| Affiliation: | (1) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Las Vegas, NV 89193-3478, USA;(2) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIII Office, Denver, CO, USA;(3) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region X Office, Seattle, WA, USA;(4) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region IX Office, San Francisco, CA, USA;(5) ISSI CG, Inc., Denver, CO, USA;(6) ITTI Corporation, San Francisco, CA, USA;(7) Lockheed Martin, Port Orchard, WA, USA;(8) Western Ecology Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, OR, USA;(9) Lockheed Martin, Las Vegas, NV, USA |
| Abstract: | The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP) is proposing an ambitious agenda to assess the status of streams and estuaries in a 12-State area of the western United States by the end of 2003. Additionally, EMAP is proposing to access landscape conditions as they relate to stream and estuary conditions across the west. The goal of this landscape project is to develop a landscape model that can be used to identify the relative risks of streams and estuaries to potential declines due to watershed-scale, landscape conditions across the west. To do so, requires an understanding of quantitative relationships between landscape composition and pattern metrics and parameters of stream and estuary conditions. This paper describes a strategic approach for evaluating the degree to which landscape composition and pattern influence stream and estuary condition, and the development and implementation of a spatially-distributed, landscape analysis approach. |
