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Assessing Landscape Condition Relative to Water Resources in the Western United States: A Strategic Approach

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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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Las Vegas, NV, 89193-3478, USA

    K. Bruce Jones, Daniel T. Heggem, Timothy G. Wade, Anne C. Neale, Donald W. Ebert, Maliha S. Nash, Megan H. Mehaffey & Iris A. Goodman

  2. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region VIII Office, Denver, CO, USA

    Karl A. Hermann, Anthony R. Selle & David Bolgrien

  3. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region X Office, Seattle, WA, USA

    Scott Augustine

  4. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region IX Office, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Joel Pedersen & Cindy J. Lin

  5. ISSI CG, Inc., Denver, CO, USA

    J. Max Viger

  6. ITTI Corporation, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Dean Chiang

  7. Lockheed Martin, Port Orchard, WA, USA

    Yehong Zhong

  8. Western Ecology Division, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, OR, USA

    Joan Baker

  9. Lockheed Martin, Las Vegas, NV, USA

    Rick D. Van Remortel

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  1. K. Bruce Jones
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Jones, K.B., Heggem, D.T., Wade, T.G. et al. Assessing Landscape Condition Relative to Water Resources in the Western United States: A Strategic Approach. Environ Monit Assess 64, 227–245 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006448400047

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