Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program

Review of EPA s Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (3 reports, 1994-1995)... 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 1990a. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program. Ecological Indicators. EPA/60/3-90/060, Office of Research and Development, Washington, D.C. 

Hunsaker CT, Carpenter DE (1990) Environmental monitoring and assessment program - ecological indicators (EPA 600/3-90/060). US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, NC, Sept 1990, pp xii-xvii Morrison-Saunders A (1996) Eco-Manage Audit 3 21-25... 

Hauser TR, Bromberg SM. 1982. EPA s monitoring program at Love Canal 1980. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2 249-271. 

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, 1998, Ground Water Monitoring and Assessment Program,... 

GEMS Monitoring and Assessment Research Center, London, UK, Environmental Data Report. United Nations Environmental Program, Blockwell, England, 1989. 

The activities of enforcement laboratories should not be focused on irrelevant problems. Therefore, a clear definition of the relevant residue is needed. In the crops and food sector, procedures are well established to derive the two residue definitions, one for risk assessment and one for monitoring, from metabolism studies. As far as environmental samples are concerned, there is much potential for improvement. There are no clear criteria as to which metabolites should be included in monitoring and control programs. Additionally, the development of criteria for nonpriority pesticides, e.g., naturally occurring compounds or low-risk products, which can be excluded from monitoring exercises would be helpful for laboratories and evaluators. 

The lower centiles derived from the toxicity distributions of the triazine herbicides could be used to assess the relevance of environmental concentrations, especially if these concentrations are also analyzed through the use of distributional approaches (Solomon, 1996 Solomon el al., 1996). These toxicity distributions may also be used to refine monitoring and stewardship programs (Solomon, 1999 Giddings et al., 2005). 

Accurate and precise identifications and measurements of specific chemical substances are fundamental to environmental studies and protection programs. Determinations are required to understand natural background concentrations of chemicals in the environment, the nature and extent of environmental pollution by anthropogenic chemicals, trends in concentrations of these substances, the transport and fate of chemical substances, and the causes of variations of concentrations intime and space. Accurate and precise determinations are also required to assess human health and ecological risks caused by exposure to natural and anthropogenic substances, establish air and water quality standards, develop pollution control strategies, evaluate the effectiveness of pollution prevention and treatment technologies, and monitor compliance with and the effectiveness... 

This book proposes a monitoring program that will help determine trends for mercury concentrations in the environment and assess the relatiorrship between these concentrations and mercnry emissions. Environmental models are also often used to predict trends and examine relationships among variables. Models can facilitate the interpretation of data emerging from monitoring programs recommended in this book and that the data will help develop better modehng tools. 

Owing to the complexity and dynamic character of real environmental scenarios, it is not always possible to predict concentrations with desirable level of precision. Nevertheless, even though experimental measurements are not replaceable by PECs, this approach can still serve as a useful tool for supporting hazard assessment programs. Making predictions also can help identifying compounds or compounds families that should be monitored, as well as what the most exposed compartments... 

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