Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program- Great River Ecosystems, Application on the Middle Missouri River

The great rivers of America pose a challenge to natural resource managers, biologists, and researchers. The complexity of these ecosystems has deterred much-needed evaluations and monitoring. In response, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has expanded the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) to include a Great Rivers Ecosystems (EMAP-GRE) component. The EMAP was originally created to develop procedures for monitoring the nation's wadeable streams and rivers. In addition to monitoring, the program strives to develop scientific understanding to translate environmental monitoring data from multiple spatial and temporal scales into meaningful assessments of ecological condition using indicators and unbiased statistical design to forecast future risks to our aquatic resources. The EPA is implementing the new GRE protocols on the Missouri, Ohio, and Upper Mississippi Rivers in cooperation with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Water Science Centers (WSC) and several State agencies. The 2004 and 2005 EMAP-GRE sites located on the Missouri River North of the Nebraska/Kansas border and South of Fort Randall Dam in South Dakota (Middle Missouri River) (view large map) were or will be sampled by the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center (USGS NWSC), the USGS Iowa Water Science Center (USGS IWSC), the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory (UIHL), and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) (figure 1).

Web link

EMAP homepage: http://www.epa.gov/emap/

Keywords

Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program, Missouri River, water quality, macroinvertebrates, periphyton, fish community, fish tissue, electrofishing, sediment, Nebraska, Iowa, and biomonitoring

Contact Information

Brenda Woodward
Office phone: 402-328-4100

 Back to the Nebraska projects page