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1
Introduction
Water quality refers to the suitability of water for particular human
and ecosystem uses, and operationally it can be defined by federal and state
regulatory agencies that establish the physical, chemical, and biological
characteristics to adequately meet a particular use. By any measure, water
safe to drink, suitable to sustain agriculture, and available to maintain
valued natural ecosystems constitutes a fundamental national need. Water
quality naturally changes spatially and temporally across the nation be-
cause of different climates, seasonality in weather, sources of dissolved and
particulate substances, and variability among local and regional hydrologic
and geomorphic settings. As would be expected, in some places natural
water quality may be insufficient to provide all desired services. However,
where suitable water quality does occur, it logically needs to be maintained
for the public good.
Failure to maintain water quality occurs throughout the world. In
the United States, excess dissolved nutrients from applications of agricul-
tural fertilizer have caused pervasive anoxia where the Mississippi River
discharges to the Gulf of Mexico1 (Osterman et al., 2006). Similar "dead
zones" are found throughout the world in marine environments near large
river mouths (Diaz and Rosenberg, 2008; Helly and Levein, 2004). Excess
nutrients to Chesapeake Bay's estuarine system caused the near collapse
of natural fisheries, which only now seem to be returning because of suit-
able watershed management practices (Harding et al., 1999; NRC, 2004a,
2011c). Finally, excess nutrients from sugar plantations have also com-
1 See http://ecowatch.ncddc.noaa.gov/hypoxia.
17
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18 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
promised the water quality of the Everglades ecosystem in Florida (NRC,
2008a). The evaporation of water used to irrigate soils in arid western
landscapes has caused salinization of western soils and agricultural yields
(Schoups et al., 2005).
Prior pervasive surface-water and groundwater contamination of wa-
ters in the United States led to the Clean Water Act of 1972,2 the Safe Water
Drinking Act of 1974,3 and other legislation dealing with water quality.
Fortunately, the nation's community water treatment infrastructure remains
robust enough to ensure potable, high-quality tap water from rural areas to
cities, despite remaining contamination in some places (Moran et al., 2004,
2005, 2007). But, in rural areas, many shallow aquifers no longer are used
for drinking water supplies because of nitrate and bacterial contamination
originating from agricultural practices and septic systems (Embrey and
Runkle, 2006; Nolan and Hitt, 2006). Furthermore, in the north central
and northeastern United States, the accumulation of millions of tons of
road salt in the unsaturated soil threatens salinization of surface water
and shallow groundwaters (Kaushal et al., 2005). Despite these problems,
water quality in the United States remains high compared to many other
parts of the world, but maintaining this high water quality for human and
ecosystem health and prosperity is critical.
Established in 1879, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has a distin-
guished history of leadership, serving the nation by providing scientific
data to describe and understand Earth systems and unbiased assessments
to facilitate management of the nation's natural resources. Hydrologic re-
search and hydrologic data collection and analyses are performed through
the USGS Water Mission Area, one of six broad earth science mission areas
around which USGS is organized: Energy and Minerals, and Environmental
Health; Climate and Land-Use Change; Ecosystems; Natural Hazards; Core
Science Systems; and Water.4 The administrative structure of water-related
activities at the USGS has evolved throughout the history of the agency, yet
the mission has remained constant: "to provide reliable, impartial, timely
information needed to understand the nation's water resources."
Because USGS is a science agency with no regulatory or management re-
sponsibilities, the Water Mission Area (along with the entirety of the agency)
has been widely recognized as a source of unbiased scientific information
and hydrologic data. USGS research, studies, and data are used by other
2 Public Law 92-500, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, or Clean Water Act, is the
principal federal law governing contamination of the nation's waters.
3 Public Law 93-523, the Safe Drinking Water Act, is the principal federal law intended
to ensure safe drinking water for the public and applies to every public water system in the
United States.
4 The Office of Science Quality and Integrity is tasked with improving and monitoring the
quality of USGS science conducted by the six mission areas.
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INTRODUCTION 19
federal agencies; state, local, and tribal governments; the private sector; and
academia as a basis for a wide range of water resources research and water
planning and management decisions, including water infrastructure design
and maintenance, flood monitoring and emergency notification, drought
monitoring, water rights administration, water-quality management, and
other related services. USGS carries out its water resources mission through
several individual programs spread throughout the agency (Box 1-1) that
cumulatively support the nation's hydrologic data network and provide hy-
drologic assessments at the national, regional, state, and local scale. One of
these is the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) program.
NAWQA was designed and tested in the late 1980s and was imple-
mented at full scale in 1991 to assess historical and current water quality
and future water quality scenarios in representative river basins and aqui-
fers across the country. NAWQA's primary objectives are to assess the status
of the nation's groundwater and surface-water resources; evaluate trends in
water quality over time; and understand how and to what degree natural
and anthropogenic activities affect water quality. Taken together, NAWQA's
goal is to provide a national synthesis of the interaction between natural
factors, human activities, and water-quality conditions to define factors that
affect national water resources.
NAWQA's goals are achieved through a design that stresses long-term,
standardized collection and interpretation of physical, chemical, and bio-
logical water-quality data. NAWQA is not a research program per se; it uses
known tools and understanding of processes to probe relevant water-quality
topics. Research conducted by USGS's National Research Program and the
Toxic Substances Hydrology Program, for example, helps define NAWQA
methodologies and topics for the future, but NAWQA does not employ
untested methods for probing water quality. Perennial water-quality data
collection and sequential assessments in river basins and aquifers as well as
regional and national syntheses are key features of the NAWQA program.
These activities not only define the status of and trends in water quality, but
they also build an evolving understanding of regional and national water
quality achieved through careful analysis and interpretation of these long-
term water resource data sets.
NAWQA's first decade (Cycle 1, 1991-2001) focused on a baseline
assessment of status of the nation's water-quality conditions. The second
decade (Cycle 2, 2002 to the present) focused on a more broad-based
water-quality assessment, building on the Cycle 1 status monitoring and
identifying trends in water quality. Now, USGS scientists are planning for
NAWQA's third decade of water-quality assessment (Cycle 3, 2013-2023)
and approached the National Research Council's (NRC's) Water Science
and Technology Board (WSTB) for perspective on past accomplishments as
well as the current and future design and scope of the program. The NRC
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20 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
BOX 1-1
Water-Related Programs and Activities
at the U.S. Geological Survey
National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program: Long-term assess-
ment of water-quality conditions and trends in river basins and groundwater
systems nationwide.
National Streamflow Information Program (NSIP): Collection and dissemination
of streamflow information that is essential for meeting federal hydrologic informa-
tion needs.
Cooperative Water Program (Coop Program): Partnerships between USGS
and more than 1,500 state, local, and tribal agencies to provide water resources
information.
Toxic Substances Hydrology Program (Toxics Program): Field-based research
to understand behavior of toxic substances in the nation's hydrologic environments
for development of strategies to clean up and protect water quality.
Ground Water Resources Program: Groundwater data collection and the evalu-
ation of controls on regional aquifer systems due to pumping and other stresses.
National Research Program (NRP): Conduct basic and problem-oriented hydro-
logic research in support of the USGS mission, including investigations of small
watersheds (Water, Energy, Biogeochemical Budgets Program).
Office of International Programs: Hydrologic data collection and analysis in
support of the global hydrologic community.
Other Water Quality Activities: Analytical capabilities (National Water Quality
Laboratory) and data from major rivers (National Stream Quality Accounting
Network), from pristine watersheds (Hydrologic Benchmark Network), and from
atmospheric deposition (National Atmospheric Deposition Program).
Hydrologic Instrumentation Facility: Instrument development, testing, calibra-
tion, and repair; technical support, training, and equipment supply to support
hydrologic field activities
Dissemination of Water Resources Information: Physical and chemical data
available through the web from the National Water Information System (NWIS);a
web-based information by states or subjects.b
Climate Variability: Understanding the variations in hydrologic conditions due to
atmospheric changes and human activities.
Priority Ecosystem Studies: Integrated investigations in large ecosystems of
national interest that are impacted by human activity.
Water Institutes: Support of university-based Water Resources Research Insti-
tutes in 54 states and territories through grants.
a See http://water.usgs.gov/NWIS.
b See http://water.usgs.gov.
SOURCE: Modified from NRC, 2009.
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INTRODUCTION 21
responded by forming the ad hoc Committee on USGS's National Water
Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program, appointed under the auspices of
the standing Committee on USGS Water Resource Research (CWRR). The
ad hoc committee's charge, as laid out in the Statement of Task (Box 1-2),
calls for a review of both past accomplishments of the program as well as
the design and scope of the program as it moves into its third decade of
water-quality assessments (Cycle 3).
This report is one of a series of studies that the NRC's Water Science
and Technology Board's CWRR has organized. Through these studies, the
CWRR has provided advice to the USGS on water-related issues and pro-
grams relevant to USGS and the nation since 1985. Over nearly 27 years
the CWRR and related committees have overseen reviews of almost every
water-related program and initiative, some on a rotating basis. Earlier
studies have concerned the National Streamflow Information Program,
the National Water Use Information Program, the National Research Pro-
gram, and the Water Resources Discipline5 of the USGS as well as areas
of research such as river science, groundwater, hazardous materials in the
aquatic environment, hydrologic hazards science, and watershed research.
The CWRR has reviewed NAWQA several times in the past. In fact,
NAWQA is one of the most "reviewed" USGS programs at the USGS by
the NRC. The first was when NAWQA was an unfunded concept and the
then chair of the WSTB, Walter Lynn, endorsed the concept of the program
in a letter report to then USGS Director Dallas Peck in October of 1985.
The most recent NRC advice to NAWQA was the report Opportunities to
Improve the U.S. Geological Survey National Water Quality Assessment
Program, published in 2002. The current study and report was built upon
these and other NAWQA reviews by the NRC:
· Opportunities to Improve the U.S. Geological Survey National
Water Quality Assessment Program (NRC, 2002);
· National Water Quality Assessment Program: The Challenge of
National Synthesis (NRC, 1994);
· A Review of the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Pilot
Program (NRC, 1990);
· National Water Quality Monitoring and Assessment (NRC, 1987);
· Letter Report on a Proposed National Water Quality Assessment
Program (NRC, 1985).
Once the study was underway, the USGS NAWQA Cycle 3 Planning
Team asked the committee to give priority to its first task concerning
5 TheWater Resources Discipline is a former unit under which USGS water-related programs
were organized.
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22 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
BOX 1-2
Statement of Task
Recommendations for the Third Decade (Cycle 3) of the
National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program
The project will provide guidance to the U.S. Geological Survey on the design
and scope of the NAWQA program as it enters its third decade of water-quality as-
sessments. The committee will assess accomplishments of the NAWQA program
since its inception in 1991 by engaging in discussions with the Cycle 3 Planning
Team, program scientists and managers, and external stakeholders and users of
NAWQA data and scientific information. The committee will also review USGS in-
ternal reports on NAWQA's current design for monitoring, assessments, research,
and relevance to key water topics. The main activities of the study committee will
be to:
1. Provide guidance on the nature and priorities of current and future water-
quality issues that will confront the nation over the next 10-15 years and address
the following questions:
· Which issues are currently being addressed by NAWQA and how might
the present design and associated assessments for addressing these issues be
improved?
· Are there issues not currently being substantially addressed by NAWQA
that should be considered for addition to the scope of NAWQA?
2. Provide advice on how NAWQA should approach these issues in Cycle 3
with respect to the following questions:
· What components of the program--Surface Water Status and Trends;
Ground-Water Status and Trends; Topical Understanding Studies; National Syn-
thesis--should be retained or enhanced to better address national water-quality
issues?
· What components of the program should change to improve how priority
issues are addressed?
· Are there new program components that should be added to NAWQA
to enable the program to better address and analyze national water-quality issues
and related public policy issues?
3. Identify and assess opportunities for the NAWQA program to better collabo-
rate with other federal, state, and local government, non-governmental organiza-
tions, private industry, and academic stakeholders to assess the nation's current
and emerging water quality issues.
4. Review strategic science and implementation plans for Cycle 3 for technical
soundness and ability to meet stated objectives.
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INTRODUCTION 23
NAWQA's scientific priorities as expressed in Design of Cycle 3 of the
National Water Quality Assessment Program, 20132023: Part 1: Frame-
work of Water-Quality Issues and Potential Approaches or the "Science
Framework."6 More specifically, the Science Framework set out:
to outline and describe a framework of water quality issues and priori-
ties for Cycle 3 that reflect the unique capabilities and long term goals of
NAWQA, an updated assessment of stakeholder priorities, and an empha-
sis on identifying potential approaches and partners.
The Science Framework represents the first of two planning documents
focused on the Cycle 3 design. Eleven topical water-quality priorities were
itemized within the two categories, water-quality drivers (climate change,
population growth and land use change, and energy and resource develop-
ment, etc.) and water-quality stressors (sediment, flow modification, emerg-
ing contaminants, etc.).
The committee responded to this request with a Letter Report As-
sessing the USGS National Water Quality Assessment Program's Science
Framework (Appendix A) published in January 2010. This letter report
urges NAWQA to organize its activities around two overarching drivers
(or "causes") that indirectly and directly stress water supplies and related
ecosystems around the nation: (1) change in land use due to population
and other demographic changes and (2) climate variability and change.
Under these two broad drivers, the committee encouraged the program to
formulate specific, policy-relevant research questions to address and use
these questions to identify its scientific priorities and demonstrate program
impact. The letter report encouraged NAWQA to further define and en-
hance program thrusts to meet the principle of "national scale"; adhere to
its original program design of probing water-quality "status, trends, and
understanding"; align with the new USGS Six Strategic Science Directions;
and concentrate on studies where the program can continue to make a
unique and substantial scientific contribution.
In a letter dated December 14, 2010, the USGS Director Marsha McNutt
asked the committee to provide additional advice on NAWQA's progress
in the Cycle 3 planning process, focusing on a second planning document,
Design of Cycle 3 of the National Water Quality Assessment Program,
2013-2023: Part 2: Science Plan for Improved Water-Quality Information
and Management or the NAWQA Cycle 3 or "Science Plan."7 The purpose
6 At the time of this review, the Science Framework was a working document, available at
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2009/1296. In its first letter report the committee reviewed the Science
Framework version from the fall of 2009.
7 In its second letter report the committee reviewed the Science Plan version from November
2010.
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24 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
and scope of this Science Plan is to describe a science strategy for Cycle 3.
It outlines four major goals for Cycle 3, the approaches for monitoring,
modeling, and scientific studies, partnerships required to achieve the four
major goals, and products and outcomes that result from planned assess-
ment activities. The committee was asked to focus on whether the Science
Plan sets forth adequate priorities and direction for the future (Statement
of Task items 1 and 4).
The committee responded to this request through a second letter report,
Letter Report Assessing the USGS National Water Quality Assessment
Program's Science Plan (Appendix B), published in January of 2011. The
committee concluded that the Science Plan is technically sound and that
NAWQA has the scientific capability to achieve its objectives. The com-
mittee also noted that the program's scientific investments are maturing
with the completion of Cycles 1 and 2, enabling NAWQA to move past the
current water-quality monitoring to understanding the dynamics of water-
quality changes, and using that understanding to forecast likely future
conditions under different scenarios of climate and land use change.
This report addresses the entirety of the Statement of Task, augmenting
the two previous letter reports. The following chapters reflect on NAWQA's
history and accomplishments (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3) and outline a way
forward for the program (Chapter 4), which includes an emphasis on col-
laborative efforts (Chapter 5).
