**1. Introduction**

The 1960s were a decade of growing awareness and concern regarding the declining quality of the surface waters of the U.S., most dramatically exemplified when the Cuyahoga River, Ohio caught fire in the summer of 1969. In response, the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Water Act (CWA) in 1972 [1], establishing goals and regulations governing the restoration and maintenance of the nation's water resources, including coastal regions. The CWA also specifically addressed the need for monitoring water quality. Section 305b of the CWA required states and tribes to survey and periodically report on the overall condition of their surface waters, including coastal waters. In addition to the state programs, numerous other water quality monitoring and research programs were initiated in major estuarine systems, such as Chesapeake Bay, Narragansett Bay, Tampa Bay, and Puget Sound.

However, for the first two decades of the Act, reviewers consistently highlighted the fact that the approaches used by the states and tribes to monitor conditions were not nationally consistent and the information they reported could not be consolidated into a single assessment of the Nation's waters [2–7]. Despite substantial expenditures, regulators were unable to judge the effectiveness of pollution-control legislation [8]. In response to these limitations, the EPA initiated the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), a research effort that spanned 17 years. These EMAP efforts would eventually evolve into what is now known as EPA's National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS) which continues to optimize approaches to conducting large-scale water quality assessments in lake, river, stream, estuarine and wetland resources across the U.S. This chapter focuses on the estuarine components of the EMAP and NARS assessments. An overview of EPA's efforts to assess coastal waters is presented in **Figure 1**. The timeline can be divided into three phases.

Beginning in 1990 and continuing for a decade, a series of regional assessments were executed in the major U.S. coastal ecological provinces. These EMAP-Estuaries programs explored innovative methods of conducting coastal assessments and established several of the defining features of EPA's assessment approach. For instance, EMAP planners adopted probabilistically-derived survey designs that minimized sampling bias, and designated sites that were appropriately weighted to estimate—with confidence intervals—the percentage of a region in good, fair, or poor condition. The early programs also developed a common core of indicators that could be used regionally or nationally to characterize conditions in key components of estuarine ecosystems—the water column, sediment, and benthic and fish communities. The lessons of these efforts were reported in many technical statistical summaries and summary reports, e.g., [9–14], but relatively few of the accounts were prepared with the public reader in mind. This research and developmental phase was led by EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) in partnership

#### **Figure 1.**

*EPA coastal assessment programs—Development and implementation phases. EMAP, Environmental Mapping and Assessment Program; Regional development: VP, Virginian Province (U.S. NE Atlantic coast); LP, Louisianian Province (Gulf of Mexico coast); CP, Carolinian Province (U.S. SE Atlantic coast); WIP, West Indian Province (South Florida coast); MAIA, Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment (Chesapeake, Delaware & Albemarle-Pamlico bays); WP, Western pilot (U.S. Pacific coast); NCA, National Coastal Assessment; Nationwide development phase NCCA, National Coastal Condition Assessment; Nationwide implementation phase.*

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of experimentation.

*Lessons Learned from 30 Years of Assessing U.S. Coastal Water*

with other federal agencies, especially the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and with some partici-

In the second phase, the EMAP-Estuaries program expanded nationally into the National Coastal Assessment, NCA 1999–2006. The NCA was also an EMAP research program, with primary goals of adopting and refining the best techniques developed in the regional studies and applying them to conduct coastal assessments at both national and regional scales [15]. The NCA evaluations continued the approach of assessing four key aspects of estuarine ecosystems, i.e., water quality, sediment quality, and the ecological condition of benthic and fish communities. Of equal importance, the NCA worked to more fully engage the states and tribes in the assessment process; thereby facilitating compliance with Section 305b of the Clean Water Act. As information accrued, the NCA also experimented with ways of analyzing and reporting how coastal conditions changed over time. Four National Coastal Condition Reports (NCCR I–IV) resulted from these efforts [16–19]. Particular attention was paid to explaining the assessment process and results to the

After 16 years of research, development, and stakeholder feedback, the coastal monitoring approach was deemed ready for routine deployment, and responsibility for implementation was passed from EPA's ORD to EPA's Office of Water (OW). Now renamed as the National Coastal Condition Assessment (NCCA**)**, surveys were executed in 2010 and 2015, and plans are underway to conduct assessments in 2020 and beyond. Beginning with the 2010 survey, the coastal waters of the Great Lakes were included as part of the NCCA program despite the substantial differences in the freshwater and estuarine realms [20]. The NCCA, together with the National Lakes Assessment (NLA), the National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA), and the National Wetlands Condition Assessment (NWCA), form the EPA National Aquatic Resources Surveys (NARS) program [21]. The goals of NARS are (i) to conduct routine surveys of all surface-water resources of the U.S. on a regular schedule; (ii) issue reports on assessments of each resource; and (iii) establish a joint database useful for conducting assessments and modeling investigations concerning all

In short, the EPA and its partners have devised an ambitious and unique approach of conducting multi-scale ecological assessments of the nation's coastal waters. NCCA and NARS reflect the results of concerted research and a pragmatic willingness to modify techniques and protocols based on lessons learned. Although logistically challenging, incorporating states and tribes in all aspects of the surveys has proved to be a clear success, both by enhancing the assessments and, more importantly, by helping build capacity of the states and tribes to conduct surveys on their own. Finally, the programs provide useful metrics by which environmental managers and legislators could judge the effectiveness of implemented policies. The remainder of this chapter further describes EPA's approach to assessing coastal waters, focusing primarily on the methods employed in the recent NCCA 2010 and 2015 surveys, which are the most thoroughly documented programs. Significant differences from earlier or later surveys are highlighted to emphasize how evolution shaped EPA's assessment process. Furthermore, where assessment approaches are similar in estuaries and the Great Lakes, we focus on the estuarine methodology in deference to brevity. Full documentation, data, and reports concerning both estuarine and Great Lakes assessments are available at [22]. The intended audiences for this chapter are knowledgeable scientists and environmental managers interested in reviewing the unique coastal assessment methods developed over 30 years

pation of state environmental agencies and academic institutions.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92326*

components of the surface-water systems.

general public.

#### *Lessons Learned from 30 Years of Assessing U.S. Coastal Water DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92326*

*Water Quality - Science, Assessments and Policy*

into three phases.

However, for the first two decades of the Act, reviewers consistently highlighted the fact that the approaches used by the states and tribes to monitor conditions were not nationally consistent and the information they reported could not be consolidated into a single assessment of the Nation's waters [2–7]. Despite substantial expenditures, regulators were unable to judge the effectiveness of pollution-control legislation [8]. In response to these limitations, the EPA initiated the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), a research effort that spanned 17 years. These EMAP efforts would eventually evolve into what is now known as EPA's National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS) which continues to optimize approaches to conducting large-scale water quality assessments in lake, river, stream, estuarine and wetland resources across the U.S. This chapter focuses on the estuarine components of the EMAP and NARS assessments. An overview of EPA's efforts to assess coastal waters is presented in **Figure 1**. The timeline can be divided

Beginning in 1990 and continuing for a decade, a series of regional assessments were executed in the major U.S. coastal ecological provinces. These EMAP-Estuaries programs explored innovative methods of conducting coastal assessments and established several of the defining features of EPA's assessment approach. For instance, EMAP planners adopted probabilistically-derived survey designs that minimized sampling bias, and designated sites that were appropriately weighted to estimate—with confidence intervals—the percentage of a region in good, fair, or poor condition. The early programs also developed a common core of indicators that could be used regionally or nationally to characterize conditions in key components of estuarine ecosystems—the water column, sediment, and benthic and fish communities. The lessons of these efforts were reported in many technical statistical summaries and summary reports, e.g., [9–14], but relatively few of the accounts were prepared with the public reader in mind. This research and developmental phase was led by EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) in partnership

*EPA coastal assessment programs—Development and implementation phases. EMAP, Environmental Mapping and Assessment Program; Regional development: VP, Virginian Province (U.S. NE Atlantic coast); LP, Louisianian Province (Gulf of Mexico coast); CP, Carolinian Province (U.S. SE Atlantic coast); WIP, West Indian Province (South Florida coast); MAIA, Mid-Atlantic Integrated Assessment (Chesapeake, Delaware & Albemarle-Pamlico bays); WP, Western pilot (U.S. Pacific coast); NCA, National Coastal Assessment; Nationwide development phase* 

*NCCA, National Coastal Condition Assessment; Nationwide implementation phase.*

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**Figure 1.**

with other federal agencies, especially the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and with some participation of state environmental agencies and academic institutions.

In the second phase, the EMAP-Estuaries program expanded nationally into the National Coastal Assessment, NCA 1999–2006. The NCA was also an EMAP research program, with primary goals of adopting and refining the best techniques developed in the regional studies and applying them to conduct coastal assessments at both national and regional scales [15]. The NCA evaluations continued the approach of assessing four key aspects of estuarine ecosystems, i.e., water quality, sediment quality, and the ecological condition of benthic and fish communities. Of equal importance, the NCA worked to more fully engage the states and tribes in the assessment process; thereby facilitating compliance with Section 305b of the Clean Water Act. As information accrued, the NCA also experimented with ways of analyzing and reporting how coastal conditions changed over time. Four National Coastal Condition Reports (NCCR I–IV) resulted from these efforts [16–19]. Particular attention was paid to explaining the assessment process and results to the general public.

After 16 years of research, development, and stakeholder feedback, the coastal monitoring approach was deemed ready for routine deployment, and responsibility for implementation was passed from EPA's ORD to EPA's Office of Water (OW). Now renamed as the National Coastal Condition Assessment (NCCA**)**, surveys were executed in 2010 and 2015, and plans are underway to conduct assessments in 2020 and beyond. Beginning with the 2010 survey, the coastal waters of the Great Lakes were included as part of the NCCA program despite the substantial differences in the freshwater and estuarine realms [20]. The NCCA, together with the National Lakes Assessment (NLA), the National Rivers and Streams Assessment (NRSA), and the National Wetlands Condition Assessment (NWCA), form the EPA National Aquatic Resources Surveys (NARS) program [21]. The goals of NARS are (i) to conduct routine surveys of all surface-water resources of the U.S. on a regular schedule; (ii) issue reports on assessments of each resource; and (iii) establish a joint database useful for conducting assessments and modeling investigations concerning all components of the surface-water systems.

In short, the EPA and its partners have devised an ambitious and unique approach of conducting multi-scale ecological assessments of the nation's coastal waters. NCCA and NARS reflect the results of concerted research and a pragmatic willingness to modify techniques and protocols based on lessons learned. Although logistically challenging, incorporating states and tribes in all aspects of the surveys has proved to be a clear success, both by enhancing the assessments and, more importantly, by helping build capacity of the states and tribes to conduct surveys on their own. Finally, the programs provide useful metrics by which environmental managers and legislators could judge the effectiveness of implemented policies. The remainder of this chapter further describes EPA's approach to assessing coastal waters, focusing primarily on the methods employed in the recent NCCA 2010 and 2015 surveys, which are the most thoroughly documented programs. Significant differences from earlier or later surveys are highlighted to emphasize how evolution shaped EPA's assessment process. Furthermore, where assessment approaches are similar in estuaries and the Great Lakes, we focus on the estuarine methodology in deference to brevity. Full documentation, data, and reports concerning both estuarine and Great Lakes assessments are available at [22]. The intended audiences for this chapter are knowledgeable scientists and environmental managers interested in reviewing the unique coastal assessment methods developed over 30 years of experimentation.
