Abstract:
The Contaminant Assessment Process (CAP) was developed by the Biomonitoring of Environmental Status and Trends (BEST) Program that now resides in the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The CAP is a standardized and comprehensive approach for assessing threats posed by environmental contaminants to refuges, national parks, and other lands managed by the Department
... of the Interior. The CAP provides information to land managers to support the development of management options for preventing or alleviating contaminant effects.
The CAP was first evaluated by the National Park Service (NPS) at the Congaree Swamp National Monument in central South Carolina. In 1998, a second project was initiated to further evaluate the CAP at Acadia National Park. Acadia National Park was selected because it presented a different geographical location and different ecological and contaminant transport pathways than those at Congaree Swamp National Monument.
Information for CAP has been managed using an Internet-accessible system developed through joint funding by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the BEST Program. Alternatives to this approach were evaluated. One alternative was a PC-based Decision Support System (DSS) using Environmental Systems Research Institute's ArcView platform. To provide a realistic evaluation of the DSS as it applies to CAP, the BEST Program elected to fund the development of a prototype geographic information system (GIS)/DSS to support the contaminant assessment planned for Acadia National Park. The USGS Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center (UMESC) was selected to design this prototype and was subsequently funded to do so.
[Summary provided by the USGS.] 
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