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Linking Air Quality to Ecosystem Exposure

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Linking Air Quality to Ecosystem Exposure

Ecological resources are exposed to atmospheric pollutants through wet and dry deposition processes. A long term goal of multimedia environmental management is to achieve sustainable ecological resources. Progress towards this goal rests on a foundation of science-based methods and data integrated into predictive multimedia, integrated multidisciplinary, multi-stressor open architecture modeling systems. The strategic pathway aims at progressing from addressing one stressor at a time to a comprehensive multimedia-multi stressor assessment capability for current and projected ecosystem health.

Over the next several years,EPA's goal for air-ecosystem linkage is the consistent interfacing of weather, climate and air quality models with aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem models to provide the local atmosphere-biogeochemical drivers of ecosystem exposure and resultant effects. A goal is also to harmonize the connection of the local ecosystem scale (tens of km2) with the regional airshed scale (thousands to millions of km2). The physically consistent linkage of atmospheric deposition and exposure with aquatic/watershed and terrestrial models is central, has not received adequate attention to date, and needs further development.

Flowchart

For more information please contact Robin Dennis

Atmospheric Modeling

Research & Development | National Exposure Research Laboratory

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