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Environmental Science Center
Ft. Meade, MD 20755-5350
-or-
visit the MAIA web site at www.epa.gov/maia
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