Office of Research and Development (ORD)

Sponsored by: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

The Office of Research and Development (ORD) is the scientific research arm of EPA. Its leading-edge research informs Agency decisions and supports the emerging needs of EPA stakeholders, including the Agency’s state, tribal, and community partners. 

Harmful Algal Blooms, Hypoxia, and Nutrients Research Webinar Series

Applying EPA’s National Nutrient Inventory to quantify landscape nutrient inputs and interception to support state and local water quality objectives

  • Explore the EPA’s National Nutrient Inventory (NNI), a powerful dataset estimating nutrient fluxes across the U.S. Learn how the NNI informs trends in nutrient pollution and supports tools like StreamCat and wetland conservation planning.

  • Topics Covered:

    • NNI Overview — Understanding nutrient flows and pollution trends (Meredith Brehob, ORISE Fellow)

    • StreamCat Integration — 30 years of nitrogen/phosphorus data across 2.6 million U.S. watersheds (Selia Markley, ORISE Fellow)

    • Wetlands as Filters — Mapping past, present, and potential nutrient interception by wetlands (Scott Alford, ORISE Fellow)

Healthy and Resilient Communities Research Webinar Series

Restoring Aquatic Ecosystems to Improve Human Health and Well-being

  • The degradation of aquatic ecosystems can have widespread impacts on both aquatic ecosystem function and aquatic organism health. This loss of ecological integrity can negatively affect aquatic ecosystems and can result in impairments to recreational water use or drinking water consumption, loss of fish and wildlife populations, and degraded aesthetics. Beneficial use impairment is presumed to impact human health; however, comprehensive reporting of impacts on health outcomes is lacking. This webinar will present findings on two widespread impairments — degraded aesthetics and water contact resulting from combined sewage overflows — and how the relationship between ecological restoration and human health should be considered in a systems context.

    Presenter: Joel Hoffman, Ph.D.

Water Research Webinar Series

Risk-Based Framework for Fit-for-Purpose Water Reuse: State of the Science

  • Risk-based water reuse management continues to gain traction throughout the U.S. This presentation will introduce the recent EPA report Risk-Based Framework for Developing Microbial Treatment Targets for Water Reuse, which describes the conceptual framework underpinning these approaches and provides a detailed discussion of current scientific assumptions for conducting the associated quantitative microbial risk assessments (QMRA). In addition to enabling calculation of new fit-for-purpose water treatment levels, it includes computed pathogen log reduction targets (LRTs) across a variety of municipal and onsite reuse configurations. Implementation considerations, key sources of uncertainty, and future research needs are also identified with an emphasis on removal crediting processes.

    Presenter: Michael Jahne, Ph.D., EPA Office of Research and Development