U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 97-48, 29 pages
During the period 1972-86, an estimated $541 billion was expended for water-pollution abatement in the United States; and in 1986, the U.S. Congress asked if the Nation's water quality was improving as a result of those expenditures. For various reasons, this basic question could not be answered satisfactorily using only existing ambient- and compliance- monitoring data. Therefore, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) was requested to design and implement a National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program to address the questions related to status and trends in surface- and ground-water quality at national, regional, and local scales. The program was fully implemented in 1991.
An initial task of the NAWQA Program was to locate and evaluate existing data, and use those data to help meet as many of the program goals as possible. In general, these data are stored in computerized data bases or as paper files and are available upon request. The sharing of these data generally is not an issue within and among the various governmental agencies. Far greater issues are standardization, quality assurance, and some assurance that the shared data meet program goals and help to answer the questions being asked.
Because the existing data were not adequate to meet the goals of the NAWQA Program, the USGS has designed and is implementing water-quality monitoring networks within large river basins and major aquifer systems that, when combined with existing programs, will provide the information necessary to meet program goals. Great care has been taken to use standardized study approaches and techniques for data collection, laboratory analyses, and quality assurance so that information is comparable throughout the United States and can be compiled at various scales.
Some of the experiences gained by the USGS during the development of the NAWQA Program may be useful when developing an international data- sharing program for the effective management of Danube River basin resources. It is important for participating nations to agree upon ways to share data, but if those data are collected as part of compliance- monitoring programs, similar to those in the United States, it can not be assumed that those data alone will provide the information needed to assess the quality of the Danube River or design effective management programs. In addition to agreeing to share data, it is equally important for the participating nations to agree upon mutual goals and a valid design for the assessment program.
It is important to start by identifying questions and issues related to the water quality of a river basin; prioritize those questions and issues; and based on that prioritization, identify and prioritize a list of data and information needs. The next step is to identify and locate sources of existing data; consolidate the data; process, summarize, and evaluate the data; and share the results. This information then could be used to determine which of the priority questions could be answered using existing data, which could not be answered, and what data are necessary to fill information gaps. An assessment program then could be designed to fill the gaps; taking care to standardize approaches, techniques, and data bases; and to use new data in conjunction with existing data to address the priority questions. Standardization is critical throughout the programme so that the combined efforts of all participants will provide the information needed to answer the questions; and thereby, attain the agreed upon goals.
This evaluation is not meant to be a criticism of the available data from compliance-monitoring programs; but rather to point out that those data were collected to meet specific goals and to answer specific, short-term questions, and not for the purpose of meeting the goals of a long-term, river-basin-scale assessment. All data sets can be an important source of information for a water-quality assessment program, but their limitations need to be recognized and evaluated, and often, new data need to be collected to address specific assessment goals.
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