Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
and monitoring is designed specifically to test it, both the value of the monitor-
ing and the details of its design will be clarified and the importance of the moni-
toring will be evident.
In addition, knowing the pattern of chronic or sporadic exposure of hu-
mans and ecosystems to pollutants is essential for understanding their effects.
But such an understanding is possible only with the availability of long-term
reliable data on pollution loads. Collecting high-quality long-term environ-
mental data on pollutant exposure and ecosystem structure and function is not
easy. It might take a decade or more to understand the implications of the trends
and the meaning of periodic events. On a practical level, long-term monitoring
seldom has general public or political supporters advocating for it, and it is an
easy target of budget cutting because it is slow to yield insights.
With the exception of some air and water monitoring programs, there are
few long-term monitoring programs, let alone programs that are systematic and
rigorous. The paucity of data has made it difficult or impossible to identify key
trends related to problems and improvements in environmental quality. That
lack of high-quality long-term data is largely the product of four factors:
Environmental variability across the United States means that what is
most useful to monitor differs widely from one place to another.
It is easy to collect data but much more difficult to collect consistent
data, particularly over decades. For example, what is collected may change in
response to immediate regulatory needs, thereby reducing its value.
Over long periods, it is difficult to maintain high-quality data collec-
tion systems with solid quality assurance and quality control, well thought-out
collection sites, and appropriate collection frequency.
Monitoring is expensive and often does not produce high-impact in-
formation in the short to medium term.
Long-term environmental datasets that have been collected effectively il-
lustrate both the challenges and the rewards of long-term monitoring programs
and the importance of collaborations among agencies and organizations. The
datasets include those on acid rain, on the Great Lakes ecosystem, and on US
Geologic Survey stream-gauging and water-sampling. A key challenge for
EPA's science programs is to determine what environmental characteristics to
monitor. The answer is tied to indicators, asking the right questions, and ensur-
ing that long-term funding is available to provide the data necessary to support
science-based regulatory decisions.
New technologies enable some environmental characteristics to be meas-
ured over time across a large spatial domain, for example, satellite imaging and
other remote-sensing technologies (as discussed in Chapter 3). The combination
of environmental-monitoring data and medical-history information from elec-
tronic medical-records data could help to track environmental exposures of hu-
man populations and evaluate health effects and dose-response relationships
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