Without the predictive power of high performance computing and satellite monitoring, the death and damage toll from Hurricane Fran would have been higher. This computer-enhanced satellite photograph shows the hurricane just before it came ashore at Cape Fear, North Carolina, in 1996. The 115 miles per hour winds of the 60,000 square mile storm killed 34 people and destroyed nearly $1 billion worth of property. Improved weather forecast models and models of hurricanes have led to more accurate predictions of where landfall will occur. Evacuations are more timely, and the death toll from hurricanes has dropped over the past few decades. Environmental modeling also proves useful outside of the areas of climate and weather. Models of the flow of groundwater are helping to pinpoint where contaminants are going as they move below the ground. Such models are also being used to test pumping plans so that contaminants can be removed from the water and to slow the flows of the underground pollutant streams, thereby reducing potential adverse impacts. Over the past four years, modeling advances have significantly improved our understanding of fisheries, enabling forecasts of future stocks that are improving the management of this important natural resource. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Bering Sea Fisheries Oceanography Coordinated Investigations Program now enables pollock stocks to be predicted three years in advance, a significant contribution to the sustainability of this $1 billion industry. The percentage of total stocks in the "unknown status" category has been reduced from 30 percent to 22 percent. This improved understanding has supported fisheries management decisions that have resulted in a decrease in the number of over-fished or over-utilized stocks from 45 percent in 1992 to 33 percent in 1995. These and many other examples, ranging from reducing the use of materials in products to improving the design of cars and airplanes for more efficient Reports by the team of experts influenced studies or actions including the following: Project funds provided the data that allowed the Corps of Engineers to run the first-ever integrated hydraulic model of the Mississippi River. The results are changing prevailing views on levees, which are raised structures designed to keep a river from overflowing. The model revealed that levees have an impact not only immediately upstream or downstream, but throughout the course of the river. This finding that will influence which levees are maintained or rebuilt. • Data showed that many people, as they awaited the advancing flood waters, purchased flood insurance. This finding prompted Congress to enact legislation that lengthened the period during which a subscriber must wait for a policy to become effective, from five to 30 days. The change will save the Flood Insurance Program millions of dollars it would otherwise pay out to last-minute buyers, while still providing coverage to program participants who recognize the need for continuous protection, and pay for it. • Some agricultural areas are being allowed to revert to wetlands, which naturally retain water during floods. • One particularly useful tool currently being developed is a series of maps of one area of the Missouri River. These show how current scientific and technical information on different features of the floodplain can be consolidated and used to improve floodplain management. Federal agencies and non-federal organizations will continue to maintain the database. So far, the Internet site has been contacted about 16,000 times by people in the Federal, state, and local governments, and at U.S. and international universities, who can access, download, and use the data for their own research. The address is http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/sast-home.html. The question of how ecosystems will respond to cli- VEMAP represents the state of the art in terms of predicting equilibrium responses of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change and elevated atmos- The results of the VEMAP simulations are already providing useful input for other types of assessments of the effects of climate change. For instance, data on vegetation distribution patterns and tree growth have been used in an analysis of the effects of climate change on the timber industry. The vegetation redistribution results are also being incorporated into analyses of the implications of climate change for wildlife. Because the distribution and abundance of most animals is closely linked to vegetation, it is critical that assessments of impacts of climate change on animals incorporate both direct effects of changes in climate parameters and indirect effects due to changes in vegetation structure and function. ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING Working through the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), the Federal government is developing a national framework for an integrated monitoring and research network in response to the Vice President's call for a Report Card on the Health of the Nation's Ecosystems by 2001. This effort will allow, for the first time, a comprehensive evaluation of our nation's environmental resources and its ecological systems, thus producing a sound scientific information base to support natural resource assessment and decision making. It will add value to existing programs by linking broad-based survey, inventory, and monitoring information to research on environmental processes. An important result of this effort will be the provision of information to the public on what it is getting in return for its annual investment of over $120 billion in pollution abatement and control. The Departments of Agriculture, Energy, and the Interior; the Environmental Protection Agency; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and the National Science Foundation are partners in this venture. A key aspect of this initiative is to achieve closer linkage of Federal environmental monitoring and research networks and programs, which together spend about $650 million annually. Many of these programs focus on a single resource or issue. Better integration of scientific data produced from the nation's numerous remote sensing, inventories, surveys, intensive monitoring, and research networks nearly 15,000 Federal environmental monitoring sites - will allow the simultaneous assessment of multiple resources and will contribute to a better understanding of the causes and effects of environmental change. This ability to predict how an action will affect the health of ecosystems in the future will allow significant advances from our current management of ecosystems and natural resources. Work on this important initiative is well under way: • A draft framework for integration has been completed and published. • A mid-Atlantic Regional Workshop in April 1996 laid the basis for a pilot demonstration project that will begin in early 1997. • A National Workshop in September 1996 endorsed the draft framework. • An interagency Integrated Environmental Monitoring Steering Committee is coordinating program development, working closely with the Federal Geographic Data Committee, the Interagency Task Force on Monitoring of Water Quality, and other relevant organizations. This initiative will be linked to both local decisionmakers and to global environmental programs. It is a partnership with state and local governments, nongovernmental organizations, private industry, and citizens the people whose decisions affect our nation's environment. Coordinating this nationwide effort with those of other nations, and with the major globalscale observation programs that are now being defined and implemented, can lead to an international monitoring network capable of detecting largescale, long-term environmental changes, such as improvements in response to environmental policies or detection of new, and perhaps unanticipated changes due to climate and other environmental or anthropogenic change. AVOIDANCE: APPLYING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE PROCESSES AND PRODUCTS an In the next three decades, the population of the United States will grow by 60 million people increase of approximately 40,000 individuals per week. Our economy is expected to more than double in size during this same period. Given these trends, we must develop a new generation of technologies capable of supplying the goods and services that society needs with less energy, fewer materials, and far less environmental damage. We cannot afford significant increases in industrial emissions and use of natural resources. A "do more with less strategy" that emphasizes increased efficiency in energy use and industrial processes brings significant economic and environmental benefits. Many industries already realize this. The "Pollution Prevention Pays" program developed by 3M has cut overall emissions by more than a billion pounds since 1975 while saving $500 million, and Chevron has saved $10 million in waste disposal costs in the first three years of its "Save Money and Reduce Toxics" program. At a macroeconomic level, a 1993 analysis by the Department of Energy indicated that a 10-20 percent reduction in waste by American industry would result in a cumulative increase of almost $2 trillion in our Gross Domestic Product by 2010 and generate nearly two million new jobs. The global market for environmental goods and services is presently estimated to be about $400 billion and is expected to grow to over $500 billion by the year 2000. The U.S. market is now $170 billion and will approach $200 billion by the year 2000. |