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3
Assessing Accomplishments
of the NAWQA Program
The backbone of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA)
program has been the systematic collection and analysis of two decades'
worth of chemical, biological, and physical water-quality data using con-
sistent and scientifically sound methods at a national scale. The program
provides the majority of the nation's information on the geographical
occurrence of chemicals in the aquatic environment (streams, rivers, and
groundwater). The first two decades of NAWQA's effort provide a record
of accomplishment that is too extensive to present in detail. Therefore,
this chapter identifies 10 representative accomplishments of the program
(Box 3-1) and assesses their significance, thus "assessing the accomplish-
ments of the NAWQA program" per the statement of task. The order in
which they are presented does not represent an evaluation of their relative
significance.
NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF CHEMICALS IN
THE NATION'S SURFACE WATERS
Reports from individual study units in Cycle 1 established a baseline of
water-quality in surface waters in distinct environmental settings with spe-
cific hydrogeology, climate, and anthropogenic factors. Data from all study
units were combined to provide a national picture of NAWQA's water-
quality findings (Hamilton et al., 2004), which revealed that although most
water in the United States is fit for most uses, contamination from point
and non-point sources affects every study unit, particularly agricultural and
urban areas. Contamination is generally a complex mixture of nutrients,
53
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54 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
BOX 3-1
Accomplishments of the NAWQA Program
National assessment of chemicals in the nation's surface water: NAWQA has
provided a national picture of surface water quality.
National assessment of chemicals in the nation's groundwater: This picture ex-
tends to the quality of the nation's groundwater, giving the scientific and regula-
tory communities and the public an understanding of the nation's water quality.
Specific to groundwater, NAWQA has demonstrated the utility of groundwater age
determination in water-quality studies, especially mixing of old and young waters.
Incorporation of biological indicators of water quality into assessments: NAWQA
has integrated measures of indicator organisms into water-quality monitoring and
has examined relationships among biological, chemical, hydrological, and land-
use parameters using uniform methods at a national scale.
National synthesis reports: These reports synthesize robust data sets using de-
scriptive statistics to draw broad conclusions for the nation to help answer the
question that led to the program's development--what is the state of the nation's
water-quality?
Continuity and consistency in study methods and design: NAWQA uses stan-
dardized sampling regimes, network design, and analytical techniques to enable
cross-site comparisons, as well as intensive site-specific and constituent-specific
sampling to meet local and regional stakeholder needs, and national water-quality
assessments.
pesticides, organics, and their breakdown products, which are often just as
prevalent as the parent compounds. Contaminant occurrence is not lim-
ited to compounds currently in use: polychlorinated biphenyls, chlordane,
dieldrin, and other organochlorine compounds that are now restricted still
persist in streams and sediments. Spatiotemporal patterns in contamina-
tion correspond with the timing of chemical application, hydrologic events
(e.g., snowmelt) and land management practices. Thus, NAWQA provided
a picture of water quality nationwide, giving the scientific and regulatory
communities and the public an idea of the nation's water quality.
NAWQA's continuing focus on pesticides built on the assessment of
pesticides in the nation's surface waters and groundwaters from 1991
to 2001 (Gilliom et al., 2006). More recent analyses identify trends in
pesticide and herbicide concentrations in streams and rivers in the Corn
Belt from 1996 to 2006 (Sullivan et al., 2009). Regulatory and economic
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 55
Development and use of robust extrapolation and inference-based techniques:
NAWQA has done an exemplary job of developing and applying robust extrapola-
tion and inference-based models (e.g., SPARROW and the Watershed Regression
for Pesticides or WARP models that are statistical, geospatial, and/or process-
based and that support inferences from recent and historical data and projections
of the outcome of proposed actions).
Information dissemination: NAWQA's communication activities have grown in
scope and sophistication as the program has evolved. The program now uses
multiple media and appealing graphics to communicate its information products
and tools, and it has a wealth of publicly available water-quality data in its data
warehouse.
NAWQA science informing policy and management decisions: The program has
translated and interpreted its high-quality, nationally consistent data with sophisti-
cated tools so that policy and decision makers can use the program's science to
inform efficient decision-making.
Collaboration and cooperation: NAWQA continues to cooperate, coordinate, and
collaborate within its own agency as well as with other federal, state, and local
agencies in designing and carrying out its programs with a commitment to en-
hancing its usefulness by making its data and programs relevant to others with
interests in water-quality.
Linkages and integration across media, disciplines, and multiple scales: NAWQA
has been successful in multidisciplinary research at regional and national scales,
collecting and interpreting geographic, hydrologic, biologic, geologic, and climatic
data from a range of environmental media (e.g., groundwater, sediments, soils,
surface waters, and biota) to help resolve water-quality questions.
changes caused major reductions in the application of some pesticides, with
corresponding declines in surface water concentrations of those compounds
(Gilliom et al., 2006). The NAWQA program's findings also highlight how
the movement of nitrogen and pesticides from agricultural fields to streams,
groundwater, and beyond is controlled by a complex yet identifiable inter-
play of hydrologic factors (irrigation, drainage, flow paths, precipitation),
agricultural practices (compound applied, timing of application), and bio-
logical processes (photosynthesis, biological activity) (McCarthy, 2009).1
Water-quality improvements from reductions in pesticide use are not
limited to agricultural areas. After a federally-mandated phase-out of
the organophosphate insecticide diazinon in outdoor urban settings, the
concentration in northeastern and Midwestern streams fell dramatically
1 See http://in.water.usgs.gov/NAWQA_ACT/.
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56 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
FIGURE 3-1 Diazinon concentration (g/L) in Accotink Creek, Virginia (Potomac
River Basin) from 1997 to 2005. As a result of the federally mandated phase-out of
sales and use of the pesticide in 2001, concentration generally decreased after 2002.
SOURCE: Gilliom et al., 2006.
Figure 3-1
Bitmapped
(Figure 3-1), and the frequency of exceedance of the acute invertebrate
water-quality benchmark (1 g/L) in summer samples fell from 10 percent
to less than 1 percent (Phillips et al., 2007).
To further advance the assessment of chemicals in the nation's surface
waters, NAWQA scientists have used lake sediment cores to reconstruct
water-quality histories. Accumulation rates for metals such as cadmium,
chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, and zinc have generally decreased
since the 1970s, although accumulation rates in urban sediments can still
be hundreds of times higher than rates in undeveloped watersheds (Mahler
et al., 2006). Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) concentrations (associated
with sediment) in cities where asphalt-based sealcoats are used are much
lower than where coal-tar-based sealcoats are used (Van Metre et al., 2009).
NAWQA also provides data gathering and sampling site assistance for work
done by researchers in the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Toxics Program
(Kolpin et al., 2002), which provided the first national-scale snapshot of
the occurrence of contaminants of emerging concern.
Overall, NAWQA's surface water-quality monitoring efforts provide an
invaluable data set of surface water-quality conditions across the nation.
NAWQA uses these data to provide regional and national assessments of
great value. Although publications detailing some Cycle 2 studies are still
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 57
forthcoming, the program has already made significant steps toward being
able to answer specific policy-relevant or national questions about surface
water-quality.
A NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF CHEMICALS
IN U.S. GROUNDWATER
USGS has been successfully conducting groundwater studies for more
than 100 years. Indeed, the "father of groundwater hydrology" was Oscar
E. Meinzer, employed by USGS from 1910 to 1940 and who served as the
third USGS Ground-Water Division Chief. USGS was the first governmental
agency to systematically apply science to studying groundwater systems,
and its regional assessments of groundwater resources remain a hallmark of
how hydrogeologic synthesis is done, including the use of a broad range of
USGS publicly available groundwater numerical and geochemical models,
and other groundwater assessment tools.2
NAWQA's groundwater work builds on the USGS's strength in this field.
NAWQA initially focused on how human activities affected groundwater
quality in agricultural and urban areas, excluding considerations of surface
water-groundwater interactions (NRC, 2002). However, the connection
between groundwater and surface water makes it difficult to achieve under-
standing if the resources are treated independently, so NAWQA adopted a
process-based approach during Cycle 2 to characterize and model surface
water-groundwater interactions in all appropriate study units (NRC, 2002).
NAWQA has integrated groundwater elements into its studies, even
those that do not specifically focus on aquifers. NAWQA's national syn-
thesis reports on pesticides, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and nu-
trients have all included important groundwater components. NAWQA's
groundwater work is particularly important because little such work
on groundwater quality has been done systematically at a large scale. For ex-
ample as part of the national assessment of pesticides (Gilliom et al., 2006),
NAWQA reported that 55 to 61 percent of shallow groundwater samples in
urban and agricultural areas contained one or more pesticide compounds,
compared with 29 to 33 percent of samples from undeveloped or mixed land
use areas (McMahon et al., 2008). VOCs were detected in aquifers across
the United States, although concentrations were below a detection threshold
of 0.2 ppb in 80 percent of the wells (Zogorski et al., 2006).
The characterization of groundwater quality in regional aquifers builds
upon a study conducted in the High Plains Aquifer (McMahon et al., 2007)
designed to exploit existing data to improve understanding of regional
groundwater quality and flow, particularly with respect to aquifer vulner-
2 See http://water.usgs.gov/software.
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58 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
ability to contamination (USGS, 2005). Modern agriculture and particu-
larly irrigation practices have increased the concentration of nitrates and
dissolved solids in shallow groundwater, especially in areas where the local
hydrogeology is conducive to fast transport of chemical species. Water
supply pumping schemes that mix deep and shallow groundwater often
produce lower-quality water than those that pump from deep wells alone.
Furthermore, changes in land use such as conversion of rangeland to ir-
rigated crops can affect local shallow groundwater quality (Gurdak et al.,
2009). This type of regional analysis connects groundwater characterization
efforts on many levels (e.g., private wells, public wells, age dating, flowpath
modeling) and enables informed management decisions (e.g., reducing the
risk of groundwater contamination by supply well pumping schemes or
decreasing transport of untreated runoff to susceptible topographic lows).
Through the Topical Study Contaminant Transport and Public Supply
Wells, NAWQA scientists have demonstrated the utility of groundwater
age distribution determination in water-quality studies, especially mixing
of old and young waters (McMahon et al., 2008). NAWQA has further
advanced the science so that particle-tracking numerical models can be
used to generate age distributions of groundwater entering a public supply
well, not simply groundwater ages (Ehberts at al., 2012). A public supply
well with a high fraction of young water might indicate a susceptibility to
contamination initiated by a land-use change, whereas a public supply well
yielding very old groundwater might be less susceptible to that contamina-
tion source.
The efficacy of this approach was dramatically illustrated by McMahon
et al. (2008), who studied public supply wells in four aquifers. The mod-
eled water-quality response to measured and hypothetical land use changes
was dependent upon the age distributions of groundwater captured by
the public supply wells and upon the temporal and spatial variability in
land use in the source areas contributing to the wells. The time scales for
public supply wells water-quality changes could be on the order of years
to centuries for land use changes that occur over days to decades. These
findings have implications for policy- and decision-making in relation to
source water protection strategies that rely on land use change to attain
water-quality objectives.
The hyporheic zone is the interface between groundwater and surface
water where an exchange of chemical species, water, and organisms oc-
curs (Gibert et al., 1990; Vervier et al., 1992). The connection between
groundwater and surface water dictates that even in surface water supply
and environmental flow studies, some knowledge of groundwater quantity
and quality is essential. NAWQA researchers have advanced knowledge of
exchange processes in the hyporheic interface. Recent studies include an ex-
amination of denitrification in the hyporheic zone of low-gradient nutrient-
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 59
rich streams (Puckett et al., 2008) and a demonstration of the usefulness
of heat as an environmental tracer in surface water-groundwater quality
studies, providing another tool for practitioners (Essaid et al., 2008). USGS
pioneered hyporheic research, and now the importance of the hyporheic
zone has been widely recognized and is currently being studied in research
groups around the country (NRC, 2002).
INCORPORATION OF ECOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT INTO NAWQA
NAWQA scientists have integrated biological assessments into water-
quality monitoring and have examined relationships among biological,
chemical, hydrological, and land-use parameters using uniform methods at
a national scale. More than 450 publications have resulted from NAWQA's
ecological research,3 although much of the work is still forthcoming. The
ecological condition is being assessed with metrics derived from samples
of algae, macroinvertebrates, and fishes, which is an important and unique
aspect of the NAWQA data. It is rare that all three are assessed in monitor-
ing programs, although NAWQA data reveal that the three types of organ-
isms seldom exhibit similar degrees of alteration in response to different
land uses (e.g., Cuffney and Falcone, 2009). This implies that assessments
based on only one type of organism may misjudge the extent and severity
of impairment. Additional findings are that hydrologic alteration and land
use change are the major drivers of alterations in ecological condition.
Ecological work in Cycle 2 included topical studies and program ef-
forts encompassing four research areas: effects of urbanization on stream
ecosystems, effects of nutrient enrichment on stream ecosystems, mercury in
stream ecosystems, and effects of hydrologic alteration. Some of this work
is highlighted here.
NAWQA's Effects of Urbanization on Stream Ecosystems Topical Study
studied how stream ecosystems respond physically, chemically, and biologi-
cally to urbanization, and how these responses vary in different geographic
settings (Cuffney and Falcone, 2009; Giddings et al., 2009; McMahon,
2000; McMahon and Cuffney, 2000; Tate et al., 2005). NAWQA docu-
mented how regional patterns of development and regional differences in
past and present land use (e.g., history of agriculture in the watershed)
affect the response of biota to urbanization (Brown et al., 2009). Earlier
researchers had suggested that the first signs of degradation appear when
impervious surface cover reaches approximately 10 percent (Booth and
Jackson, 1997; Schueler, 1994), but recent NAWQA studies found a con-
tinuous linear decline rather than a threshold (Brown et al., 2009; Cuffney
3 See the NAWQA publication bibliography: http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/bib/pubs.
php?cat=2 (accessed October 2011).
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60 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
et al., 2005). A predictive model has also been developed, allowing predic-
tion of benthic invertebrate response to urbanization at basin or regional
scales based on parameters that describe the environmental setting, includ-
ing antecedent agricultural conditions (Kashuba et al., 2010).
The Topical Study Effects of Nutrient Enrichment on Stream Ecosys-
tems examined the influence of natural and human-related factors on nu-
trient cycling in stream ecosystems in agricultural watersheds differing in
crop types (row crop, orchard, vineyard, pasture), animals (beef and dairy
cattle, poultry), irrigation practices (none, central pivot, furrows), tillage,
and amount of fertilizer applied (Munn and Hamilton, 2003). These agri-
cultural streams often have nutrient levels in excess of U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) nutrient guidelines and show a limited ability
to remove excess nitrogen through algal productivity or denitrification,
leading to elevated downstream transport of nitrogen (Duff et al., 2008;
Frankforter et al., 2009). Recent NAWQA publications have begun to ex-
amine indicators and indices that could be used to relate nutrient conditions
with biological conditions, land use, and habitat factors (Frankforter et al.,
2009; Justus et al., 2010; Maret et al., 2010).
The past two decades have seen advances in scientific understanding of
mercury occurrence and behavior in standing water bodies; in recent years,
NAWQA researchers have made contributions to the state of knowledge
through the Topical Study on Mercury in Stream Ecosystems. NAWQA
has documented the occurrence and speciation of mercury in fish flesh,
bed sediment, and stream water (Bauch et al., 2009; Scudder et al., 2009).
NAWQA's analysis of recent and historical data for mercury in fish flesh
(Chalmers et al., 2010) found that sites with decreasing trends in fish mer-
cury outnumbered those with increasing trends by a factor of 6 between
1967 and 1987, demonstrating the effectiveness of the regulatory controls
on mercury releases to the environment implemented during the 1970s. In
a three-part article series NAWQA scientists described the chemistry and
transport of mercury (Brigham et al., 2009) and contributed to understand-
ing of the physical and biological factors that control the fate of mercury in
stream ecosystems (Chasar et al., 2009; Marvin-DiPasquale et al., 2009).
Drawing on multiple lines of evidence, the researchers concluded that the
dominant factor controlling mercury concentrations in top predator fish
is the amount of methylmercury available for uptake at the bottom of the
food chain (Chasar et al., 2009).
The ecological effects of altered hydrology were studied using geospa-
tial data to develop models predicting metrics of magnitude, frequency,
duration, timing, and rate of change of streamflow (Carlisle et al., 2009).
These models enable estimation of the natural flow regime, which is es-
sential for estimating predisturbance conditions and for predicting natural
flow characteristics at ungaged sites. A potentially significant quantitative
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 61
tool for assessing ecological condition is the current effort to understand the
relationship among land use, climate change, and streamflow alteration and
to quantify relations between streamflow alteration and biological impair-
ment (Carlisle et al., 2011).
Overall, the NAWQA ecology program has developed nationally con-
sistent measures of the status of primary producers, macroinvertebrates,
and fishes in rivers and streams. This has enabled a more complete and
integrated assessment of the health of rivers and streams than would be
possible with physical and chemical analyses alone. NAWQA's applica-
tion of regression analysis and modeling of ecological data have facilitated
identification of indicators and indices and may allow the development of
predictive models. NAWQA's urban studies have contributed to the scien-
tific community's efforts to advance integrative scientific understanding of
urban streams (e.g., Wenger et al., 2009).
NATIONAL SYNTHESIS ASSESSMENTS AND REPORTS
NAWQA's National Synthesis Assessments and capstone reports use
descriptive statistics to compare study unit data and other historical data
(i.e., land use) to draw broad conclusions for the nation--a unique niche for
NAWQA. National synthesis teams are able to write these reports because
each NAWQA investigation adheres to a nationally consistent study design
and employs uniform methods of data collection and analysis. NAWQA's
ability to organize itself around these themes in contrast to a more tradi-
tional project-by-project approach represents a major organizational ac-
complishment. These reports help answer the original NAWQA question:
what is the state of our nation's water quality? These reports identify water
quality issues that occur only in isolated areas versus those that are perva-
sive, and they show the effects of human activities and natural factors on
water quality in a range of environmental settings. Three national synthesis
reports have been published (pesticides, VOCs, and nutrients), one is in
progress (ecology), and the fate of the fifth (trace elements) is unclear.
The Pesticide National Synthesis Project4 and corresponding national
synthesis report, Pesticides in the Nation's Streams and Ground Water,
1992-2001, provides information about the occurrence of 75 pesticides
and 8 pesticide degradates in agricultural, urban, undeveloped, and mixed
land-use areas (Gilliom et al., 2006). Analytical methods "were designed to
measure concentrations as low as economically and technically feasible,"
and results were assessed using human health, aquatic-life, and wildlife
benchmarks. Pesticide concentrations in streams and groundwater were
characterized by land use and geographic patterns in pesticide use as well
4 See http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/pnsp/.
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62 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
as seasonal variations. Because of the 10-year sampling period, trends in
concentration and aquatic life over time were detected and correlated to
pesticide use.
The Volatile Organic Compounds National Synthesis Project5 and
corresponding national synthesis report, The Quality of Our Nation's
Waters--Volatile Organic Compounds in the Nation's Ground Water and
Drinking-Water Supply Wells, presents information about the concentra-
tions of 55 VOCs in aquifers, considering factors such as geography, aquifer
characteristics, VOC type, detection frequency, and well type (Zogorski
et al., 2006). This information was used to examine associations between
natural and anthropogenic factors and the 10 most frequently detected
VOCs. Many of these VOCs are solvents and industrial chemicals that are
of concern for aquatic and human health in drinking water sources. These
associations should help federal, state, and local agencies design sampling
programs to detect contamination.
The Nutrients National Synthesis Project6 and corresponding national
synthesis report, Nutrients in the Nation's Streams and Groundwater,
describes nutrient occurrence, source, effects on humans and aquatic eco-
systems, and trends in concentration between 1992 and 2004 (Dubrovsky
et al., 2010). Median concentrations of total phosphorus and nitrogen
in agricultural streams were six times greater than background levels.
However, exceedence of the federal drinking water standard for nitrate as
N (10 mg/L) is uncommon in streams used for drinking water and deep
aquifers; this standard was exceeded in more than 20 percent of shallow7
domestic wells in agricultural areas. Data for nitrogen and phosphorus
show minimal changes in concentration in the majority of streams over the
time frame studied, but more upward than downward trends occurred in
those streams that did change in a statistically significant manner.
CONTINUITY AND CONSISTENCY IN
STUDY METHODS AND DESIGN
In the late 1980s when discussions about a national water-quality as-
sessment were gathering momentum, federal agencies could not answer the
question of whether the 1972 Clean Water Act was producing the intended
improvements in water quality nationwide (Knopman and Smith, 1993).
A national-level water-quality assessment was not possible because of ana-
lytical inconsistencies and a multitude of sampling networks designed for
other purposes and ultimately unsuitable for spatial or temporal compari-
5 See http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/vocs/.
6 See http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/nutrients/.
7 Less than 100 feet below the water table.
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 63
sons. For example, USGS collected water quality data through the stream
benchmark program in largely pristine small watersheds, in the National
Stream Quality Accounting Network (NASQAN) program at the mouths of
major river systems, and in its many cooperative study projects with states
and local governments where sampling designs and constituents measured
were largely problem-driven and particular to the place. EPA, states, and
local governments collected water-quality data for monitoring and com-
pliance purposes. Sampling at a given site was often started and stopped,
depending on the project duration and funding, and hence few sites had
sufficiently long records of consistent analysis to enable valid trend analysis
at a national scale. Inconsistencies in data collection included differences in
how a sample was taken from a stream, how the sample was handled after
collection, and what analytical methods were used to measure chemical and
biological constituents. A compelling original argument for NAWQA was
USGS's ability to sustain a consistent, geographically diverse, and quality-
assured data collection over decades, and follow through on a scientifically
valid study design.
Since the program's infancy, NAWQA has standardized sampling re-
gimes and network design to enable cross-site comparisons to meet local
and regional stakeholder needs, but at the same time to enable a national
water-quality assessment. NAWQA brought order to a wide range of prac-
tices and motivations in water-quality sampling and analysis. NAWQA uses
USGS approved methods that have been developed and tested by USGS
researchers and approved for use at a national scale. These methods are
periodically published in the USGS National Field Manual for the Collec-
tion of Water-Quality Data (USGS, variously dated). NAWQA now pro-
vides a nationally consistent data collection and analysis of water-quality
samples (Gilliom et al., 1995). In setting this example and working with
other groups on consistent practices, NAWQA has also helped to improve
the water-quality monitoring efforts of other entities. This is a significant
and enduring accomplishment.
DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF ROBUST EXTRAPOLATION
AND INFERENCE-BASED TECHNIQUES
NAWQA products are used to assess status and trends in water qual-
ity, to evaluate the effectiveness of regulatory programs, to inform policy
analysis, and to support ecological risk assessment. For each of these ap-
plications, it is essential that data from a limited sampling of environmental
attributes be put in geographical and climatic context with the uncer-
tainty of inferences reported. NAWQA has developed and applied robust
extrapolation and inference-based techniques that are statistical, geospatial,
and/or process-based. These various models support inferences from recent
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64 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
and historical data and projections of the outcome of proposed actions. Us-
ing these techniques to define the quality of our nation's waters has added
depth, both in space and in time, to the NAWQA assessment of U.S. water
quality. Here two such models are highlighted, SPAtially Referenced Regres-
sions on Watershed Attributes (SPARROW) and Watershed Regression for
Pesticides (WARP).
The application of the SPARROW model (Smith et al., 1997) is an ex-
cellent example of USGS research and development leveraged by NAWQA.
Although SPARROW was not developed under NAWQA, the program's
extensive use and support for improvements has made the model increas-
ingly valuable. SPARROW's capacity for quantitative evaluation of the
origin, fate, and transport of contaminants in streams has pioneered a
new way to investigate watersheds. SPARROW was designed as a national
model to estimate long-term average values for water contaminants by
relating in-stream water-quality and flow measurements with information
about upstream sources and watershed characteristics. SPARROW assesses
nutrient-source contributions, transport, and water-quality conditions at
the national level, allowing estimation of nitrogen and phosphorus fluxes in
unmonitored streams across the nation and enabling researchers to identify
major nutrient sources and estimate nutrient fate in receiving bodies (Smith
et al., 1997; USGS, 2009b). The model can be used to assess how large-
scale changes in land use may affect future nutrient loading. NAWQA has
refined the national model to study nitrogen delivery from the Mississippi
River basin to the Gulf of Mexico (Alexander et al., 2000; Brezonik et al.,
1999; USGS, 2009b).
NAWQA continues to transform SPARROW and explore this valuable
tool. For example, the program is refining SPARROW to study various
water-quality parameters in six of the eight Cycle 2 Major River Basins
(MRBs). For future versions of SPARROW, NAWQA plans to incorpo-
rate updated geospatial and stream-monitoring data and to add tempo-
ral resolution that will facilitate analysis of decadal and seasonal change
(USGS, 2009b). Also, NAWQA scientists are developing the SPARROW
decision-support system, to bring the use of the model to the user through
a USGS-supported web-based tool. (For more information, see Box 4-1
in Chapter 4.) SPARROW provides an important resource for evaluating
and implementing management strategies; it integrates and benefits from
data collected by collaborating agencies; and it is used by other organiza-
tions to help them meet water-quality objectives. Furthermore, it has the
potential to contribute to all three of NAWQA's initiatives: status, trends,
and understanding.
The WARP models are statistical/geographic information system models
used to assess pesticide concentrations in unmonitored streams (Stone and
Gilliom, 2009). To date WARP models have been used to probe agricultural
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 65
applications of atrazine in streams, one of the most extensively used herbi-
cides in the United States (Stone et al., 2008). Like SPARROW, these models,
too, serve an important national purpose and may prove to be as useful
as SPARROW in the future. For example, WARP models have recently
been improved by developing region-specific models that include water-
shed characteristics that influence atrazine concentrations in the Corn Belt
("WARP-CB" models). The uncertainty for the regional WARP-CB models is
lower than the national WARP models for the same sites (mentioned above
and in Chapter 2), a promising development in terms of better prediction of
atrazine in streams and for future WARP models of other pesticides (Stone
and Gilliom, 2012).
INFORMATION DISSEMINATION
Effective communication of findings is critical to the success of a pro-
gram like NAWQA and contributes to its perceived relevance and useful-
ness. This is because, as noted in NRC (2002), NAWQA is "first and
foremost a provider of information to parties interested in water quality."
Early in NAWQA's history, communication was promoted as a fourth un-
spoken NAWQA objective (apart from status, trends, and understanding).
Since then, NAWQA communication activities have grown in scope and
sophistication starting with the user-friendly, non-technical Delmarva Cir-
cular in 1991 (Hamilton and Shedlock, 1992). NAWQA has been a leader
within USGS in developing new tools and approaches to communicating
with its various audiences of federal agencies, local and state cooperators,
public officials, and the general public.
NAWQA's communication activities have grown in scope and sophis-
tication as the program has evolved so that these activities now represent
one of the program's significant achievements despite the fact that a small
percentage (1 to 2 percent) of the program's budget goes toward commu-
nication. In 2001 NAWQA released approximately 1,000 written publica-
tions. By January 2012 this number had grown to approximately 1,900, a
publication every 4.2 days on average, a value that, while not an indicator
of quality, provides a sense of the quantity of work produced over the his-
tory of the program. NAWQA is at an important junction in which key
work for Cycle 2 is coming to completion and the program is launching
a larger than normal amount of products as well as significant capstone
products. NAWQA has 125 additional publications planned through 2012
as Cycle 2 draws to a close, pushing this total to more than 2,000 publica-
tions in the 20-year history of the program (Table 3-1).
Today, when NAWQA publishes a study, it produces a suite of pub-
lications and outreach activities according to a set communication plan
designed to reach a variety of users. This communication plan uses a tiered
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TABLE 3-1 Summary of NAWQA Publications by Type During the Pilot Phase, Cycle 1, and Cycle 2 through
66
January 2012. More detailed information about publication types is included in Appendix C.
Additional
publications to be
Pilot Cycle 1 Cycle 2 completed in Cycle
Scope and Primary Contents (FY 1985 (FY 1990 (FY 2001 2 (January 2012the
of Reports FY 1989) FY 2000) January 2012) end of FY 2012) Total
Circulars 3 35 33 19 90
Fact Sheets 0 175 75 4 254
Open File Reports 6 192 47 5 250
Water-Resources Information 2 295 126 0 423
Reports
Conference Proceeding Papers 2 111 33 0 146
Journal Articles 2 188 301 76 567
Data Series Reports 0 1 26 4 31
Scientific Investigations Maps 0 0 4 0 4
Scientific Investigations 0 0 138 15 153
Reports
Books, Chapters 0 12 8 0 20
Techniques and Methods 0 0 3 0 3
Reports
Digital Media (audio, video, 0 2 14 1 17
CoreCasts, yearbook)
Other (Professional Paper, 1 25 18 1 44
Thesis, Water Supply
Papers, Newsletters, Non
UGSG Reports)a
Total 16 1036 826 125 2003
a Non-USGS reports indicates references produced outside of USGS that include either NAWQA data and/or are coauthored by NAWQA person-
nel, are about NAWQA, or are an interview with NAWQA personnel.
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 67
approach ranging from detailed scientific reports for technically trained
audiences to one-page fact sheets and press releases for lay audiences. This
includes informing the U.S. Congress; the program participated in approxi-
mately 25 congressional briefings throughout the history of the program (P.
Hamilton, personal communication, May 13, 2009). Some of the work has
been remarkably well cited in the scientific community, for example, Effect
of stream channel size on the delivery of nitrogen to the Gulf of Mexico
(Alexander et al., 2000) was cited 442 times as of August 20, 2012, ac-
cording to Web of Science.
Perhaps the most notable strides in NAWQA's communication efforts
during Cycle 2 were through the use of digital media and appealing graph-
ics to communicate its information, products, and tools. NAWQA's home
page is its primary web-based interface, which presents NAWQA publica-
tions, updates on recent findings, and links to project pages.8 During Cycle
2, NAWQA improved the program's website by designing a more consistent
look and feel to the individual web pages, improving access to information
through national maps, creating web pages dedicated to individual topics,
expanding related and embedded links through the site, and enhancing
and expanding publication querying services. One notable example is the
homepage of the Topical Study Contaminant Transport and Public Supply
Wells.9 Public use of the NAWQA website has increased since 2006, with
most hits after release of reports (Figure 3-2); for example, there were ap-
proximately 60,000 requests after the release of SPARROW results listing
the watersheds contributing most to nutrients in the Gulf of Mexico.
The USGS Office of Communication is developing a social media pres-
ence using a Facebook page, YouTube, and Twitter. This includes pro-
moting NAWQA studies to the larger USGS audience, when appropriate.
NAWQA and the USGS Office of Communication jointly develop video
podcasts on various NAWQA studies as part of the USGS CoreCast series.
The NAWQA data warehouse10 makes data widely available online
with sufficient nodes for data approximating national coverage and, in
some cases, with sufficient regional coverage to assess changes in water
quality over time in major watersheds. It contains data on approximately
2,000 physical, chemical, and biological water-quality parameters (Bell
and Williamson, 2006). Samples are from 7,300 stream and 9,800 wells
as well as 3,000 bed sediment and tissue samples. Data include nutrient
analyses for 66,000 samples, pesticide analyses for 44,000 samples, and
VOC analyses for 12,000 samples. NAWQA biological information is
8 See http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa.
9 See http://oh.water.usgs.gov/tanc/NAWQATANC.htm.
10 See http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/data.
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68 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
FIGURE 3-2 Public use of the NAWQA website since 2006 showing spikes with the
release of the following studies and associated products: (A) Parking Lot Sealcoat:
A Major Source of PAHs in Urban and Suburban Environments; (B) Pesticides in
FigureWater;
the Nation's Streams and Ground 3-2 (C) Water Availability--The Connec-
tion Between Water Use and Bitmapped
Quality; (D) Ranking of SPARROW Model Nutri-
ent Yields; (E) Mercury in Fish, Water, and Sediment; (F) Prediction of Atrazine
Concentrations; (G) Agricultural Chemicals in Our Environment; (H) Effects of
Urban Development on Stream Health; and (I) Altered Flows Leads to Ecological
Degradation in Streams Across the United States. SOURCE: G. McMahon, personal
communication, June 21, 2010.
available through the newly released BioData Retrieval System.11 During
Cycle 2, the data warehouse was improved with user-friendly mapping. The
dissemination of NAWQA data via accessible databases enables scientists
and regulatory agencies to place water-quality changes in geochemical and
land-use contexts.
NAWQA SCIENCE INFORMING POLICY
AND MANAGEMENT DECISIONS
NAWQA was created to support scientifically sound decisions for wa-
ter-quality management, regulation and policy. NAWQA has translated and
delivered its interpretation of program data to the policy- and decision-
11 See http://infotrek.er.usgs.gov/nawqa_queries/jsp/biomaster.jsp.
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ASSESSING ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM 69
makers who need it. Better science does not guarantee better policy, but
NAWQA's data and scientific expertise inform efficient decision-making
and thus have the potential to save resources. This is a significant program
accomplishment. NAWQA tracks how its science and activities are used in
decision-making and groups its contributions into 10 categories (Box 3-2).
Federal agencies including EPA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the
U.S. Department of Agriculture depend on NAWQA data for work on
topics including nutrients, pesticides, stream protection and restoration,
best management practices, fish consumption advisories, and even envi-
ronmental factors related to nationwide cancer incidence. For example,
the SPARROW model made substantive contributions to understanding
of nitrogen and phosphorus sources and transport in the Mississippi River
basin (Alexander et al., 2008). The study has major implications for "dead
zone" hypoxia in the Gulf, and it will continue to help scientists and policy
makers develop cost-effective nutrient management and reduction strategies
in more than 800 watersheds within the largest drainage basin in the na-
tion (USGS, 2010). Indeed, the federal interagency Mississippi River/Gulf
of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force is using this and other informa-
BOX 3-2
The NAWQA Program's Science and Activities
That Support Policy and Management
· "Assessing sources and transport of contaminants in agricultural and urban
areas;
· Assessing vulnerability to help prioritize geographic areas, basins, and
aquifers for management and protection;
· Understanding trends and whether conditions are better or worse over time;
· Assessing source-water quality used for drinking;
· Assessing and sustaining aquatic ecosystem health;
· Linking tributaries to receiving waters;
· Support for the development of regulations, standards, guidelines, and
criteria for contaminants;
· Contributions to state assessments of beneficial uses and impaired waters
(Total Maximum Daily Loads or TMDL), strategies for source water protection and
management, pesticides and nutrient management plans, and fish-consumption
advisories;
· Improved strategies and protocols for monitoring, sampling, and analysis;
· Communication of findings for policy and management."
SOURCE: USGS, 2010.
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70 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
tion to make recommendations for action in the basin. More than 10 states
and tribes use NAWQA data to meet EPA requirements, especially related
to Total Maximum Daily Loads (USGS, 2010). The use of S PARROW
also extends to understanding sediment loading in the Chesapeake Bay
(Brakebill et al., 2010) and the sources of salinity in the southwest (Anning
et al., 2007).
Decision-making, regulatory, and advisory bodies from local councils
to state legislatures in more than 30 states also use NAWQA science to the
benefit of public health and water resource management (USGS, 2010).
NAWQA's work has enabled improvements in areas such as source water
protection, quality assurance, quality control, sampling design, sampling
methods, analytical protocols, and interpretation frameworks for the wa-
ter resources issues that states and local governments confront. States save
resources by using NAWQA data for these purposes. Washington and New
Jersey have both used NAWQA data to obtain compliance monitoring
waivers from the EPA for low vulnerability water supply wells under the
Safe Drinking Water Act. Organizations like the Wind River Environmental
Quality Commission of the Shoshone and Arapahoe Tribes in Wyoming use
NAWQA's data to meet federal reporting requirements.
COOPERATION, COORDINATION, AND COLLABORATION
NAWQA has a history of cooperating and collaborating within its own
agency, the Department of the Interior, and with other federal, state, and
local agencies in designing and carrying out its programs. Those efforts to
establish cooperative relationships have been recognized in past reviews
(NRC, 2002, 2009). The following assessment from NRC (2002) remains
true today:
NAWQA has become a model of an effective, collaborative federal
program--an attribute policy makers always stress, but seldom achieve.
NAWQA has successfully integrated its program both within and outside
of the USGS, establishing some exemplary relations with EPA and state
governments.
NAWQA has continued to improve its efforts in this area during Cycle 2.
NAWQA sites are coordinated with USGS's National Stream Accounting
Network (NASQAN), thus strengthening the program's surface water net-
work from within the agency. One particularly noteworthy product of
external collaboration resulted from combining data from EPA's Wadeable
Streams Assessment (WSA) and NAWQA to develop predictive models that
provide taxon-specific measures of probability of capture, which were used
to assess the biological condition of streams in several land use categories
(Carlisle and Hawkins, 2008). The addition of NAWQA reference sites to
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INTRODUCTION 71
the WSA model increased the range of environmental conditions to which
the model could be applied.
Collaboration with the National Research Program and the Toxic Sub-
stances Hydrology Program have provided NAWQA scientists with new
analytical methods, assistance in model development, and access to the
latest insights from basic research. The committee heard from representa-
tives of federal agencies (e.g., several program offices in the EPA, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service), states, and non-profits (e.g., the H. John Heinz
III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment) that testified to
the productive and collaborative relationships they have developed with
NAWQA. Input from collaborators was essential to the development of
the Cycle 3 Science Plan. These and other examples in Chapter 5 illustrate
NAWQA's ability to collaborate with other programs and its commitment
to enhancing its usefulness by making its data and programs relevant to
others with interests in water quality.
LINKAGES AND INTEGRATION ACROSS MEDIA,
DISCIPLINES, AND MULTIPLE SCALES
NAWQA has been successful in multidisciplinary research at the re-
gional and national scales, integrating geographic, hydrologic, biologic,
geologic, and climatic data, to resolve water-quality questions. NAWQA
has collected and interpreted data from a range of environmental media
including groundwater, sediments, soils, surface waters, and biota and
focused attention on linkages between groundwater and surface water.
NAWQA investigations consistently recognize the interrelatedness of pro-
cesses occurring in aquatic and terrestrial environments that impact water
quality. For example, NAWQA's work on mercury spans media including
water column and suspended particulate matter (Brigham et al., 2009),
sediment pore water (Pasquale et al., 2009), and fish and invertebrates
(Chasar et al., 2009). These studies permit a holistic assessment of the
complex dynamics and impact of mercury at the ecosystem scale.
NAWQA has successfully linked the disciplines of surface water and
groundwater hydrology, chemistry, and biology. It is only through this
multidisciplinary approach that the complexities of contaminants that cycle
(e.g., metals and nitrate) and their impact on biota can be determined or
that the relation between hydrology and contaminant transport can be
quantified (Tesoriero et al., 2007). Because NAWQA designs, implements,
and interprets study data with teams consisting of hydrologists, chemists,
and biologists, the resulting reports offer cohesive and high-impact infor-
mation on the complex interactions between chemicals and the physical and
biological media through which they pass and interact.
NAWQA is uniquely positioned to collect and interpret data from
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72 PREPARING FOR THE THIRD DECADE OF THE NAWQA PROGRAM
scales ranging from single rivers and watersheds (Duff et al., 2008) to
larger basins and aquifer systems, and finally to the entire nation (Lapham
et al., 2005; USGS, 2008). Most NAWQA studies are conducted in systems
that cross political boundaries (e.g., Alexander et al., 2008) and over time
scales that range from short term (days to months) to years (Van Metre
and Mahler, 2005) and decades (Mahler et al., 2006). NAWQA continu-
ously and consistently collects and interprets data over time scales that are
relevant to hydrogeologic processes and the impact of human activities
on them. Studies mentioned in earlier sections have benefited from the
enhanced spatial (e.g., urban stream studies) and temporal (e.g., principal
aquifer studies) perspective. NAWQA is uniquely positioned to carry out
complex, interdisciplinary work at scales that are not possible to achieve
by individual academic or government scientists.
CONCLUSION
NAWQA has achieved a national water-quality assessment. This
judgment is based on the committee's review of NAWQA achievements
(Chapter 3), stakeholder assessments of the program heard in testimony,
information contained in the NAWQA Science to Policy Management docu-
ment (USGS, 2010), and the results of two NAWQA Customer Satisfaction
Surveys (mentioned in Chapters 4 and 5). The committee concludes that in
Cycles 1 and 2, NAWQA provided a successful national assessment of U.S.
water quality, in accordance with the mission of a national water-quality
assessment program.
