The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program was created by EPA to develop the capability for tracking the changing conditions of our natural resources and to give environmental policy the advantages ofa sound scientific understanding of trends. Former EPA Administrators recognized early that contemporary monitoring programs could not even quantify simple unknowns like the number of lakes suffering from acid rain, let along determine if national control policies were benefiting these lakes. Today, adding to acidification impacts are truly complex problems such as determining the effects of climate change, of increases in ultraviolet light, toxic chemicals, eutrophication and critical habitat loss. Also today, the Government Performance and Results Act seeks to have agencies develop performance standards based on results rather than simply on levels of programmatic activities. The charge to EMAP of ecosystems is, therefore, the same today as it was a with respect to measuring the condition decade ago. We welcome the increasing urgency for sound scientific monitoring methods and data by efforts to protect and improve the environment. Systematic nationwide monitoring of natural resources is more than anyone program can accomplish, however. In an era of declining budgets, it is crucial that monitoring programs at all levels of government coordinate and share environmental data. EMAP resources are dwarfed by the more than $500 million spent on federal monitoring activities each year.
Editors and Affiliations
National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USA
Shabeg Sandhu,
Laura Jackson
National Center for Environmental Assessment, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, USA
Kay Austin
National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, Charleston, USA
Jeffrey Hyland
Atlantic Ecology Division National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Narrangansett, USA
Brian Melzian
Gulf Ecology Division National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Gulf Breeze, USA
Kevin Summers
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Monitoring Ecological Condition at Regional Scales
Book Subtitle: Proceedings of the Third Symposium on the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) Albany, NY, U.S.A., 8–11 April, 1997
Editors: Shabeg Sandhu, Laura Jackson, Kay Austin, Jeffrey Hyland, Brian Melzian, Kevin Summers