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Of Current Interest...
Pilot Study Reports now available! The pilot phase of the National Water Quality Monitoring Network (Network) for U.S. Coastal Waters and their Tributaries is complete for three geographic areas: Delaware Bay, Lake Michigan, and San Francisco Bay. The pilot phase of the Network examines current monitoring and gaps in relation to the proposed Network design. The new pilot reports are linked below.
Draft Pilot Study Summary Report
Summary report tables (Draft)
The proposed study area will encompass the San Francisco estuary, the largest estuary on the west coast, and will extend into the delta to the city of Sancramento to the north and the city of Stockton to the south. The study area will include the delta and the two major tributaries to the Delta, the San Joaquin and Sacramento Rivers. The watersheds for these two tributaries drain approximately 75 percent of the state of California. At the western boundary, the study area will include those waters monitored by the Central and Northern California Ocean Observing System. The delta and the estuary are an important area of biological diversity and are a key transit point for migrating birds. Approximately 8 million people work and live around the San Francisco estuary.
The Delaware River Basin encompasses 13,539 square miles (mi2) and contains one of the longest un-dammed rivers in the United States, extending 330 miles from the confluence of its East and West branches at Hancock, N.Y. to the mouth of Delaware Bay. Significant amounts of historical and current water-quality monitoring (physical, chemical, and biological) has been conducted in the watersheds, estuaries, near-shore, and off-shore parts of the basin by Federal, State, local, private, and academic entities. It is the intent of this effort to inventory, compare methods, and enhance data exchange in support of the National Monitoring Network. The watershed is home to more than 200 fish species, and provides habitat for federally protected endangered species such as dwarf wedgemussels, short-nose sturgeon, bald eagles, and bog turtles. Nearly 15 million people (about 5% of the nation’s population) rely on the waters of the Basin for drinking water which includes about 7 million people in New York City and northern New Jersey who live outside the Basin.
The Great Lakes – Michigan, Huron, Superior, Erie and Ontario – are a dominant part of the physical and cultural heritage of North America. Shared with Canada and spanning more than 750 miles from east to west, these vast inland freshwater seas provide water for consumption, transportation, power, recreation and a host of other uses. The Great Lakes are the largest surface freshwater system on the Earth. They contain about 84 percent of North America's surface freshwater and about 21 percent of the world's supply. Only the polar ice caps contain more freshwater.
Lake Michigan is the second largest of the Great Lakes. It is the only Great Lake entirely within the United States. The northern part is in the colder, less developed upper Great Lakes region. It is sparsely populated, except for the Fox River Valley, which drains into Green Bay. This bay has one of the most productive Great Lakes fisheries but receives the wastes from the world's largest concentration of pulp and paper mills. The more temperate southern basin of Lake Michigan is among the most urbanized areas in the Great Lakes system. It contains the Milwaukee and Chicago metropolitan areas, with over 11 million people dependent on the lake for drinking water. This region represents about one-fifth of the total population of the Great Lakes basin.
DOI :: ACWI :: What's New? :: Meetings
U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological
Survey
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