National Status and Trends: Bioeffects Assessment Program Sites (1986 to present) Compiled from NOAA's National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science

This dataset contains sample collection location information for the National Status and Trends, Bioeffects Assessment Project. The Bioeffects Assessment Sites data files report information regarding the planned sampling locations designated by the planners for the monitoring program. At present about thirty Bioeffects Assessments have been conducted as part of NSandT's Bioeffects Assessment Project. This SITES file only contains site information for the St. Lucie Estuary Study (2001). Site information for the other studies will be added over time beginning with the Chesapeake Bay Study (1998, 1999, 2001). One record is presented per site. Each record reports the planned values of latitude and longitude and the actual values recorded at the time of sampling, five letter site acronym, site sequence number, general and specific location information, state abbreviation, state name, degree-minute-second coordinates, decimal degree coordinates, and species information, among other things. The actual site coordinate information is recorded at the time of sampling, if samples were taken at a location other than the nominal site center. The five letter acronym is based on both the general location information and more specific location information (e.g. SFSM is San Francisco-San Mateo Bridge). The file also contains sequence numbers that facilitate geographic manipulation of the data. Sites are numbered sequentially from the northernmost site on the U.S. East coast and continue counter-clockwise around the country.

In response to concerns over environmental quality of the Nation's coastal and estuarine ecosystems, NOAA initiated the National Status and Trends (NSandT) Program in 1984, to determine the current status of, and to detect changes in, the environmental quality of our Nation's estuarine and coastal waters. The Bioeffects Assessment Program is an ongoing project of intensive regional studies, of 2 to 4-year duration, to assess bioeffects associated with contaminant exposure. Many of the studies were designed around a "Sediment Quality Triad" in order to diagnose relationships among measures of sediment contamination, sediment toxicity, and macrobenthic community response to degraded environment. Approximately thirty regional studies have been undertaken as part of the Bioeffects Assessment Project. Each study is designed to provide unbiased assessments of the condition of selected resources over the study region. A key feature of the program is a probabilistic sampling strategy that randomly selects sampling sites and assigns weighting factors based on area to all measured results.

979

None

Bioeffects Assessment Program data for the St. Lucie Estuary can be obtained on line at http://ccma.nos.noaa.gov/about/coast/nsandt/. Please contact the NSandT program directly to obtain information about data availability for other sites within the Bioeffects Assessment study area.;

None

The National Status and Trends Program (NSandT) requests that all individuals who download NSandT data acknowledge the source of these data in any reports, papers, or presentations. If you publish these data, please include a statement similar to: "Some or all of the data described in this article were produced by NOAA through its National Status and Trends Program."

Microsoft Windows 2000 Version 5.0 (Build 2195) Service Pack 2; ESRI ArcCatalog 8.2.0.700

Each study is designed to provide unbiased assessments of the condition of selected resources over the study region. A key feature of the program is a probabilistic sampling strategy that randomly selects sampling sites and assigns weighting factors based on area to all measured results. NSandT's Bioeffects Assessment Project include partners from Federal, State and Local sectors of government and the private sector. The list of partners varies by study area and for most the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA have shared data and collaborated on the sampling design and quality assurance aspects of the studies. Each partner had a role in planning, collecting, processing, and/or reviewing data. The NSandT Program was responsible for final assembly and review of all data.

The actual sampling coordinates (LATITUDE and LONGITUDE) reported in this data set vary in accuracy. Some coordinates are estimates based on NOAA nautical charts while others site locations were determined using Loran-C and GPS units. Original site coordinates were derived from Loran-C time conversions. Early sites information resulting from Loran-C was converted from time delay information to latitudes and longitudes. These earlier data may be suspect when sites were located close to large structures that could have interfered with accurate time delays. When GPS was first available the signal was intentionally degraded so earlier coordinate information, even if it resulted from GPS, is not as accurate as data would be today.

The Bioeffects Assessment Project Sites dataset does not include data relating to the chemistry, quality assurance, or pathology data that is associated with each site.

Data in this file were acquired both in the field and assigned by program planners. No analytical processing was involved with the Bioeffects Assessment Sites parameters