&EPA
United States
Environmental
Protection Agency
Office of Research
and Development
Washington, DC 20460
EPA/620/F-06/001
June 2005
ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT RESEARCH
Developing Tools to Assess the Ecological Condition of the Nation's Aquatic Systems
The Aquatic Monitoring and Bioassement Branch (AMBB) at
the Environmental Protection Agency's Western Ecology
Division leads ORD's research on monitoring freshwater
aquatic systems. This work is in response to the Clean
Water Act (CWA, Section 305b) that requires EPA to report
biennially on the status of water quality throughout the
United States. This report, prepared in partnership with the
states and tribal nations, is intended to provide a statement
of the condition of all the nation's waters and trends in those
conditions over time. EPA aggregates state and tribal data
to create the report for Congress. In addition to describing
condition of the waters, the report includes a discussion of
the relative importance of the various stresses or causes of
degraded water quality. The interpretation of the report has
been challenged because each state and tribal nation uses
different monitoring methods.
In a unique collaborative effort between EPA's Office of
Research and Development (ORD), the Office of Water
(OW) and the 10 EPA regional offices, ORD's Environ-
mental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), of
which the AMBB is an integral part, has focused on
providing creative and scientifically defensible solutions to
this challenge. AMBB develops effective indicators of
ecological condition and environmental stressors that are
practical enough to be used routinely by the states and
tribal nations. AMBB also mounted a critical research focus
on survey design — the science behind how one can make
statements about the entire aquatic resource by sampling a
select subset of sites. These concepts, applied to streams
and rivers, have been successfully developed and tested in
the Mid-Atlantic states, are now being calibrated for use in
the West (EMAP-West).
EMAP-West, begun in 1999, encompasses EPA Regions 8,
9, and 10. As with work in the East, the key to success of
the program has been the adaptation and application of
indicators, both biological indicators of condition and chem-
ical, physical, and watershed indicators of stress. Special
emphasis is being placed on biological measurements and
the process by which the "reference" or "expected" biolog-
ical conditions are established. Because the natural density
of streams/rivers across the West varies greatly as does the
accuracy of the maps that depict the extent of these
systems, several modifications to the sampling design have
been made to accommodate the issue of intermittent
streams that occur, particularly in the dry Southwest.
As the agency has increased its emphasis on the Govern-
ment Performance and Results Act's requirement that
programs demonstrate measurable progress, AMBB proto-
cols have been adopted by others. The Office of Water
initiated a national Wadeable Stream Assessment (WSA;
national sampling locations shown on map) based upon
these protocols and is depending upon
EMAP-West data from the 12 western states
in the program. The WSA national assess-
ment is expected to be available in December
2005. Independently, 25 states have adopted
elements of the design and indicator proto-
cols for their individual monitoring programs.
For more information, contact:
Tony Olsen
AMBB Branch Chief
olsen.tony@epa.gov
(541)754-4790
Western Ecology Division, NHEERL, US EPA
200 SW 35th Street
Corvallis, OR 97333
http://www.epa.gov/wed/
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