Jump to main content.


Bridging National, Regional, and State Water Quality Objectives through a Multi-faceted Monitoring Approach

Hilary Snook

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 1, Boston, Massachusetts

National ecological and water quality monitoring data are not always transferable to state monitoring programs due to temporal inconsistencies, sample size, sample selection processes, and varying methods, and they can consume already limited state resources in staff time and equipment with their implementation. Regional reporting of ecological/water quality for surface water bodies has also been problematic, with inconsistencies among state agency monitoring data and methods, limiting the ability to aggregate these data for regional or larger scale assessments of condition.

EPA Region 1 has reviewed these inconsistencies and has implemented collaborative testing of specific indicators in order to determine how compatible some of the various methods are among the states. Results will reveal if state data can be aggregated from existing programs for regional assessments of lake condition. New Technologies are also being explored to determine their utility for regional and state lake assessment purposes. This presentation provides a brief overview of some of the differences across these geopolitical and spatial scales, and the present approaches trying to bridge these gaps.

EMAP Home | About EMAP | Components | Data | Documents | Bibliography | News | Site Map


Local Navigation


Jump to main content.