Research Program Overview

  Within this page - Mission || Overview || Strategic Planning

Mission

To provide scientific information for use in assessing and predicting the effects of pollutants and other stressors on our nation's freshwater resources.

Overview

The Mid-Continent Ecology Division is one of nine divisions within the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory (NHEERL; www.epa.gov/nheerl/). Four divisions, including our Division, focus on assessing, diagnosing, and forecasting the ecological effects of toxic chemicals, genetically modified organisms, nutrients, sediments, habitat alteration, and global climate change. The remaining five divisions address human health effects of pollutants such as airborne particulate matter and toxic substances. Within this context, the Division provides leadership in ecotoxicology and freshwater ecology. Research by Division scientists and their partners emphasizes approaches for monitoring trends in ecological condition for various aquatic ecosystems, including the Great Lakes and Great Rivers; identifying impaired watersheds and diagnosing causes of degradation; and providing basic and applied research to assess the risks posed by chemical toxicants in aquatic and terrestrial environments. Research related to chemical risk assessments include: toxicity test protocol development, toxicokinetic, bioaccumulation, and toxicodynamic modeling, and toxicity pathway elucidation for development of quantitative structure-activity relationships for toxicity predictions and prioritizing testing requirements. Underlying the advancement of assessment, diagnosis and forecasting capabilities is the development of quantitative relationships between chemical and non-chemical stressors and the responses of freshwater ecosystems and aquatic life and wildlife species. The Division partners its expert staff and unique physical infrastructure with its sister Divisions, EPA Laboratories, Centers, Program, and Regional Offices; State and Federal agencies; and private organizations to sustain major efforts, which address significant Agency challenges and emerging issues.

Strategic Planning

Identifying research direction occurs at several levels. Division scientists and those from our sister Divisions participate in strategic, long-term planning to develop research projects, strategies and implementation plans to determine the effects of anthropogenic stressors on ecosystem health. This research is intended to address key Agency problems in a timely and responsive manner. Within NHEERL, research implementation plans are being developed to achieve the following objectives:

• Optimize responsiveness of research activities to Agency needs,
• Sharpen the focus of research programs where needed,
• Provide a forum for engagement of scientific staff on issues and approaches,
• Focus on multi-year planning explicitly linked to Agency performance goals, and
• Provide a mechanism for prioritizing research.

This approach builds on the Office of Research and Development (ORD) planning process that identifies and prioritizes large research topics. Current areas for research include air toxics, particulate matter, drinking water, water quality, contaminated sites, hazardous waste, ecological research, endocrine disruptors, global change, human health, mercury, safe pesticides/safe products, safe food, pollution prevention, trophospheric ozone, socio-economics.

Once Laboratory and Division research strategies and plans are in place, the goals, including Annual Performance Goals and Measures (APGs and APMs) needed to respond to the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) are embedded into ORD's Multi-Year Plans (MYPs) to meet the stated Long Term Goals and the critical path to meet these goals. Examples of strategies, implementation plans and MYPs that the Division has helped develop include: NHEERL's Wildlife strategy, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Strategy (EMAP), the Framework for a Computational Toxicology Research Program in ORD, the Aquatic Stressors: Framework and Implementation Plan for Effects Research (a 197 page PDF, 3 MB file) and ORD MYPs for Water Quality, Ecological Research, Safe Pesticides/Safe Products, and Endocrine Disruptors.