[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 39 (Monday, February 28, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 10892-10893]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-4375]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-9271-2; Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-ORD-2011-0187]
Aquatic Ecosystems, Water Quality, and Global Change: Challenges
of Conducting Multi-Stressor Vulnerability Assessments
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of public comment period.
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SUMMARY: EPA is announcing the release of the draft report titled,
``Aquatic Ecosystems, Water Quality, and Global Change: Challenges of
Conducting Multi-stressor Vulnerability Assessments'' (EPA/600/R-11/
011) and a 45-day public comment period for the report. The document
was prepared by the National Center for Environmental Assessment within
EPA's Office of Research and Development.
This draft report investigates the issues and challenges associated
with identifying, calculating, and mapping indicators of the relative
vulnerability of water quality and aquatic ecosystems, across the
United States, to the potential impacts of global change. Using a large
set of environmental indicators drawn from the scientific and
management literature, this draft report explores the conceptual and
practical challenges associated with using such indicators to assess
how the resilience of ecosystems and human systems may vary as a
function of existing stresses and maladaptations.
The public comment period and the external peer review are separate
processes that provide opportunities for all interested parties to
comment on the document. EPA intends to forward the public comments
that are submitted in accordance with this notice to the external peer
reviewers for their consideration prior to the finalization of their
review comments. When finalizing the draft document, EPA intends to
consider any public comments that EPA receives in accordance with this
notice.
EPA is releasing this draft document solely for the purpose of pre-
dissemination peer review under applicable information quality
guidelines. This document has not been formally disseminated by EPA. It
does not represent and should not be construed to represent any Agency
policy or determination.
The draft document and EPA's peer review charge are available via
the Internet on the NCEA home page under the Recent Additions and the
Data and Publications menus at http://www.epa.gov/ncea.
DATES: The 45-day public comment period begins February 28, 2011, and
ends April 14, 2011. Technical comments should be in writing and must
be received by EPA by April 14, 2011.
ADDRESSES: The draft ``Aquatic Ecosystems, Water Quality, and Global
Change: Challenges of Conducting Multi-stressor Vulnerability
Assessments'' is available primarily via the Internet on the National
Center for Environmental Assessments home page under the Recent
Additions and the Data and Publications menus at http://www.epa.gov/ncea. A limited number of paper copies are available from the
Information Management Team, NCEA; telephone: 703-347-8561; facsimile:
703-347-8691. If you are requesting a paper copy, please provide your
name, your mailing address, and the document title, ``Aquatic
Ecosystems, Water Quality, and Global Change: Challenges of Conducting
Multi-stressor Vulnerability Assessments.'' The EPA's National Service
Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP), P.O. Box 42419,
Cincinnati, OH 45242; telephone: 1-800-490-9198; facsimile: 301-604-
3408; e-mail: lmit.com">nscep@bps-lmit.com. Please provide your name, your
mailing address, the title, and the EPA number of the requested
publication.
Comments may be submitted electronically via http://www.regulations.gov, by mail, by facsimile, or by hand delivery/
courier. Please follow the detailed instructions provided in the
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION section of this notice.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For information on the public comment
period, contact the Office of Environmental Information Docket;
telephone: 202-566-1752; facsimile: 202-566-1753; or e-mail:
[email protected].
For technical information, contact Chris Weaver, NCEA; telephone:
703-347-8621; facsimile: 703-347-8694; or e-mail: [email protected].
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Information About the Project/Document
This draft report investigates the issues and challenges associated
with identifying, calculating, and mapping indicators of the relative
vulnerability of water quality and aquatic ecosystems, across the
United States, to the potential adverse impacts of external forces such
as long-term climate and land-use change. The draft does not directly
evaluate the potential impacts of global change on ecosystems and
watersheds. Rather, it explores the implications of the assumption that
a systematic evaluation of the impacts of existing stressors will be a
key input to any comprehensive global change vulnerability assessment,
as the impacts of global change will be expressed via (perhaps complex)
interactions with such stressors. This is an assumption with an
impressive pedigree, but, to date, there has been relatively little
exploration of the practical challenges associated with assessing how
the resilience of ecosystems and human systems in the face of global
change may vary as a function of existing stresses and maladaptations.
The work described in this draft report is a preliminary attempt at
such an exploration.
This draft report takes as its starting point more than 600
indicators of water quality and aquatic ecosystem condition, along with
numerous datasets from EPA, other Federal agencies, and other
organizations, as a testbed for identifying challenges and best
practices (as well as gaps in ideas, methods, data, and tools) for
calculating and mapping vulnerability nationally. Specifically:
Challenges associated with identifying those indicators
that speak specifically to ``vulnerability'' as opposed to those
reflecting simply a state or condition;
Challenges associated with calculating and estimating the
values of these vulnerability indicators, including establishing
important indicator thresholds that reflect abrupt or large changes in
the vulnerability of water quality or aquatic ecosystems;
Challenges associated with mapping these vulnerability
indicators nationally, including data availability and spatial
aggregation of the data;
Challenges associated with combining and compositing
indicators and developing multi-indicator indices of vulnerability.
This draft report is intended to be one building block for future
work on multi-stressor global change vulnerability assessments. It is
hoped that it will contribute to improved links between the decision
support needs of the water quality and aquatic ecosystem management
communities and the priorities and capabilities of the global
[[Page 10893]]
change science data and modeling communities.
II. How To Submit Technical Comments to the Docket at http://www.regulations.gov
Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-ORD 2011-
0187, by one of the following methods:
http://www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line
instructions for submitting comments.
E-mail: [email protected].
Fax: 202-566-1753.
Mail: Office of Environmental Information (OEI) Docket
(Mail Code: 2822T), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1200
Pennsylvania Ave., NW., Washington, DC 20460. The phone number is 202-
566-1752.
Hand Delivery: The OEI Docket is located in the EPA
Headquarters Docket Center, Room 3334 EPA West Building, 1301
Constitution Ave., NW., Washington, DC. The EPA Docket Center's Public
Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public
Reading Room is 202-566-1744. Such deliveries are only accepted during
the docket's normal hours of operation, and special arrangements should
be made for deliveries of boxed information.
If you provide comments by mail or hand delivery, please submit
three copies of the comments. For attachments, provide an index, number
pages consecutively with the comments, and submit an unbound original
and three copies.
Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-ORD-
2011-0187. Please ensure that your comments are submitted within the
specified comment period. Comments received after the closing date will
be marked ``late,'' and may only be considered if time permits. It is
EPA's policy to include all comments it receives in the public docket
without change and to make the comments available online at http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information provided,
unless a comment includes information claimed to be Confidential
Business Information (CBI) or other information whose disclosure is
restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you consider to
be CBI or otherwise protected through http://www.regulations.gov or e-
mail. The http://www.regulations.gov Web site is an ``anonymous
access'' system, which means EPA will not know your identity or contact
information unless you provide it in the body of your comment. If you
send an e-mail comment directly to EPA without going through http://www.regulations.gov, your e-mail address will be automatically captured
and included as part of the comment that is placed in the public docket
and made available on the Internet. If you submit an electronic
comment, EPA recommends that you include your name and other contact
information in the body of your comment and with any disk or CD-ROM you
submit. If EPA cannot read your comment due to technical difficulties
and cannot contact you for clarification, EPA may not be able to
consider your comment. Electronic files should avoid the use of special
characters, any form of encryption, and be free of any defects or
viruses. For additional information about EPA's public docket visit the
EPA Docket Center homepage at http://www.epa.gov/epahome/dockets.htm.
Docket: Documents in the docket are listed in the http://www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other materials,
such as copyrighted material, are publicly available only in hard copy.
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically
in http://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the OEI Docket in the
EPA Headquarters Docket Center.
Dated: February 17, 2011.
Rebecca Clark,
Acting Director, National Center for Environmental Assessment.
[FR Doc. 2011-4375 Filed 2-25-11; 8:45 am]
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