AMP Toolbox
Design and implement a monitoring plan
Introduction
In general, monitoring activities include sampling design, data collection and summarisation, database management, and data assessment.
Monitoring is a key component in adaptive policies. It should provide information to estimate environmental status, informs decision making, and facilitates evaluation and learning after decisions are made. To make monitoring useful, choices of the ecological attributes to monitor and how to monitor them (frequency, extent, intensity, etc.), together with the management situation that motivates the monitoring, as well as the practical limits on staff and funding should be made a priority.
Monitoring an environmental system does not in itself make an application adaptive. The value of monitoring in adaptive management is inherited from its contribution to decision making. Monitoring must be used to reduce uncertainty. The analysis and assessment of monitoring data result in better understanding of system processes and the opportunity to improve management based on that understanding. Without periodic monitoring of the relevant resource attributes, learning about resource responses and subsequent adjustment of management actions are not possible.
Monitoring in adaptive management provides data for four main purposes:
1. to evaluate progress toward achieving objectives;
2. to determine environment status, in order to identify appropriate management actions;
3. to increase understanding of environment dynamics by comparing predictions with actual monitoring data; and
4. to develop and refine environmental models. Monitoring is much more efficient and effective to the extent that it is designed to meet these purposes.
In the context of the MSFD, Member States shall establish and implement coordinated monitoring programmes on the basis of the initial assessment (Article 8) for the ongoing assessment of the environmental status of their marine waters by reference to the environmental targets previously established and on the basis of the indicative lists of elements set out in Annex III (Indicative lists of characteristics, pressures and impacts) and the list set out in Annex V. This Annex lists 12 requirements that the monitoring plans developed under the MSFD should comply with. These requirements are clearly inspired by the adaptive approach.
Guidance for designing monitoring plans is given. The aims are to identify and highlight the issues which need to be developed in order to prepare coherent implementation of monitoring requirements under the MSFD.
Key questions
In general, monitoring activities include sampling design, data collection and summarisation, database management, and data assessment.
Monitoring is a key component in adaptive policies. It should provide information to estimate environmental status, informs decision making, and facilitates evaluation and learning after decisions are made. To make monitoring useful, choices of the ecological attributes to monitor and how to monitor them (frequency, extent, intensity, etc.), together with the management situation that motivates the monitoring, as well as the practical limits on staff and funding should be made a priority.
Monitoring an environmental system does not in itself make an application adaptive. The value of monitoring in adaptive management is inherited from its contribution to decision making. Monitoring must be used to reduce uncertainty. The analysis and assessment of monitoring data result in better understanding of system processes and the opportunity to improve management based on that understanding. Without periodic monitoring of the relevant resource attributes, learning about resource responses and subsequent adjustment of management actions are not possible.
Monitoring in adaptive management provides data for four main purposes:
1. to evaluate progress toward achieving objectives;
2. to determine environment status, in order to identify appropriate management actions;
3. to increase understanding of environment dynamics by comparing predictions with actual monitoring data; and
4. to develop and refine environmental models. Monitoring is much more efficient and effective to the extent that it is designed to meet these purposes.
In the context of the MSFD, Member States shall establish and implement coordinated monitoring programmes on the basis of the initial assessment (Article 8) for the ongoing assessment of the environmental status of their marine waters by reference to the environmental targets previously established and on the basis of the indicative lists of elements set out in Annex III (Indicative lists of characteristics, pressures and impacts) and the list set out in Annex V. This Annex lists 12 requirements that the monitoring plans developed under the MSFD should comply with. These requirements are clearly inspired by the adaptive approach.
Guidance for designing monitoring plans is given. The aims are to identify and highlight the issues which need to be developed in order to prepare coherent implementation of monitoring requirements under the MSFD.
Key questions
- How to monitor the key factors that can influence policy performance?
- Is the designed monitoring plan going to provide data for the four main purposes of the adaptive management?
- Have sufficient resources been allocated for implementation of the monitoring plan?
Key actions
- A monitoring plan should be designed to estimate the state of the system in question and describe other attributes necessary for decision making and evaluation.
- The plan should promote learning through a comparison of estimates against model-based predictions.
- The plan should be efficient, in that it produces estimates that have maximum precision for a given cost, or minimum cost for a given level of precision.
Tools & methods
- DPSWR framework
- Habitat Priority Planner
- MARXAN
- PANDA
- AQUATOX
Resources dedicated to the Mediterranean and Black Sea marine environment
- Recommendations for European long-term strategy on sustained observations in Southern European Seas
Further readings and references
- EC, 2008, DIRECTIVE 2008/56/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 17 June 2008 establishing a framework for community action in the field of marine environmental policy (Marine Strategy Framework Directive)
- Nikolaos Zampoukas, 2012. Monitoring for the Marine Strategy Framework Directive: Requirements and Options. Scientific and Technical Report of Joint Research Centre, Institute for Environment and Sustainability.
- 2004 Atkinson, A. J., P. C. Trenham, R. N. Fisher, S. A. Hathaway, B. S. Johnson, S. G. Torres, and Y. C. Moore. 2004. Designing monitoring programs in an adaptive management context for regional multiple species conservation plans. U.S. Geological Survey Technical Report. USGS Western Ecological Research Center, Sacramento, CA. 69 pages. [Technical_Report]
- European Commission (2010). Commission Decision on criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters.
- UNEP(DEPI)/MED WG.401/3. (2014). Draft Monitoring and Assessment Methodological Guidance. Athens, Greece: UNEP/MAP.
- UNEP(DEPI)/MED WG. 390/4. (2014). Report of the Integrated Correspondence Groups of GES and Targets Meeting. Athens, Greece.