National Surface Water Survey (NSWS)

The "National Surface Water Survey (NSWS)" is a composite
program aimed at monitoring the chemical characteristics of
surface water in the United States. It includes the National
Stream Survey, the Eastern Lake Survey, and the Western Stream
Survey. The three programs are fairly similar in scope; they are
all directly related to the National Acid Precipitation
Assessment Program.

The "National Stream Survey (NSS)" contains chemistry data,
geographic attributes and watershed descriptive information on
a target population of streams in the mid-Atlantic and
southeastern United States. It contains also the results of a
pilot stream survey conducted in the southern Blue Ridge
Province. It objectives were to 1) determine the percentage,
extent, location, and chemical characteristics of streams that
were acidic or that had low acid neutralizing capacity (ANC) and
thus might become acidic in the future; and 2) identify streams
representative of important classes that might be selected for
more intensive study or long-term monitoring.

For the purpose of the NSS, streams were defined as water bodies
that have drainage areas of less than 155 square kilometers (60
square miles), but large enough to be represented as blue lines
on 1:225,000-scale U.S. Geological Survey USGS topographic maps.
This size was viewed as a reasonable compromise that includes
streams large enough to be important for fish habitat, yet small
enough to be susceptible to the impacts of acidic deposition.

The "Eastern Lake Survey (ELS)" assessed the effects of acidic
deposition on surface waters in the Northeastern United States,
upper Midwest, the Southern Blueridge, and Florida.

The "Western Lake Survey (WLS)" assessed the effects of
deposition in Western United States.
LANGUAGE:

English
ACCESS/AVAILABILITY:

Data Center: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA)
Dissemination Media: Hard copy (computer printouts, reports,
journal publications), tape, diskettes,
online
File Format:
Access Instructions: Contact the data center.
Size:
Memory Requirements:
Operating System:
Hardware Required:
Software Required: SAS
Availability Status: On Request
Documentation Available: