Science for Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead (2012)

This issue outlines a framework for building science for environmental protection in the 21st century and identified key areas where enhanced leadership and capacity can strengthen the agency's abilities to address current and emerging environmental challenges as well as take advantage of new tools and technologies to address them.

Tensions inherent to the structure of EPA's work contribute to the current and persistent challenges faced by the agency, and meeting those challenges will require development of leading-edge scientific methods, tools, and technologies, and a more deliberate approach to systems thinking and interdisciplinary science.

Contents
Summary
1 Introduction
2 Challenges of the 21st Century
3 Using Emerging Science and Technologies to Address Persistent and Future Environmental Challenges
4 Building Science for Environmental Protection in the 21st Century
5 Enhanced Scientific Leadership and Capacity in the US Environmental Protection Agency
6 Findings and Recommendations
Appendix A: Statement of Task of the Committee on Science for EPA's Future
Appendix B: Biographical Information on the Committee on Science for EPA's Future
Appendix C: The Rapidly Expanding Field of Omics Technologies
Appendix D: Scientific Computing. Information Technology, and Informatics