Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP)

The "Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP)" was developed in 1988 for the purpose of estimating the current status, changes, and trends in indicators of the condition of the nation's ecological resources on a regional basis; monitoring of indicators of pollutant exposure and habitat condition; identifying associations between human-induced stresses and ecological condition; and generation of periodic statistical summaries and interpretive reports on status and trends to resource managers and the public. The EMAP networks will provide statistically unbiased estimates with quantifiable confidence limits over regional and national scales for periods of years to decades. Six broad ecological resource categories have been defined within EMAP: near-coastal waters, inland surface waters, wetlands, forests, arid lands, and agroecosystems. Within each of these categories, EMAP is determining the ecological resource categories and resource sampling units that will be assessed in a series of annual surveys. Indicators of response, exposure, habitat, and stressors will be defined. These will determine the types of environmental assessments that will be conducted, such as biomarkers, pathogens, bioassays, tissue concentrations, ambient concentrations, exotics, habitat structure and landscape pattern. In 1990, EMAP initiated its first demonstration project, a study of estuaries in the mid Atlantic region. These data will be used for analyses to determine indices. Additional demonstration projects will be conducted over the next several years. Full implementation of monitoring in all resources is being targeted for 1995.