PARENT SESSION
Special Session - Landscape Ecology at the US EPA: methodologies and applications - Morning Session Chair(s): Fernandez, Luis¹, ¹ US Environmental Protection Agency, Dallas, TX
Friday, April 2, 2004 9:00 AM - 10:20 AM Apollo Room 5

The mission of the US Environmental Protection Agency includes the protection of ecosystems and human populations at regional scales. Key principles of landscape ecology have proven to be crucial for the development of new methodologies that shift from a traditional site-specific focus to a regional and landscape scale for environmental protection. This session will present work being done by EPA scientists who have incorporate these key principles into programs of investigation and action designed to protect the natural and human environment.

Using energy and emergy to couple geomorphology and human influences into a watershed/landscape index. ^*BRANDT-WILLIAMS, SHERRY , ¹ USEPA/ORD/NHEERL/AED, Narragansett, RI, USA

ABSTRACT- The Clean Water Act requires identification of all waters whose abiotic and biotic integrity have been compromised or impaired, but it is impossible to assess each water body in the nation. Although landscape studies attempting to find correlations between land use and water condition indices have provided mixed results, it is intuitively obvious that some connection exists between changes in the watershed and declining quality in the receiving water bodies. If a spatial model provided consistently significant correlation with known impaired water bodies, and was capable of incorporating geographic and watershed differences across the entire continent, the method could be used to predict unknown areas of impairment with a high level of confidence. A model that used variables physically linked to potential causes of impairment would provide the further advantage of pinpointing areas of potential intervention and support for creating national environmental policy that is both effective and socioeconomically feasible. This study evaluated the link between watershed activities and estuarine/freshwater condition using spatial modeling of energy flows and emergy density in the watershed and field data from estuaries and lakes in Rhode Island and Florida. This approach allows disparate factors (soil water capacity and consumption of electricity for example) to be combined into a single index without loss of quantitative definition. The primary objective was to determine the watershed factors, both geologic and anthropogenic, demonstrating the strongest statistical relationship with water and habitat quality indices. A secondary objective was to determine the least data intensive method for assessing this connection.

KEY WORDS: model, watershed, emergy, integrated, assessment