Comparison of freshwater monitoring approaches: strengths, opportunities, and recommendations
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Comparison of freshwater monitoring approaches: strengths, opportunities, and recommendations Elaine Ho & Andrew J. Trant & Michelle A. Gray & Simon C. Courtenay
Received: 14 February 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 # Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
Abstract This review identifies strengths and weaknesses of water monitoring programs selected by Canadian water managers. We used 22 criteria, guided by outcomes of an exploratory study and supported by 21 semi-structured key informant interviews. The highestscoring programs include the Slave Watershed Environmental Effects Program (Canada), the Government of Canada’s Environmental Effects Monitoring Program, and Healthy Land and Water (Australia). We describe five recommendations for improving future freshwater monitoring frameworks: (1) recognize different knowledge approaches (especially Indigenous), (2) use multiple reporting formats, (3) clarify monitoring and management roles, (4) apply a whole-watershed approach, and (5) link monitoring to management and decisionmaking.
Keywords Monitoring . Water management . Cumulative effects . Freshwater
E. Ho (*) : A. J. Trant : S. C. Courtenay School of Environment, Resources and Sustainability, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada e-mail: [email protected] M. A. Gray Faculty of Forestry and Environmental Management, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada M. A. Gray : S. C. Courtenay Canadian Rivers Institute, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada
Introduction Water monitoring is the repeated observation and measurement of indicators related to water quality, water quantity, and/or specific biota over a given time, usually at multiple locations within the area of interest. Greig and Pickard (2014) describe a variety of approaches to monitor and analyze aquatic ecosystems in the context of industry projects, including: &
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Before-after designs (monitoring a site over time, e.g., monitoring a stretch of a given stream before and after sewage treatment upgrades are implemented) Paired before-after control-impact (comparing a site to multiple local/regional sites over time, e.g., monitoring multiple sites across a watershed with multiple sewage treatment plants in which only some plants upgrade while others are maintained) Control-impact designs (comparing a site to another local site at the same time, e.g., comparing reference upstream and downstream conditions surrounding a single sewage treatment plant upgrade) Multiple control-impact designs (comparing a site to multiple local/regional sites at the same time, e.g., multiple reference sites compared to a single downstream site) Regional reference design (Bailey et al. 2003), a predictive approach in which biotic assemblages are collected from reference sites, followed by identification of organism groupings (using multivariate statistical tools) that are associated with
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nonbiological variables. The variables identified as being important drivers of biotic assemblages in references conditions are us
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