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OCR for page 1
Executive Summary
From the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts of the United States come
increasingly frequent reports of closed bathing beaches, restricted shell-
fish beds, garbage washing up on shorelines, contaminated waters and
sediments, oil spills, declining marine environmental quality, and ailing
fisheries. The coastal ocean contains extraordinarily productive natural
ecosystems, and all its physical, chemical, and biological processes are not
well understood. In addition, the anthropogenic and natural causes of
change in this environment are complex and varied, and they occur over
different space and time scales.
Protection and restoration of the marine environment have been the
subject of intense activity over the past three decades by public officials,
scientists, and citizens. Numerous statutes and regulations were adopted by
federal and state governments. Billions of dollars were spent on corrective
measures, and more than $133 million is spent annually to monitor the
condition of the marine environment by federal, state, and local agencies;
public utilities; and private corporations.
Marine environmental monitoring has been successfully employed to
protect public health through systematic measurement of microbial in-
dicators of fecal pathogens in swimming and shellfish-growing areas, to
validate water qualifier models, and to assess the effectiveness of pollution
abatement. But despite these considerable efforts and expenditures, most
environmental monitoring programs fail to provide the information needed
to understand the condition of the marine environment or to assess the
effects of human activity on it. Further, environmental managers are often
1
OCR for page 2
2
MANAGING TROUBLE ED WATE:RS
unable to assure the public that proposed protective or corrective strategies
are likelier to be successful The difficulty of obtaining useful information
from monitoring programs can be attributed to several factors. First, too
often monitoring programs are poorly designed and the technology ~nap-
propriately applied. Second, information is rarely presented in a form that
is useful in developing broad public policy or evaluating specific control
strategies. (On the other hand, a number of estuarine programs directed
at selected water quality problems have led to specific control strategies for
waste treatment facilities.) A third factor is the very real limits on scientific
knowledge and predictive capabilities. This report examines these issues
in detail It proposes specific design criteria and makes recommendations
about the dissemination of monitoring information. It also proposes a
coherent system of regional monitoring upon which control strategies can
be based and their effectiveness measured.
This report was prepared by the Committee on a Systems Assessment
of Manne Environmental Monitonog of the National Research Council.
Manne environmental monitoring Is defined as a continuing program of
modeling, measurement, analysis, and synthesis that predicts and quantifies
environmental conditions or contaminants and incorporates that informa-
tion efiec~vely into decision making in environmental management.
The committee developed a conceptual model for the design and im-
plementadon of monitoring programs and the role of monitoring in marine
emaronmental management. It then convened three panels of experts to
conduct case studies on monitoring of the Chesapeake Bay, monitoring
of the Southern California Bitt, and the disposal of particulate west"
~ the oceans. These reports provided the major base of technical infor-
mation on the national experience in marine environmental monitoring.
The committee evaluated the major policy and technical limitations of and
opportunities for manne environmental monitoring based on the panel re-
ports, other examples, relevant literature on monitoring strategies, and the
collective experience of the members. The report conveys advice on what
can be expected from marine environmental monitoring, how monitoring
programs should be designed, and how they can supply information that
would be more useful in decision making.
The results of marine environmental monitoring are important to a
wide range of interests beachgoers and fishermen, dischargers, engineers,
government environmental managers, politicians, scientists, and private
citizens. Monitoring information meets many needs:
· Monitoring provides the information needed tO evaluate pollution
abatement actions.
· Monitonug information can provide an early warning system, al-
lowing for lower cost solutions to environmental problems.
OCR for page 3
EXECUTIVE SUMMERY
3
· Monitoring contributes to knowledge of marine ecosystems and
how they are affected by human activity. Such knowledge allows for
the establishment of priorities for environmental protection and for the
assessment of status and trends.
· Monitoring information helps answer such questions as "Is it safe
to swim or eat fish and shellfish?".
· Monitoring information is essential to the construction, adjustment,
and verification of quantitative predictive models, which are an important
basis for evaluating, developing, and selecting environmental management
strategies.
· Monitoring information provides environmental managers the sci-
entific rationale for setting environmental quality standards.
· Monitoring determines compliance with conditions set forth in
discharge permits.
Monitoring would become even more useful under a comprehensive
national program for documenting environmental status and trends in
coastal waters and estuaries. A national program would best combine
intensive regional observations and cause-effects studies with a sparser
national network of observations. The latter would cover areas not included
in intensive regional programs to facilitate regional comparisons and to
detect broader-scale trends.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA)
National Status and Mends Program and the Environmental Protection
Agency's (EPA) National Estuary Program and proposed Environmental
Monitoring and Assessment Program should cooperate to develop an ef-
fective national program. Reallocation of compliance monitoring resources
could in some cases contribute to the recommended regional monitoring
efforts.
Although legislative mandates for this nationalfregional program may
already exist, the administration and Congress should review existing pro-
grams and coordinating arrangements and implement those administrative
improvements or new legislative direction necessary to support the national
system of long-term regional monitoring. Congress should exercise strong
oversight of these efforts.
Monitoring programs also need to be better designed and monitoring
methods more appropriately applied if they are to meet the expectations of
all those who call for them, design them, implement them, and use or rely
on the information that they can produce. Monitoring is generally not well
coupled with research programs designed to improve the appropriateness
of routine measurements and allow interpretation of the implications of
monitoring results. Most marine environmental monitoring programs are
technically sound; it is the overall design and institutional context that limits
OCR for page 4
4
MANAGING TROUB~FD WATERS
the usefulness of the information that results. Sound program design and
implementation depend on the following factors:
· The goals and objectives of the monitoring program need to be
clearly articulated in terms that pose questions that are meaningful to the
public and that provide the basis for scientific investigation.
Not only must data be gathered, but attention must also be paid to
their management, synthesis, interpretation, and analysis.
peer review.
Procedures for quality assurance are needed, including scientific
· Because a well-designed monitoring program results in unanswered
questions about environmental processes or human impacts, supportive
research should be prodded.
· Adequate resources are needed not only for data collection but
also for detailed analysis and evaluation over the long term.
· Programs should be sufficiently flexible to allow for their modifica-
tion where changes in conditions or new information suggests the need.
· Provision should be made to ensure that monitoring information is
made available to all interested parties in a form that is useful to them.
In sum, the committee calls for:
.
agement,
strengthening the role of monitoring in marine environmental man
conducting comprehensive monitoring of regional and national sta-
tus and trends, and
improving monitoring program design and making information
products more useful
The comm ittee believes that implementation of its recommendations
is vital to better protection, restoration, and understanding of the marine
environment. Yet it does not wish to overstate the usefulness of moni-
tonug programs. The marine environment is complex and variable, and
it is often difficult to detect, identify, and measure anthropogenic impacts
clearly. These factors, coupled with limitations to scientific knowledge, em-
phasize the need for realistic expectations. Environmental managers need
to consider the risks and uncertainties inherent in most actions. Risk-free
decision making is not possible. When well developed, applied, and used,
environmental monitoring can help quantify the magnitude of uncertainty,
thereby reducing but not eliminating uncertainly in decision making.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
monitoring programs
