This is the fourth and final volume reviewing EPA's Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). After 4 years of review, the authoring committee retains its belief that EMAP's goals are laudable. However, because achieving the goals of this ambitious program will require that EMAP successfully meet the difficult scientific, practical, and management challenges, the committee continues to question whether and how well all these goals can be achieved. This final overall review reiterates that general assessment.

Contents

• COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE EPA'S ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT PROGRAM
• BOARD ON ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES AND TOXICOLOGY
• WATER SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY BOARD
• COMMISSION ON GEOSCIENCES, ENVIRONMENT, AND RESOURCES
• COMMISSION ON LIFE SCIENCES
• [The National Academies]
• Acknowledgements
• Executive Summary
  • Recommendations
• 1. Introduction
  • Background
  • The Present Study
• 2. Overall Assessment
  • Introduction
  • The EMAP Assessment Framework
  • Indicators
  • EMAP Sampling Density And Sampling Frequency
  • Statistics
  • Problems Of Summarizing Emap Data To Standard Federal Regions
  • Integration
  • Program Coordination Within Emap
  • External Scientific Review
  • EMAP's Place In The Federal Government
• 3. Program-Wide Components
  • Landscape Characterization And Ecology
  • EMAP Indicator Development Strategy
  • Information System
• 4. Resource Components
  • Agroecosystems
  • Estuaries (Modified from NRC, 1994a, Executive Summary)
  • Forests (Executive Summary, from NRC 1994a)
  • Great Lakes
  • Surface Waters (Executive Summary, from NRC, 1994b)
• References
• Appendix A September 20, 1994 letter from Dr. Edward Martinko, Director, EMAP
• Appendix B May 4, 1994 letter from Gary J. Foley, EPA Acting Assistant Administrator for Research and Development
• Appendix C EMAP Documents Reviewed by NRC Committee
• Appendix D Biographical Sketches of Committee Members

Support for this project was provided by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under Agreement No. 68C00082/C.

NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the board responsible for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for appropriate balance.

This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to procedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.