National Coastal Condition Assessment 2015 Datafiles for Report “National Coastal Condition Assessment: A Collaborative Survey of the Nation's Estuaries and Nearshore Great Lakes”: The National Coastal Condition Assessment (NCCA) is a statistical survey of the condition of our nation's estuaries and nearshore Great Lake waters. It is designed to provide information on the extent of coastal waters that support healthy biological condition and recreation, estimate how widespread major stressors are that impact estuarine and Great Lake nearshore water quality, and provide insight into whether these resources nationwide are getting cleaner. These datasets are archived (zipped) files comprised of chemical, physical and biological files used in developing the NCCA 2015 report. There is a zipped file for estuaries and one for Great Lakes. Sampling was conducted in the summer of 2015 at approximately 1000 sites in the conterminous United States. Sites were selected using a statistical survey (probabilistic) design. The files include water chemistry, profile data, benthic invertebrates, physical habitat, secchi/PAR data, sediment chemistry, sediment toxicity, contaminants in fish tissue, microcystins, etc. Users are encouraged to visit the NARS data webpage for updates to data files and data from other surveys. https://www.epa.gov/national-aquatic-resource-surveys/data-national-aquatic-resource-surveys

Citation for the NCCA 2015 archived data: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. National Aquatic Resource Surveys. National Coastal Condition Assessment 2015 Report. Great Lakes Archived Data OR Estuarine Archived Data. (INSERT data and metadata files used). Available from U.S. EPA web page: https://www.epa.gov/national-aquatic-resource-surveys/reports-and-data-national-coastal-condition-assessment-2015. DOI: 10.23719/1529844

EPA encourages users who are publishing subsets of the data (say as part of a journal article publication) to include the above citation. EPA also encourages users of the data to include the following acknowledgement: “The National Coastal Condition Assessment 2015 data were a result of the collective efforts of dedicated field crews, laboratory staff, data management and quality control staff, analysts and many others from EPA, states, tribes, federal agencies, universities, and other organizations. Please contact nars-hq@epa.gov with any questions.”

Additional information: NCCA is part of the National Aquatic Resource Surveys, an EPA/State/Tribal partnership. The National Aquatic Resource Surveys (NARS) are statistical surveys designed to assess the status of and changes in quality of the nation’s coastal waters, lakes and reservoirs, rivers and streams, and wetlands. Using sample sites selected at random, these surveys provide a snapshot of the overall condition of the nation’s water. Because the surveys use standardized field and lab methods, we can compare results from different parts of the country and between years. Citation information for this dataset can be found in Data.gov's References section.