| Effectiveness Monitoring Program |
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OWEB supports efforts for comprehensive monitoring and evaluation of restoration projects, which should include but not be limited to physical, chemical, and biological evaluation. A well-planned monitoring program should be able to determine whether restoration actions were designed and implemented properly, determine whether the projects’ restoration objectives were met, and provide new information on the restoration action and the ecosystem processes that it was intended to affect. It is important to define what we mean by different types of monitoring and specifically, for OWEB purposes, to distinguish between effectiveness monitoring and OWEB’s required post-project status reporting (compliance monitoring requirements).
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| Effectiveness Monitoring |
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Effectiveness Monitoring vs. Post-Project Status Reporting
Effectiveness Monitoring can play a key role in demonstrating the accountability, success, and value restoration investments. Effectiveness monitoring is NOT a requirement of any OWEB grant, and is monitoring above and beyond compliance monitoring, to determine if the project is effective at meeting its biological and ecological objectives.
Post-project implementation reporting is a requirement of all OWEB grants and includes 1) a brief project description of the project and the work completed, 2) pre and post-project photographs, 3) lessons learned during the project, 4) recommendations on the implementation of future projects, 5) maintenance performed, and 6) accounting of expenditures. Post-project status reports are required for between 1-3 years depending on your grant agreement.
Project-Level Effectiveness Monitoring
There is an important distinction between the questions “was the project implemented in the manner, time, and budget as proposed?” and “did the project achieve the larger objective it was designed to meet?” The former question is addressed during implementation monitoring and the latter only through more in-depth effectiveness monitoring.
Project-scale effectiveness monitoring measures environmental parameters to ascertain whether the actions implemented were effective in creating a desired change in habitat conditions. There are at least three important reasons to conduct project-scale effectiveness monitoring on a restoration treatment or a change in management: 1) to determine the biotic and abiotic changes resulting on, and adjacent to, the treatment area, 2) to determine if treatment and restoration actions were effective in meeting the objective, and 3) to learn from mistakes and oversights and to incorporate new knowledge in future treatment design.
Effectiveness monitoring should follow established protocols, be statistically valid, generate quantifiable data, and produce results that, when tested, are repeatable. Implementation monitoring generally does not have a threshold set this high.
Project-Level Effectiveness Monitoring Program Activities
Juniper Removal Effectiveness
Livestock Exclusion Effectiveness
Irrigation Efficiency/Water Management
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| IMWs |
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Intensively Monitored Watersheds
Intensively Monitored Watersheds (IMWs), or intensive watershed-scale research and monitoring efforts, are being designed in the Pacific Northwest to answer questions that the typical project-level effectiveness monitoring program cannot answer. These questions are often posed by policy makers, decision-makers, legislators, boards, and commissions in an effort to describe the relative success of programs or the likelihood of success from future investments.
IWM is an efficient method of achieving the level of sampling intensity necessary to determine a biological response to a set of management actions. Evaluating biological responses is complicated, requiring an understanding of how various management actions interact to affect habitat conditions and how system biology responds to these habitat changes. Untangling the various factors that determine biological responses and how these factors respond to land use actions or restoration efforts can only be accomplished with an intensive monitoring approach.
Typical questions that IMWs are designed to answer often include the following (at the fifth and sixth field watershed scale):
- Does the collective effect of restoration and/or management actions result in an improved watershed condition or population parameter of interest?
- Why or why not?
- What are the causes of those responses?
- Are certain combinations of restoration and/or management actions more effective than others at delivering the intended responses?
- Does the implementation sequence of restoration and/or management actions affect the attainment of the objectives?
OWEB has been working with the Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP), the Oregon Plan Monitoring Team, state and federal agencies, and local groups to establish the appropriate mix of IMWs in Oregon and throughout the northwest.
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