Integrating environmental monitoring with cumulative effects management and decision making

Abstract

Cumulative effects (CE) monitoring is foundational to emerging regional and watershed CE management frameworks, yet monitoring is often poorly integrated with CE management and decision-making processes. The challenges are largely institutional and organizational, more so than scientific or technical. Calls for improved integration of monitoring with CE management and decision making are not new, but there has been limited research on how best to integrate environmental monitoring programs to ensure credible CE science and to deliver results that respond to the more immediate questions and needs of regulatory decision makers. This paper examines options for the integration of environmental monitoring with CE frameworks. Based on semistructured interviews with practitioners, regulators, and other experts in the Lower Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, 3 approaches to monitoring system design are presented. First, a distributed monitoring system, reflecting the current approach in the Lower Athabasca, where monitoring is delegated to different external programs and organizations; second, a 1-window system in which monitoring is undertaken by a single, in-house agency for the purpose of informing management and regulatory decision making; third, an independent system driven primarily by CE science and understanding causal relationships, with knowledge adopted for decision support where relevant to specific management questions. The strengths and limitations of each approach are presented. A hybrid approach may be optimal-an independent, nongovernment, 1-window model for CE science, monitoring, and information delivery-capitalizing on the strengths of distributed, 1-window, and independent monitoring systems while mitigating their weaknesses. If governments are committed to solving CE problems, they must invest in the long-term science needed to do so; at the same time, if science-based monitoring programs are to be sustainable over the long term, they must be responsive to the more immediate, often shorter term needs and CE information requirements of decision makers. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2018;14:407-417. © 2018 SETAC.

Water Quality Monitoring to Support Cumulative Effects Assessment and Decision Making in the Mackenzie Valley, Northwest Territories, Canada

“…Supporting CE assessment for freshwater systems requires a level of coordination, collaboration, and science that is well beyond that observed in current practice (Jones 2016;Cronmiller and Noble 2018). Supporting CE assessment for freshwater systems requires a level of coordination, collaboration, and science that is well beyond that observed in current practice (Jones 2016;Cronmiller and Noble 2018).…”

“…Cronmiller and Noble (2018) report that monitoring programs are often less effective than intended for addressing CEs: They do not accommodate the longer term, science-based needs to understand CE pathways (Lindenmayer and Likens 2010;Schindler 2013); they are often led by different actors, each with different objectives (Lott and Jones 2010); the data generated are often incompatible across monitoring efforts (Vörösmarty et al 2010;Dubé and Wilson 2013); and what is monitored and the questions asked do not always align with the needs of those responsible for land use planning and regulatory approvals (Hegmann and Yarranton 2011;GNWT 2015;Jones 2016). Cronmiller and Noble (2018) report that monitoring programs are often less effective than intended for addressing CEs: They do not accommodate the longer term, science-based needs to understand CE pathways (Lindenmayer and Likens 2010;Schindler 2013); they are often led by different actors, each with different objectives (Lott and Jones 2010); the data generated are often incompatible across monitoring efforts (Vörösmarty et al 2010;Dubé and Wilson 2013); and what is monitored and the questions asked do not always align with the needs of those responsible for land use planning and regulatory approvals (Hegmann and Yarranton 2011;GNWT 2015;Jones 2016).…”

“…The focus is on project-specific stress and whether mitigation practices are reducing a project's stress to an acceptable level as defined by a regulatory body (Cronmiller and Noble 2018). First, there is monitoring under regulatory environmental assessment (EA), usually conducted by project proponents as part of their licensing or permitting requirements.…”

“…However, monitoring programs that function outside regulatory processes, such as regional or EEM programs, have often struggled to provide meaningful information for project-specific decisions (Lindenmayer and Likens 2010;Cronmiller and Noble 2018). However, monitoring programs that function outside regulatory processes, such as regional or EEM programs, have often struggled to provide meaningful information for project-specific decisions (Lindenmayer and Likens 2010;Cronmiller and Noble 2018).…”

“…Scholars and decision makers have argued for a more integrated framework of stressor-and effects-based monitoring, built upon a mutually supportive relationship between the monitoring (and science) that occurs inside and outside project assessment (Dubé and Munkittrick 2001;Dubé 2003;Greig and Duinker 2011;Cronmiller and Noble 2018). However, only limited research, policy, and practice has broached the monitoring program requirements-including data sharing, data compatibility, and the information most useful for CE understanding and decision making (Dubé et al 2006;Duinker et al 2013).…”