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In recognition that the loss of biological diversity can only be effectively addressed through cooperation of vested interests, EPA formed the Biodiversity Research Consortium (BRC) to develop the technical information and data bases needed to assess and manage risks to biodiversity. Currrent collaborating agencies include EPA, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U. S. Geological Survey, the USDA Forest Service, the Department of Defense, and The Nature Conservancy. The BRC invokes a risk-based paradigm for identifying those areas having species assemblages which contribute the greatest genetic diversity to the biota of their biogeographic regions and then managing those areas to sustain biodiversity. The BRC is working on four aspects of the problem: vertebrate species richness as a metric of biological diversity, land use/land cover derived from remote sensing as a measure of environmental diversity, analysis of the species and land characterization data, and analysis of stressor data derived from existing sources for key anthropogenic stressors and natural environmental factors. 
The Biodiversity Research Consortium Research Plan
For further information on the BRC research plan, see: Kiester, A. R., D. White, E. M. Preston, L. L. Master, T. R. Loveland, D. F. Bradford, B. Csuti, R. J. O'Connor, F. W. Davis, and D. M. Stoms, 1993. Research Plan for Pilot Studies of the Biodiversity Research Consortium. Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, OR.
Or see BRC's web page.
Go to UCSB-BRC Project home page