A Review of the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Pilot Program (1990) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 16-25
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From page 16... ...
The program is to be executed through a large set of separate investigations of river basins and aquifer systems, referred to as study units. The USGS postulated that by performing NAWQA as an aggregation of many individual study units, the assessment would provide results that would be useful in understanding and managing the water resources of the study unit, and in answering national-scale questions about current conditions, trends, and factors that affect water quality.
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From page 17... ...
ldcntlfylng squlfcrs rcqulrlng dlffcrcnt 1ypcs snd dc~rces of ~stcr qusllty proicctlon; sod, (~) cvalustlng managemcnt prsctlccs ln 1crms of thclr largc-scalc cffccts on thc v~stcr qusllty of rivcr baslns snd squlfcr systcms" (Illrsch, ct sl~ 1988\ Four surfacc ~'stcr snd tbrcc ground watcr pHot proicct~ rcprcscutlng a dlvcrshy of hydrologlc cnvlron mcnts and ~sicr quallty condlilons' ~crc sclcctcd by thc USGS ln 1986 to tcst and rcflnc thc ssscssmcnt conccpts of N ~ W ~ A
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From page 18... ...
and the private sector. Additionally, the committee visited, in small teams, five of the seven sites selected as pilot projects: the Carson basin aquifer, Upper Illinois River basin, Yakima River basin, Kentucky River basin, and Central Oklahoma basin aquifer.
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From page 19... ...
It also evaluates other considerations deemed important by the committee in designing and implementing a long-term assessment of the quality of the nation's surface and ground waters which, in turn, will produce useful information for those involved in making decisions regarding the management of the nation's water resources. Unfortunately, because the scheduled 4-year study period for the seven pilot projects had not elapsed at the time of the preparation of this report, the committee did not have access to any final products to review, with the exception of five retrospective reports.
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From page 20... ...
These include evaluating past and guiding future investments in wastewater treatment works; determining the relative contribution of point and nonpoint sources to the loading of contaminants to surface and ground waters; identifying and controlling the water quality impacts of acid deposition, agricultural chemical use (especially pesticides) , and tonics; evaluating the effectiveness of federal, state, regional, and local environmental regulations; and controlling eutrophication of inland and coastal water bodies.
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From page 21... ...
In addition, detection of a pesticide in one environment typically provides little information about the presence of the same pesticide in another hydrogeochemical environment. For example, aldicarb is often associated with high ground water tables and sandy, mineral soils, where its fate and transport are controlled and its mobility limited by sorption on mineral surfaces and microbiological degradation under fully saturated conditions.
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From page 22... ...
Second, the processes controlling water quality take place over a wide range of time scales. For example, ground water flow rates are very small, and a "snapshot in time," or even several closely spaced snapshots, would provide relatively little information about change.
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From page 23... ...
The USGS study of the effects of changes in municipal wastewater treatment on water quality in the Upper Illinois River Basin provides an excellent example of the difficulties caused by inconsistent data bases (see Appendix B
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From page 24... ...
While the committee is convinced of the need for a national assessment, this is an enormously difficult challenge because of the immense scale of our nationts waters, the diversity of both the natural hydrologic systems and the human activities that affect those systems, and the complexity of the physical, chemical, and biological processes that govern water quality. There is a vast scope to the types of water bodies of importance, encompassing rivers and streams, estuaries, lakes and reservoirs, and ground water aquifers.
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From page 25... ...
At no point can a national assessment become a routine task. Consequently, the success of a national assessment will be highly dependent on the quality of the people directing and implementing it.
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