What Good are NCA Data and Methods Anyway?

John Kiddon 1, Henry Walker 1, Walter Galloway 1, Harry Buffum 2, Jane Copeland 2, Michael Charpentier 2, Donald Cobb 1 and Charles Strobel 1

1 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ORD, National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory, Atlantic Ecology Division, Narragansett, Rhode Island
2 Computer Sciences Corporation, Narragansett, Rhode Island

The National Coastal Assessment (NCA) has worked in close association with coastal states to monitor the condition of coastal waters each year 2000 through 2006. A clear intention of the program was to involve the states in all aspects of monitoring activity, including designing the surveys; collecting data and conducting QA reviews; performing data analysis; and finally, reporting and incorporating the results in actions that protect and restore endangered estuaries. A series of reports have summarized program results at the national and regional scale. In this poster we highlight examples of how NCA methods and data have been used to meet goals at a more local scale by agencies, managers, and researchers in the northeastern states. Included are cases of:

routine use of probabilistic designs by states in other monitoring programs;
infrastructure improvements that enhance monitoring capacity;
incorporation of NCA data in 305b reports of state water quality and other reports;
adoption of NCA analysis methods by state and regional managers; and
utilization of NCA data in academic research projects.

What Good are NCA Data and Methods Anyway?

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