Large regional programs to restore riverine habitat for fish and aquatic organisms have become common throughout North America, Europe, and elsewhere. Evaluating the effectiveness of projects implemented under these programs—sometimes called programmatic monitoring and evaluation—has proven challenging, and little guidance exists on programmatic monitoring and evaluation approaches and their effectiveness. In this paper, we review different approaches for evaluating the effectiveness of river restoration projects implemented across a region. These programmatic monitoring and evaluation approaches include case studies, meta‐analyses, multiple before–after control–impact (mBACI), extensive posttreatment (EPT), intensively monitored watersheds (IMWs), and hybrid programmatic approaches that use a combination of different experimental designs. For each approach, we discuss the pros and cons as well as provide examples. The most appropriate approach depends in part on the questions that the programmatic monitoring and evaluation strives to address, the spatial and temporal scale at which detection of a response is expected, and the scale of inference. Case studies and mBACI approaches can answer questions about individual projects but have several limitations in terms of cost, timely results, and feasibility. A meta‐analysis, which can provide broadly applicable results, is dependent upon a large number of case studies being completed. The EPT approach can provide relatively quick and easy‐to‐interpret results, but it requires a large population of completed projects and careful selection of controls. The IMW approach has been broadly applied in western North America but has had limited success and appears to be tractable only in small catchments where restoration and monitoring can be well controlled. Based on results from recent efforts in the USA and Europe, the most feasible programmatic monitoring and evaluation approach in terms of cost, implementability, and production of timely results appears to be a hybrid approach that uses a combination of the EPT and mBACI approaches.
River restoration is a relatively recent undertaking, with high levels of complexity and uncertainty involved. Many restoration projects have been monitored over the past three decades, however, results have rarely been compared across projects thereby limiting our ability to identify factors that influence restoration outcomes. Programmatic monitoring and evaluation (ProME) that builds on standardized surveys and systematic cross-project comparison allows for collaborative learning, transfer of results across restoration projects and for adaptive management and monitoring. We present a conceptual framework for ProME consisting of four goals and nine principles. First, ProME accounts for complexity, uncertainty, and change in order to contribute to sustainable river management over the long term. Second, ProME promotes collaborative learning and adaptation by standardizing the sampling design for the field surveys at multiple projects and by disseminating findings across stakeholders. Third, ProME verifies to what extent restoration has been achieved, i.e., it must quantify the size and direction of change. Fourth, ProME identifies why the observed effects were present, thereby improving our mechanistic understanding of river functioning. We conclude with potential extensions of the framework (e.g., evaluating cumulative effects of projects within a catchment). Our conceptual framework presents a structured approach toward a more systematic learning and evidence-based action in river restoration, while taking into account the wider picture of environmental change within which river restoration projects will inevitably operate.
Environmental monitoring covers many different management domains. They range from biodiversity conservation to water protection, natural hazard prevention, impact assessment, resource use, or environmental restoration. The need for clear objectives has long been emphasized in the management literature, but has often received only little attention in monitoring design. This is partly due to the lack of systematic approaches for setting objectives. In this paper, we present a formal approach based on Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), namely relevancy analysis, to prioritize management objectives. We demonstrate its use for a river restoration monitoring program in Switzerland comprising 35 physical and biological objectives. The relevancy of an objective is based on two main components, the general importance of the objective, and the problem-specific impact range. The general importance of an objective is used to identify the most important management objectives from a hierarchy within the national program (i.e. objectives to be monitored). The impact range is used to understand which management objectives are more important to monitor for different river restoration measures (i.e. sub-selection of the objectives specifically for the restoration measure). The general importance of a managementobjective was determined based on the frequency an objective is mentioned in selected policy documents, and the legislative power and temporal persistency of each document. The impact ranges were identified from a questionnaire involving 15 Swiss river restoration professionals. Hereby, we assumed that the impact range increases as the anticipated impact of the restoration measure on a specific management objective increases, and as the uncertainty to anticipate this impact increases. For simplicity, we applied the approach only to one restoration measure, namely river widening. Six management objectives scored high in relevancy in terms of both impact range and general importance-channel structure and diversity, structure and diversity of the banks and floodplains, sediment dynamics, longitudinal connectivity, lateral connectivity, and vertical connectivity. Hence, these objectives are both important national objectives for river monitoring (according to the legislation) and are objectives that are potentially highly impacted by a river widening project. We performed sensitivity analyses related to the calculation of the general importance, the impact range, and the relevancy of the objectives. The practice oriented approach can be transferred to a broad diversity of decision situations where there is a need for systematic evaluation of the importance of objectives. It could be a useful tool for social learning and finding group consensus about the priority of the objectives.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.