As the coastal human population increases in the United States, there will likely be increasing environmental and socioeconomic pressures on our coastal and estuarine environments. Monitoring the condition of all our nation's coastal and estuarine ecosystems over the long term is more than any one program can accomplish on its own. Therefore, it is crucial that monitoring programs at all levels (local, state, and federal) cooperate in the collection, sharing, and use of environmental data. This volume is the proceedings of the Coastal Monitoring Through Partnerships symposium that was held in Pensacola, Florida in April of 2001, and was organized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), and the Council of State Governments (CSG). It contains papers that describe various multi-disciplinary coastal and estuarine environmental monitoring programs, designed and implemented by using regional and national partnerships with federal and state agencies, academia, Native American tribes, and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, it includes papers on modeling and data management; monitoring and assessment of benthic communities; development of biological indicators and interlaboratory sediment comparisons; microbiological modeling and indicators; and monitoring and assessment of phytoplankton and submerged aquatic vegetation. There are many components involved in determining the overall impacts of anthropogenic stressors on coastal and estuarine waters. It will take strong partnerships like those described in this volume to ensure that we have healthy and sustainable coastal and estuarine environments, now and in the future.

The Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program was created by EPA to develop the capability for tracking the changing conditions of our natural resources and to give environmental policy the advantages ofa sound scientific understanding of trends. Former EPA Administrators recognized early that contemporary monitoring programs could not even quantify simple unknowns like the number of lakes suffering from acid rain, let along determine if national control policies were benefiting these lakes. Today, adding to acidification impacts are truly complex problems such as determining the effects of climate change, of increases in ultraviolet light, toxic chemicals, eutrophication and critical habitat loss. Also today, the Government Performance and Results Act seeks to have agencies develop performance standards based on results rather than simply on levels of programmatic activities. The charge to EMAP of ecosystems is, therefore, the same today as it was a with respect to measuring the condition decade ago. We welcome the increasing urgency for sound scientific monitoring methods and data by efforts to protect and improve the environment. Systematic nationwide monitoring of natural resources is more than anyone program can accomplish, however. In an era of declining budgets, it is crucial that monitoring programs at all levels of government coordinate and share environmental data. EMAP resources are dwarfed by the more than $500 million spent on federal monitoring activities each year.

This volume is the proceedings of a symposium held on April 6-8, 1999, in San Francisco, CA, USA, and sponsored by the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). EMAP is the primary program of the EPA's Office of Research and Development to advance the science of statistically-based ecosystem monitoring; and establish baseline conditions and trends of the nation's natural resources. The first volume in this series of EMAP-sponsored symposium proceedings addressed Monitoring Ecological Condition at Regional Scales' (1998). The current proceedings was the result of the EMAP Symposium on Western Ecological Systems' (1999), and presaged the new EMAP Western Pilot Study, which will include one third of the contiguous United States. The information found in these proceedings on the state of monitoring science, and existing monitoring programs undertaken by Federal and State agencies, academic institutions, tribal governments, and environmental protection interest groups helped to establish a starting point for embarking on the EMAP Western Pilot. This volume represents current scientific and management approaches, and the results of monitoring and assessment in the western US ecosystems. The chapter topics include regional assessments, approaches to database design, landscape considerations, water quality and land use, and focuses on watersheds, lakes and rivers, and marine coastal areas. Publication of these proceedings constitutes a sound starting point for the assessment of the ecological resources in the western US and will facilitate collaborative efforts in the development and application of sound approaches to monitoring and assessment of ecological resources in the US and abroad.

As the coastal human population increases in the United States, there will likely be increasing environmental and socioeconomic pressures on our coastal and estuarine environments. Monitoring the condition of all our nation's coastal and estuarine ecosystems over the long term is more than any one program can accomplish on its own. Therefore, it is crucial that monitoring programs at all levels (local, state, and federal) cooperate in the collection, sharing, and use of environmental data. This volume is the proceedings of the Coastal Monitoring Through Partnerships symposium that was held in Pensacola, Florida in April of 2001, and was organized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP), and the Council of State Governments (CSG). It contains papers that describe various multi-disciplinary coastal and estuarine environmental monitoring programs, designed and implemented by using regional and national partnerships with federal and state agencies, academia, Native American tribes, and nongovernmental organizations. In addition, it includes papers on modeling and data management; monitoring and assessment of benthic communities; development of biological indicators and interlaboratory sediment comparisons; microbiological modeling and indicators; and monitoring and assessment of phytoplankton and submerged aquatic vegetation. There are many components involved in determining the overall impacts of anthropogenic stressors on coastal and estuarine waters. It will take strong partnerships like those described in this volume to ensure that we have healthy and sustainable coastal and estuarine environments, now and in the future.