National Research Council Completes Three-Year Review of USGS Water Quality Program

The National Academies' National Research Council (NRC) has released a pre-publication report resulting from a three-year analysis of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) National Water Quality Assessment Program (NAWQA). The report, entitled "Preparing for the Third Decade (Cycle 3) of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program," provides perspectives of on past  NAWQA Program activities and makes recommendations regarding the current and future design and scope of the Program.  The study is the result of a three-year review of NAWQA by the NRC "Committee on Preparing for the Third Decade (Cycle 3) of the National Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program."

The Committee's report specifically comments and provides recommendations on:

1. Present and future water-quality issues that should be considered for addition to the NAWQA Program's scope;
2. NAWQA Program components that should be retained or enhanced;
3. Opportunities for NAWQA to better collaborate with others in pursuing Program objectives;
4. Technical soundness of strategic science and design plans for  NAWQA's third decade; and
5. NAWQA Program ability to meet objectives entering into the Program's third decade.

In its report, the Committee notably recommends that NAWQA:

• "Focus on core mission areas where it has unique capabilities, for the program’s own implementation efforts;
• "Leverage resources with other agencies to achieve more of the objectives of the Cycle 3 Science Plan;
• "Foster higher levels of involvement and investment by other agencies;
• "Help others design their own programs to meet identified national objectives of the Cycle 3 Science Plan without NAWQA’s direct involvement;
• "Explore incentives, for example, access to NAWQA technical assistance, which will enable more sharing of effort for data collection, analysis, and technological innovation across the entire program."

You can view the report’s Table of Contents and read it in full by clicking this link.