Assessment Questions
Resource managers and other decision-makers are frequently
required to make decisions about priorities. A common question is
"Given limited resources, what environmental problems and what
geographic areas are most in need of attention?" Answering this
difficult question requires exploration of a series of focused
assessment questions before actions are taken to protect valued
resources, human health, or quality of life. These questions might
focus on information such as:
- an evaluation of current overall conditions
- risk of future environmental degradation
- sustainability of the system
- current and future value to society
- feasibility of taking some action
All of these assessment questions can be addressed to some degree
using available data and information. Each requires a different
integration method (see the tutorial for more information on this),
and each receives a different answer, or in the case of a visual
representation, a different map. Types of assessment questions that
can be addressed by ReVA approaches and the EDT include:
- What is the overall condition of the region?
- What is the relative environmental condition given all
variables or a subset (e.g. those related to water
quality)?
- Where are the strategic planning or restoration priorities for
a region?
- What are the current most pressing environmental risks for a
region? Where are these risks?
- What is likely to be the greatest risk in the future? Where is
this risk?
- Where is there greatest risk of major change?
Different assessment questions require different types of
variable data and metrics and possibly different analysis or
integration methods. The selection of variables and methods is
driven by the particular issues of concern and the questions a user
brings to the vulnerability assessment. Further information on
selecting data and analysis methods is provided in the tutorial and
in the analytical sections of the tool.
To help you understand how the ReVA EDT can assist in answering
these questions, the next few pages show examples of the types of
information that the web tool can provide. |