Ecosystem Management: Federal Agency Activities

94-339 ENR

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION

DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
-- NATIONAL OCEANIC AND ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION
----Ecosystem Management Activities
----Cooperation and Coordination
----Tools of Ecosystem Management
----Funding Ecosystem Management
----Ecosystem Management Limits and Opportunities

INTRODUCTION

The principal missions of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are:

• -to promote global environmental stewardship in order to conserve and soundly manage the Nation's marine and coastal resources, and
• -to describe, monitor, and predict changes in the Earth's environment in order to ensure and enhance sustainable economic opportunities.

NOAA's vision for the future is a world in which societal and economic decisions will be strongly coupled with an increasingly comprehensive understanding of the environment. A principle component in achieving this goal is the implementation of ecosystem approaches to environmental management and coastal resource development for economic and ecosystem health.

As Federal trustee for living marine resources and their habitats, NOAA foresees both coastal economic health and coastal ecosystem health. To attain this vision, NOAA has developed an "Investment Strategy for Environmental Stewardship". Key program elements of this strategy are:

• -To promote healthy coastal ecosystems by ensuring that economic development in coastal ecosystems of the U.S. is managed in ways that maintain biodiversity and long-term productivity for sustained use. Working in partnership at the Federal and State level, NOAA will integrate its operational management activities in an ecosystem-wide approach, increase monitoring in coastal areas, conduct assessments to provide better information for decision-makers, provide education and outreach to increase public understanding, and undertake a more proactive effort in understanding and maintaining marine and coastal biodiversity.
• -To build sustainable fisheries by refocusing policies and fishery management planning on increased scientific information, rather than letting controversy and confusion drive the decision-making. NOAA will implement ambitious fishery management plans by addressing problems of uncontrolled access in fisheries, overcapitalization, overfishing, controversial allocation decisions between various fishing groups, and wasteful incidental catch.
• -To recover protected species by protecting marine mammals as the public expects and the law requires, while still allowing for economic and recreational opportunities. NOAA will implement recovery plans, take a proactive approach to preventing depleted status designation for species before it happens, and develop new approaches to reduce conflicts between protected species management and users of marine resources.

As the Federal steward of the Nation's living marine and coastal resources and their habitats, NOAA has a broad range of responsibilities to address coastal environmental issues, including declining water quality and habitat loss, and resource issues (including how best to develop sustainable fisheries and maintain protected species populations). In addition, NOAA has coastal zone and special area (National Marine Sanctuaries and Estuarine Research Reserves) management responsibilities. The common theme underlying each of these responsibilities is the need for managers to be able to diagnose and predict the impacts of human activities and management actions on coastal and marine ecosystems in order to make the decisions that will ensure both environmental and economic sustainability. In order to meet these needs, NOAA conducts and has initiated a number of ecosystem management-oriented programs that seek to restore and maintain the health, integrity and functional values of natural ecosystems that are the cornerstones of productive, sustainable economies.

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

Marine and Coastal Management

The U.S. coastal zone contains some of our Nation's most productive natural resources. NOAA's Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) seeks to utilize ecosystem management-oriented programs to protect, restore and promote sound development of the Nation's ocean and coastal resources. OCRM administers a broad spectrum of resource-management programs with authority to address many of today's coastal and marine resource management issues, either directly in the form of the marine resource management and regulatory authorities of the National Marine Sanctuary Program, or in partnership with States and local governments, through their Federally-approved Coastal Zone Management (CZM) Programs, their developing Coastal Nonpoint Source Pollution Control Program components, and the National Estuarine Research Reserve System. OCRM relies on the Coastal Zone Management Act (CZMA) in its efforts to harmonize human demands while optimizing social, economic and environmental values of these ecosystems. Twenty-nine of the 35 U.S. coastal States and U.S. island territories voluntarily participate in the Coastal Zone Management Program partnerships with OCRM to reduce conflicts between land and water uses in the coastal zone and to protect fragile coastal resources. Five additional States are working with NOAA to develop Federally approved programs. Through these CZM Programs, States and territories research, plan, and implement strategies to meet increasing demands for coastal resource use.

Through the National Estuarine Research Reserve System (NERRS) (also established by CZMA), OCRM sets aside estuaries for long-term scientific and education programs that provide information essential to coastal management decision-makers. The NERRS now consists of 22 diverse State-owned and operated sites located throughout the U.S. encompassing over 400,000 acres of coastal habitats. The National Marine Sanctuary Program of OCRM protects nationally significant marine sites around the country, preserving or restoring conservation, recreational, ecological, cultural, educational, historic, aesthetic, and research values. There are currently 13 sanctuaries protecting over 12,000 square nautical miles of marine habitat of the U.S. and American Samoa.

Environmental Assessments

NOAA's Office of Ocean Resources Conservation and Assessment (ORCA) manages a large program of strategic environmental assessments, concentrating on issues of coastal pollution, coastal ecosystem health, and coastal resource uses. These assessments are based on new field and laboratory measurements, analysis of selected existing data sets, synthesis of multi-disciplinary information, diagnostic and forecast modeling, and innovative information display technologies. The program provides major information analysis and delivery systems in a timely, structured, and often customized form to ecosystem and natural resource managers—an essential element of integrated coastal ecosystem management.

ORCA is committed to development and application of scientific protocols and policy guidance to research, pre-event planning, spill prevention, on-scene response, operational forecasting, injury identification, impact mitigation, and environmental assessment of effects of releases of oil and other hazardous substances in the coastal ecosystems. The program works closely with EPA to identify, evaluate, and reduce the risk of hazardous waste site impacts on coastal and marine ecosystems, and to mitigate injury to natural resources from hazardous waste site contaminants through the Superfund process.

ORCA's National Status and Trends Program systematically monitors environmental changes in selected coastal watersheds that are key to meaningful assessment and management of coastal ecosystems. The program detects, quantifies, and forecasts changes in coastal ecosystem health using information from a nationally-networked system of State and Federal coastal ocean and estuarine monitoring programs. Emphasis is placed on rates of introduction of point source and non-point source pollutants, habitat loss, recovery, and restoration rates, indicators of biodiversity, eutrophication, toxic algal blooms, and ecological impacts of watershed land-use practices.

Fisheries Management and Habitat Protection

The decline of fisheries resources is a critical national problem. A major factor in this decline is the continuing loss of significant marine and estuarine habitats. These losses are one of the greatest long-term threats to the Nation's fisheries resources. The capacity of our near shore ocean and estuarine habitats to produce living marine resources is diminishing, while pressures for their conversion to other uses continue. The losses that do occur coupled with the increasing degradation of those that are left, are major factors contributing to endangerment and extinction of species.

To meet this challenge, NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (Division of Habitat Research and Restoration, and Office of Habitat Protection) provides high quality scientific advice early in the planning processes of various public and private activities in order to avoid irrevocable damage to habitats and living marine resources. These actions include the use of satellite imagery to assess habitat change and identifying and consulting on any negative effects on marine habitats of hydroelectric, highway, oil and gas exploration, marine contaminating, toxic waste disposal, dumping, and dredging projects. In addition they prepare and submit alternative project plans and/or restoration and mitigation plans. These functions are performed under numerous legal authorities affecting habitat protection, maintenance of clean water, and protection of endangered species.

Ecosystem Prediction

In order to develop an integrated ecosystem understanding, and a capacity for making useful predictions about elements of coastal ecosystems, NOAA's Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research is planning an integrated program that will enhance both our observational capacity in the coastal oceans and our ability to incorporate that information into predictive ecosystem models. The basis of this program is research geared to understanding fundamental physical, chemical, and biological processes in coastal ecosystems, and the way they interact with natural and anthropogenic factors to control ecosystem structure and function. Observational systems technology development and deployment will provide the temporal and spatial perspective that allows the research results to be generalized. Ecosystem modeling will integrate the research and monitoring results into a predictive framework. The goal is to provide the management community the tools necessary to:

• -assess the status of coastal ecosystems (water quality, fisheries, etc.);
• -evaluate the need for management actions;
• -identify potential courses of action; and
• -provide probabilistic forecasts of the potential impact of those actions.

Environmental observations and research will identify those ecosystem processes essential to designing ecosystem monitoring programs and to developing an integrated, model-based, approach to coastal and marine ecosystem prediction. NOAA will produce a series of management-oriented ecosystem models to serve as the diagnostic and predictive tools that will enable environmental managers to predict the outcomes of their decisions with a rigorous scientific basis. It is critical that the ecosystem modeling development be conducted concurrently with research and monitoring so that the models will reflect, and can be modified according to, the research results. At the same time, model results can be used in an iterative manner to refine both research direction and monitoring strategies.

Modeling efforts will vary in scope from models of individual processes (e.g., productivity models based on nutrient availability and light regime) to models of large lake and coastal ecosystems. (e.g., NOAA's Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory [GLERL] scientists developed mathematical models designed to predict the effect of wastewater abatement programs and human development in the drainage basin on Great Lakes phosphorus levels; Louisiana Sea Grant researchers have helped develop a wetlands landscape model that has been used by State and Federal resource management agencies to evaluate the effects of major freshwater diversion projects)

In order for this project to succeed, it is necessary to strengthen the linkage between the scientific and management communities. Socioeconomic models will be included to capture the human dimensions of sustainable development of coastal resources. Inclusion of environmental managers as well as researchers in these evaluations will insure that the predictions that are generated will be relevant to management needs, and that as predictive capabilities are enhanced, the management community will be kept informed.

Cross-Cutting Programs

NOAA's Coastal Ocean Program (COP) is a cross-cutting program designed to expand the Agency's scientific capabilities in selected areas related to coastal ocean management. COP's CoastWatch Change Analysis Program (C-CAP) addresses the need for detailed information on the extent of and changes in important upland and coastal habitats. Scientists and resource managers collaborated with C-CAP to develop a national protocol for mapping watersheds and emergent and submergent habitats, and detecting change through satellite and aircraft remote sensing. The protocol provides a valuable tool for coastal managers because coastal habitats and adjacent wetlands can be consistently documented. C-CAP has already started to assist States in applying the protocol, providing resource managers information needed to protect sensitive seagrass and coastal marsh habitats from destruction. Cooperative linkages have been developed with a network of Federal agencies involved in the management of coastal land and water resources.

COP's Nutrient Enhanced Coastal Ocean Productivity (NECOP) Program was begun to study the effects of nutrient over-enrichment in coastal Gulf of Mexico waters from nutrient-rich freshwater inflows from the Mississippi River basin. The program focuses on assessment of the impacts of nutrient inputs to coastal waters and processes that influence coastal productivity. NECOP researchers were also able to examine and document the oceanographic effects of the freshwater inflow into the Gulf of Mexico as a result of the Great Mississippi River Flood of 1993. NECOP provided near-real-time reporting on the effects seen offshore and later more detailed analyses of nutrients, productivity, and hypoxia.

COOPERATION AND COORDINATION

NOAA ecosystem management-oriented programs develop data bases, information products, assessments and syntheses collaboratively with State and local coastal resource managers, as well as other Federal agencies, private institutions, and foreign entities. In FY 1994, NOAA is working jointly with the EPA to complete a comprehensive implementation strategy for the National Coastal Monitoring Act to serve as an operational framework for a nation-wide, long-term monitoring network for coastal environmental quality and ecosystem health. Contracts and grants to academia and private institutions are used extensively in operational phases. Close liaison is established with the DOI National Biological Survey, the EPA Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program, and several State monitoring and management agencies. ORCA develops automated information systems and collaborates extensively with the U.S. Coast Guard, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Defense, private institutions (e.g., Marine Spill Response Corporation), and foreign countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Canada, Norway), including provision of training and technology transfer.

The Federal-State CZM partnership also asks States to find creative ways of confronting general National problems. Reducing the impact of nonpoint source pollution, for instance, ranks among the most important challenges facing coastal programs. Nonpoint source pollution contributes more than half of the suspended solids, metals, and bacteria which contaminates U.S. coastal waters. The pollution destroys aquatic habitat, smothering aquatic plants and reducing spawning areas. It also affects shellfish growing areas, closing many areas to commercial harvesting with an associated economic loss.

The Chesapeake Bay Division (CBD) of NOAA's NMFS operates inter-jurisdictional partnerships in the Chesapeake Bay area that are aimed at restoring the resources of this large ecosystem, and involves continuous, close and effective coordination with other Federal agencies, State officials, special interest groups and the general public. It is an experiment in watershed management. The CBD participates in numerous committees and councils working to clean-up the Bay and integrates NOAA's capabilities to contribute to this restorative effort.

NOAA/NMFS has also collaborated with the Swan Falls Corporation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Maine Atlantic Sea Run Salmon Commission, Maine Department of Natural Resources, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Maine State Planning Office and many non-government conservation groups in a series of meetings hosted by Central Maine Power to negotiate a fish passage plan for all of the dams on the main stem of the Saco River. In December, 1993 the parties agreed to the objectives, principles, terms and provisions for restoring anadromous fish populations and providing fish passages, and the agreement is now awaiting signature .

NOAA's success in dealing with the eutrophication problem in the Great Lakes is largely due to adoption of an ecosystem management approach by the Federal, State, and municipal governments and their agencies, commissions, and citizens. The Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements of 1972 and 1978 and the Agreement, as amended by protocol in 1987, call for an ecosystem approach. More recently (1991), Federal, State, and local agencies adopted a "Resolution for Interagency Cooperation on Ecosystems Management" which calls for working together on ecosystem research, protection, and management issues where a cooperative interagency approach will facilitate accomplishment of mutual goals. NOAA/GLERL is a signatory to the resolution and has research expertise not available in any other agency in the U.S. Great Lakes region (e.g. expertise in physical limnology and hydrology) which is essential for an ecosystem approach. GLERL's multidisciplinary expertise has provided much-needed support to the U.S. EPA, Army Corps of Engineers, commissions, and State agencies in ecosystem research and management.

NOAA's ecosystem models will be useful not only in its own programs, but also to other Federal and State regulatory agencies in providing a scientific basis for the pro-active and complex decisions that must be made to preserve the quality of coastal ecosystems while permitting sustainable development of resources to occur. Examples of potential applications are: increased precision in fishery recruitment predictions; identifying and protecting critical habitat; and evaluating the cost/benefits of proposed input reduction strategies for anthropogenic nutrients and toxic pollutants. NOAA's previously referenced wetlands landscape model (developed in Louisiana) was the product of collaboration with the Corps of Engineers and Sea Grant.

NOAA is collaborating with other Federal and State agencies to develop an ecosystem management strategy for addressing the serious ecological degradation in South Florida and Florida Bay. As part of this effort, NOAA is supporting the development of a research plan to outline current research needs and a strategy for implementing activities to address these needs. The plan will be fully integrated with planned and underway efforts by the State, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the U.S. Department of the Interior. It is anticipated that NOAA-sponsored research in this effort will begin in late 1994. NOAA is also a participant in the White House Office on Environmental Policy's "Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force", and has the lead in developing ecosystem management strategies for Monterey Bay and Prince William Sound. In addition, NOAA has been and continues to be an active member of the Federal Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordinating Group .

TOOLS OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

In addition to the ecosystem modeling efforts, such as described above, NOM develops and applies geographic information systems (GIS) for decision-making, strategic planning, and responding to emergency events -- all essential elements of ecosystem management. NOAA is committed to transfer to the Nation's coastal States, including the Great Lakes, a wide range of existing, but not readily available, coastal resource and environmental quality information, and state-of-the-art, geographic information systems, including desk-top information systems technology and capabilities. For example, local resource managers in Connecticut and Massachusetts are utilizing interactive GIS (resulting from NOAA-funded efforts) to land-use and coastal water quality policy decisions.

FUNDING ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

NOAA is providing support for ecosystem management activities available basis, with high priority being given to specific regions. NOAA is also exploring options for redirection of existing resources, as well as sources of additional support.

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITIES

NOAA wants to ensure that economic development in coastal ecosystems of the U.S. is managed in ways that maintain their biodiversity and long-term productivity for sustained use. To move toward this vision, the paradigm for managing coastal ecosystems health will shift from a fragmented to an integrated approach, from a site-specific to an ecosystem-wide context, and from a reactive to proactive mode. NOAA recognizes that coastal and marine ecosystem health problems are complex and that solutions will require a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach. Using this approach, NOAA will conduct comparative ecosystem (regional watershed) management activities designed to reduce the cumulative effects of ecosystem stress. Initially, attention will be focused on a limited number of coastal ecosystems to demonstrate the capabilities and benefits of science-based integrated coastal management. By 1999, several representative coastal ecosystems will be included.

NOAA believes that several ecosystem management tasks need to be addressed more vigorously -- tasks that are now both knowledge and resource limited: (a) coastal non-point source management strategies; (b) assessments of economic condition, land use patterns, contaminant sources, habitat management needs, and ecological resources at risk; (c) development of comprehensive regional information systems to support decision-making at the ecosystem level; (d) development of protocols and technologies for monitoring at the ecosystem level; (e) development of the understanding to construct predictive and management support models at the regional level; (f) active translation and dissemination of new information to the public, as well as to management and policy officials, to ensure that economic development can be pursued without sacrificing the health of coastal ecosystems; and (g) implementation and field testing of management strategies.

The Nation's effort to conserve living marine resources and habitat is a difficult one, especially with limited budgets. NOAA's strategy is to effectively and efficiently utilize both existing laws and programs, and budgets. Improved effectiveness will be accomplished by supporting legislation to give Federal and State agencies a stronger role in managing ecosystems and watersheds. The application of available technology to slow and reverse the present pattern of habitat loss will continue. Simultaneously research and development programs will be directed to improve the tools and technologies for restoring, enhancing and creating habitats. Opportunities for working cooperatively with other agencies and third parties that provide leverage for NOM effectiveness will be sought out. Examples are cooperative efforts with other agencies such as the National Science Foundation, Central Valley Authority in California, PACFISH in the Pacific Northwest, and Florida Bay clean-up groups. In addition, coalitions to protect habitats will be formed with environmental groups, resource users and other special interest groups such as swimmers, naturalists, bird watchers, conservation tourists, private property owners, hotels, marinas, and sports equipment manufacturers. All these activities will be targeted toward increasing ecosystem-oriented conservation awareness and, it is hoped, will provide momentum to making important inroads in the conservation of ecosystems. Over the next decade, NOAA will strive to provide to the Nation an improved scientific basis for sustainable development of coastal, marine, and Great Lakes resources, while also seeking to protect and preserve the unique aesthetic and ecological characteristics of these environments.

CONTACT

Mike Crosby
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Department of Commerce
Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (N-ORM)
SSMC 4
1305 East West Highway
Silver Spring, MD 20910