To address the technical concerns related to ecological impacts in the transition zone, the EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response (OSWER) sponsored a workshop in January 1999, which was planned jointly by the Ecological Risk Assessment Forum and the Ground Water Forum.

The workshop was organized around answering two fundamental questions:

• How important is the transition zone ecologically?
• How can we measure hydrogeological, chemical, and biological conditions and changes in this zone?

There was a consensus among workshop participants that protecting this zone is important, and that there is a need for studies by interdisciplinary teams to ensure that valid data are obtained from the correct locations and at the right times so that valid conclusions are reached.

• Proceedings of the Ground-Water/Surface-Water Interactions Workshop (PDF)(204 pp, 6 MB, 2000, 542-R-00-007)