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| During the past 25 years,
our Nation has sought to improve its water quality; however, many water-quality
issues remain unresolved. To address the need for consistent and scientifically
sound information for managing the Nation's water resources, the U.S. Geological
Survey began a full-scale National
Water-Quality Assessment (NAWQA) Program in 1991. This program is unique
compared to other national water-quality assessment studies in that it
integrates the monitoring of the quality of surface and ground waters with
the study of aquatic ecosystems. |
The goals of the NAWQA Program
are to:
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describe current water-quality
conditions for a large part of the Nation’s freshwater streams and aquifers,
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describe how water quality is
changing over time, and
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improve our understanding of
the primary natural and human factors affecting water quality.
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Assessing the quality of
water in every location of the Nation would not be practical; therefore,
NAWQA studies are conducted within areas called study units. These study
units represent the diverse geography, water resources, and land and water
uses of the Nation (map).
The island of Oahu, Hawaii, is one such study unit designed to supplement
water-quality information collected in other study units across the Nation
while addressing issues relevant to the island of Oahu.
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| From 1991-2001, the NAWQA program completed
interdisciplinary assessments in 51 of the Nation's major river basins and
aquifer systems. Baseline conditions were established for comparison to future
assessments, and long-term monitoring was initiated in many of the basins.
During the next decade, 42 of the 51 Study Units will be reassessed so that 10
years of comparable monitoring data will be available to determine trends at
many of the Nation's streams and aquifers. The Oahu study
was one of
several NAWQA studies that began in 1997 and was discontinued
in 2003 owing to budget constraints.
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