Chris O. Yoder

State of Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, Division of Surface Water

1685 Westbelt Drive, Columbus, OH 43228

Watershed-based approaches are gaining widespread acceptance as a conceptual framework from within which water quality management programs should function. However, overall reductions and inequities in State ambient monitoring and assessment programs jeopardize the scientific integrity of watershed-based approaches. This also has had the undesirable effect of failing to properly equip the States and EPA to adequately meet the challenges posed by recently emerging issues such as cumulative effects, nonpoint sources, habitat degradation, and interdisciplinary issues (e.g., TMDLs) in general. Unfortunately, the chronic shortfall in ambient monitoring and assessment resources is not new—the ITFM (1995) reported that of the funding allocated by state and federal agencies to water quality management activities, only 0.2% was devoted to ambient monitoring. As the need for adequate supplies of clean water increases, concerns about public health and the environment escalate, and geographically targeted watershed-based approaches increase, the demands on the water quality monitoring "infrastructure" will likewise increase. These demands cannot be met effectively nor economically without fundamentally changing our attitudes towards ambient monitoring (ITFM 1995). An adequate ambient monitoring and assessment framework is needed to ensure not only a good science-based foundation for watershed-based approaches, but water quality management in general. This paper attempts to describe the important elements, processes, and frameworks that need to be included as part of an adequate State monitoring and assessment program and how this should be used to support the overall water quality management process. Furthermore, it is a goal of this effort to highlight the need to revitalize monitoring, assessment, and environmental indicators as an integral part of the overall water quality management process.

Monitoring and assessment information, when based on a sufficiently comprehensive and rigorous system of environmental indicators, is integral to protecting human health, preserving and restoring ecosystem integrity, and sustaining a viable economy. Such a strategy is intended to achieve a better return on public and private investments in environmental protection and natural resources management. In short, more and better monitoring and assessment information is needed to answer the fundamental questions that have been repeatedly asked about the condition of our water resources and shape the strategies needed to deal with both existing and emerging problems within the context of watershed-based management.

The long-term vision is to develop a process for the comprehensive assessment of the waters of each State by producing and implementing a multi-year monitoring and assessment framework at relevant geographic scales to support all water quality management objectives (including risk-based decision making). Some of the key elements of this approach are:

These efforts would fall short if a linkage between program management and monitoring and assessment were not made part of the overall water quality management process (Figure 1). This, too, is part of the long range vision for revitalizing the role of water quality monitoring nationwide.

The following is a compilation of the major program goals that should shape the design of an adequate State monitoring and assessment program and thus become the identifiable characteristics. While much of this is patterned after the major monitoring and assessment compendia and program guidance that has recently been developed (ITFM 1995; U.S. EPA 106 Program Guidance), the specifics of implementation lie within the custodial responsibilities of State water quality management programs.

The following are some of the major objectives that State monitoring & assessment programs should have as priorities. Fully meeting some of these objectives will require time to acquire and develop the necessary database, indicators, and staff expertise. However, this will be partly dependent on the status of existing and past State monitoring and assessment efforts. Nevertheless, using the following objectives provides a basis for determining the adequacy of a given State program. A well-rounded approach to indicators and monitoring design utilizing a core set of chemical, physical, and biological indicators should provide the information needed to simultaneously meet these objectives without the need to redesign the approach for each different objective.

Monitoring and assessment program design includes the different types of indicators and the frame-works within which each is developed and used. This in turn determines the different types of data that will need to be collected and synthesized into information in order to successfully realize the previously stated goals and objectives. Spatial considerations about the basic design of the monitoring program are also included and will be most influenced by the overall program goals and objectives of each State. State monitoring and assessment programs serve multiple needs and must function across multiple scales (i.e., local watershed, basin/subbasin, statewide), thus consideration of more than one approach will likely be needed.

A key issue facing the States and EPA is selection of an appropriate monitoring design. It has been recognized for some time that the traditional fixed station design (e.g., NAWQMN, NASQAN) common to many State monitoring networks is alone insufficient to meet the above-stated objectives. However, State monitoring and assessment resources even under the best of circumstances have been limited and therefore must be prioritized. Thus, selection of the most cost- and information-effective spatial design is a critical step in the process. Two approaches, a synoptic, targeted design commonly referred to as a rotating basin approach and the probabilistic design developed by the U.S. EPA EMAP program are summarized here. The strengths and weaknesses of each are indicated with respect to the multiple issues that State monitoring and assessment programs must address.

Defining the different aquatic resource types that a State program must address is a critical step in the process. This includes the major aquatic ecosystem types such as flowing waters (i.e., rivers and streams), lakes and reservoirs, coastal waters, great lakes, estuaries, or wetlands. Further stratification within each is possible (e.g., headwater streams, wadable streams, large rivers, depressional wetlands, riparian wetlands, etc.) and may be accounted for a priori or as part of the indicator development and calibration process. Other stratification elements, which include watershed driving factors (e.g., ecoregions) and other physical vectors, are incorporated as well. Designated aquatic life uses provide an additional layer of stratification. Taken together, all of these processes should result in more finely tuned indicator expectations or benchmarks against which management program success will ultimately be judged.

State monitoring and assessment programs need to include the appropriate ambient measurements in order to adequately meet the previously stated goals and objectives. The Intergovernmental Task Force on Monitoring Water Quality (ITFM 1995) recommended the minimum elements of an adequate monitoring and assessment program that will support meeting the previously stated goals and objectives (Table 1). This also represents the elements essential to implementing the hierarchy of water indicators framework (Figure 3) which, in turn, is needed not only to demonstrate program effectiveness, but also to provide opportunities for feedback resulting in future program improvements.

The ITFM (1995) concluded that the implementation of the ITFM recommendations and strategy would result in an adequate information base to achieve the environmental protection and natural resource management goals and objectives established for the nation’s aquatic resources. However, it was also recognized that full implementation of the strategy could not be achieved "overnight" and that the necessary capacity and resources (i.e., the monitoring and assessment "infrastructure") will need to be acquired over a reasonable period of time. Nevertheless, monitoring organizations, including States, will need to review, update, and/or revise their monitoring strategies in a series of deliberate steps. The demands that are increasingly being placed on our water resources at all scales require that past approaches to monitoring be significantly improved in terms of both quality and quantity. Some of the steps toward a more comprehensive and effective approach to ambient monitoring include the following which also summarizes the major points of this document:

Simply upgrading the monitoring program to include more and better measurements and the better conversion of data to information, while important, is alone insufficient. To achieve the overall goal of improving the use of monitoring and assessment information in the emerging watershed approach, water quality management must mature to focus primarily on the condition of the environment as the overall measure of program success (Figure 5). Whereas the performance of the "program" was once the principal measure of effectiveness, the program must be viewed as a tool to be used along-side monitoring and assessment and environmental indicators to improve the quality of the environment.