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| Wyoming Water Science Center |
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In cooperation with the United States Environmental Protection Agency |
The National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA) builds on two previous U.S. Environmental Protection Agency programs - Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) and Wadeable Streams Assessment (WSA). EMAP was a research program to develop the tools necessary to monitor and assess the status and trends of national ecological resources (U.S. EPA, 2008a). EMAP sampling was conducted in 2000-2003. WSA was a first-ever statistically-rigorous survey of the biological condition of small streams throughout the U.S. A total of 1,392 wadeable sites were sampled for WSA in 2004-2005 that shared similar ecological characteristics. Wadeable streams were chosen for study because they are a critical natural resource and because a well-established set of methods for monitoring them exists. Participants used the same standardized methods at all sites, to ensure results that are comparable across the nation (U.S. EPA, 2008b).
The following information is from the field operations manual for the NRSA (U.S. EPA, 2007). The intent of the NRSA project is to provide a comprehensive "State of the Flowing Waters" assessment for rivers and streams across the United States. The NRSA is a probability-based survey of our Nation's rivers and streams and is designed to:
The goal of the NRSA is to address two key questions about the quality of the Nation's rivers and streams:
Samples will be collected from 2008 through 2009. Biotic assemblages and their physical and chemical habitat vary among seasons and among years at each site. To minimize the effect of temporal variation at each site, samples will be collected during a restricted "index" period. Index periods are selected based on logistical (safety, accessibility to sites) and biological criteria (development of biotic assemblages). While short index periods of a few weeks may be ecologically optimal, logistic considerations make a longer index period preferable. For the NRSA, the index period is from late May through September.
Field crews will be taking many measurements at each selected site. They will be using consistent procedures at all sites so that results can be compared across the country. They will be measuring parameters including:
The Corvallis Laboratory of EPA's Western Ecology Division (WED) will
have primary responsibility for data management for the NRSA. WED
will provide standardized field data sheets. Field data sheets will
be returned to Corvallis where they will be optically scanned and
entered into the NRSA database by WED. All data collected by this study
will be publicly available following verification and validation of the
data sets. Data will be made available through the NRSA Website and through
the STORET database.
All data sets generated by this study will be made available on the NRSA
public web site. These data sets will be described (metadata) and a
quality assessment provided. All such data set descriptions will be made
available for inclusion in the NRSA Data Directory/Data Catalog,
accessible on the NRSA web site. In addition, steps will be taken to
assure their continuing availability.
View map depicting proposed sampling locations in Wyoming.
U.S. EPA, 2007, National Rivers and Streams Assessment; Field Operations Manual, EPA-841-B-07-009, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.
U.S. EPA, 2008a, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program: accessed November 4, 2008 at http://www.epa.gov/emap/
U.S. EPA, 2008b, The Wadeable Streams Assessment: A Collaborative Survey of the Nation's Streams, accessed November 4, 2008 at http://www.epa.gov/owow/streamsurvey/
Greg Boughton
2617 E. Lincolnway, Suite B
Cheyenne, Wyoming 82001
(307) 775-9161
Email: gkbought@usgs.gov
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