Inventory and Monitoring

The purpose and intent of monitoring are diagnostic and evaluative. Inventory and monitoring activities should facilitate understanding of resource conditions and trends based upon deliberately selected indicators and scientifically valid methods. Conditions and trends of interest to the Forest Service are ecological, social, or economic. Effective monitoring produces knowledge that contributes to meaningful, timely, and wise action. RIG works with field personnel to develop policy, guidance, and direction for:

• Integrated Inventory
• Land Management Plan (LMP) Monitoring

Many laws and Executive Orders require the Forest Service to conduct monitoring, but the National Forest Management Act provides the primary Congressional direction (16 USC 1604). This Act requires the Forest Service to conduct monitoring that will allow determinations for at least the following three key areas:

1. The effects of various resource management activities within the plan area on the productivity of the land;
2. The degree to which on-the-ground management is maintaining or making progress toward the desired conditions and objectives for the plan; and,
3. Whether adjustment to the monitoring program appropriately account for unanticipated changes in conditions.

Monitoring activities are tools for learning and the foundation of adaptive management. Proper use of these tools allows information, gathered through inventory or monitoring activities, to serve as the basis for evaluating whether resource conditions are changing or not and whether those changes are desired.

Forest Service Resource Information Protocols

Several teams have been approved by the agency Information Resource Board to develop national biophysical, social and economic protocols. The Resource Information Group is responsible for managing a portfolio of investments in resource information protocols. These protocol projects are the primary, but not exclusive, source of national protocols for collection and analysis of biophysical, social, and economic data in support of national forest management. Links to protocols are included below:

• Access to Forest Service Resource Information Protocols

National Resource Information Resources

• National Forest System (NFS) Land Management Plan Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (2007)
• Forest Service Framework for Inventory & Monitoring (2000)(PDF, 241 KB)
• National Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy (1993) (PDF, 1.0 MB)
• Natural Resources Monitoring Partnership (NRMP): The Forest Service is gradually adding our metadata about protocols to the NRMP Database. We encourage agency personnel to search for information about protocols to the NRMP interagency cooperative monitoring protocol database.
• Technical Information for Planning (TIPS): Many forests rely on the TIPS system to provide them with guidance, reference materials, and protocols applicable to national forest plan monitoring. TIPS contains information that includes social and economic data collection and analysis methods.
• HD.gov: This website contains human dimensions protocols suitable for data analysis of social conditions and trends related to natural resource management.

National Resource Information Programs and Projects

Forest Service Programs

• Eastern Forest Threats Center
• Forest Inventory and Analysis Program
• National Forest Health Monitoring
• Recreation, Heritage & Wilderness Programs: National Visitor Use Monitoring Program
• San Dimas Technology & Development Center: Inventory & Monitoring
• Strategic Planning and Resource Assessment
• Western Wildland Environmental Threats Assessment Center

Selected Forest Service Inventory and Monitoring Projects

RIG is also responsible for Monitoring the Effectiveness and Validating Response to the Road Related Mitigation Practices Implemented on the Pikes Peak Highway, a project assigned as part of the Settlement Agreement between the Sierra Club and the United States Department of Agriculture (Forest Service in Sierra Club v. Venneman, 2001).

RIG (formerly called the Inventory and Monitoring Institute) completed the Local Unit Criteria and Indicators Development Test (LUCID) in 2002. LUCID was a pilot test appraising the feasibility of monitoring sustainable systems at the forest level.

Selected Programs of Other Federal Agencies

• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): Patuxent Wildlife Research Center: Monitoring
• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS): Status and Trends of Biological Resources: Biological Inventory and Monitoring
• National Park Service: Nature & Science: Vital Signs Monitoring
• National Park Service: Nature & Science: Inventory & Monitoring
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): National Center for Environmental Assessment: Ecological Risk Assessment
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Pesticides: Endangered Species Protection Program

Monitoring and Evaluation Staff Contact

Doug Powell, National Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator
U.S. Forest Service Resource Information Group (RIG)
202-205-1724 or