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This report is a collection of summary reports on
[25] Great Lakes environmental indicators. Its
purpose is to provide SOLEC participants an advanced
look at the status of Great Lakes ecosystem
components based on the suite of 80 indicators
proposed at SOLEC 1998.
Each indicator report was authored by one or more
people who are familiar with the subject area and
data sources. Acknowledgments are included in each
report. SOLEC organizers provided the authors with
guidelines for the preparation of the report. The
indicator reports have been reformatted to a common
page layout style, but the content has not been
edited. These indicator reports should be considered
DRAFT - for SOLEC Review.
These indicators will be presented and discussed
at SOLEC 2000. Participants will have opportunities
to provide additional data or data sources,
contribute overall assessments about the status of
the Great Lakes, and debate implications of the
indicators and assessments for
environmental management. Based on the information
in these indicators, on feedback and analyses
received at SOLEC 2000, and on additional
information obtained after SOLEC 2000, a State of
the Great Lakes 2001 report will be prepared which
will contain both the final indicator summary
reports and assessments of Great Lakes ecosystem
components based on the indicators.
The indicators in this report are grouped
according to the SOLEC categories of near shore and
offshore open waters, coastal wetlands, near shore
terrestrial (including land use, human health, and
unbounded. Other groupings are equally valid,
depending on the perspective of the user. A table is
included in Appendix A of this report that lists all
the SOLEC indicators and identifies to which of
several alternate groupings each indicator is
relevant. Previous versions of this table have
appeared in the State of the Great Lakes 1999
report and in the Selection of Indicators for
Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem Health - Version 4.
This is the first attempt to assemble data and to
present summary assessments for the SOLEC indicators.
Not all the SOLEC indicators are included in this
report. Several reasons are possible for SOLEC
indicators to be absent from this report:
- The data exist but they were not retrieved
and summarized by the time this report was
assembled and printed. These indicator summaries
should be available for distribution at SOLEC
2000.
- The data exist, but they were not accessible
to indicator authors within the constraints of
time and personnel available. The information
might be available for the State of the Great
Lakes 2001 report, but not for consideration at
SOLEC 2000.
- The required data have not been collected.
Changes to existing monitoring programs or the
initiation of new monitoring programs are needed
to collect and analyze the data.
- The indicator is still under development.
More research and/or testing is needed before
the indicator can be implemented.
Also, not all indicators presented here are
complete. Some have data for selected geographic
areas, but not for all the Great Lakes. Some present
only part of the data that are proposed for a
complete indicator. Over the next several years,
more of the SOLEC indicators will be phased in.
Monitoring programs will be adjusted, information
management systems put into place, and research and
testing completed to refine the indicators.
Meanwhile, readers are encouraged to assist in the
biennial assessment of the Great Lakes by reading
the indicator reports and providing constructive
feedback on their content, format, data, conclusions
and implications for management.
For further details of the indicator development
process and of previous SOLEC conferences can be
found on the web at:
http://www.on.ec.gc.ca/solec/ and
http://www.epa.gov/glnpo/solec.
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