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Presentation: Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN)

Slide 1

Engaging Communities in Monitoring Ecosystem Health and Improving Decision-Making

Hague Vaughan
EMAN Coordinating Office
Environment Canada

Transforming and enhancing the effectiveness of ecosystem health monitoring programs by building complimentary localized capacity in communities across Canada to collect, share and use ecological information for informed decision-making and the adaptive management of sustainability

Slide 2

S&T Service Transformation Issues

  • ISSUE 1: WHY? What are the main objectives / desired impacts of transforming S&T-based public knowledge services?
  • ISSUE 2: HOW? What are essential conditions/requirements in order to transform these services?
  • ISSUE 3: WHAT, WHEN? Which elements of the Government of Canada’s draft “Service Vision” (and future implementation strategy) are most relevant to transforming these services?

Slide 3

WHY: Societal requirements, expectations and under-filled needs

  • Inform the process of sustainability and adaptive management:
    • Timely, useful feedback
    • Place-based
    • Timeliness vs certainty
  • Inform decisions and choices of others: individuals, processes and forums
    • Characterize needs, design to deliver
  • Support appropriate inclusion of environmental info:
    • Triple Bottom Line, 5 Capitals, Continuous Improvement, Natural Step
    • Engage industry, planners, engineers

Slide 4

WHY: Societal requirements, expectations and under-filled needs: cont'd

  • Develop social capital and community engagement in inclusive processes
  • Deliver useful info to conserve or enhance ecosystem functions and services
    • Status, change, criteria and resilience
    • Relate to human health, welfare, competitiveness, environmental health
  • Meet requirements for sound, responsive, relevant policy
  • Support integrated management at multi-community, multi-use, multi-stakeholder watershed/airshed/landscape/ seascape scales
  • Outcomes as a program performance measure

Slide 5

EMAN and the Enhancement of Ecological Monitoring Effectiveness

Investigations and pilots:

  • How to better integrate & communicate science
    • The assumption of responsibility to do so
  • How to better deliver info that is specifically tailored to the needs of policy and decision-makers
  • How to develop the public capacity to generate and use that information

Slide 6

EMAN CO

Through the development and maintenance of partnerships, enhance EC’s/Canada’s capacity to collect, access, integrate, manage, interpret, apply and deliver sound data and information on ecosystem changes

Focus: Enhancing the Effectiveness of Ecosystem Monitoring through

  • Standardization
  • Engagement
  • Assessment
  • Delivery

EMAN Environmental Monitoring Variables and NatureWatch

Slide 7

EMAN Ecosystem Monitoring Protocols

Abiotic

  • Water Quality
  • (dissolved oxygen,
  • clarity)
  • Stream Flow
  • Lake Levels
  • Air Quality
  • Soil Temperature
  • Permafrost depth
  • Snow-Ice Phenol-ogy
  • Lake Sediments

Biotic

  • Species Richness and Diversity (amphibians, worms, mammals, birds, plants, benthos)
  • Indicator Species Group
  • Community Biomass
  • Community Productivity
  • Plant Phenology

Cultural

  • Land Cover Change

Slide 8

Community Ecosystem Monitoring Toolkit

  • Biota: Frogs, Salamanders, Pollinators
  • Climate: ice, plant phenology
  • Soil: worms, chopstick decomposition
  • Vegetation: tree health, seedling survival and biodiversity plots
  • Air: lichens
  • Water: benthic invertebrates
  • Other: water levels, secchi, anecdotal reports, local/traditional knowledge, social & economic indicators, valued attributes
  • Methods, data quality, data mgmt,
  • mapping, interpretation, delivery

Slide 9

Ecosystem Services

Provisioning

Goods produced or provided by ecosystems

  • Food
  • Fresh water
  • Fuel
  • Wood
  • Fiber
  • Bio-chemicals
  • Genetic resources

Regulating

Benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem processes

  • Climate regulation
  • Pest & Disease control
  • Flood control
  • Detoxification

Cultural

Non-material benefits obtained from ecosystems

  • Spiritual
  • Recreational
  • Aesthetic
  • Inspirational
  • Educational
  • Communal
  • Symbolic

Supporting

Services that maintain the conditions for life on earth

  • Soil formation
  • Nutrient cycling
  • Pollinatio

Slide 10

Environmental Monitoring Goals

  • Characterization of baseline conditions
  • Surveillance and Detection of change
  • Description of recent and historical status and trends
  • Long-term understanding or prediction of processes, linkages & relationships
  • Mandated obligations at inter-jurisdictional sites, on federal lands and in relation to species of national concern
  • Resource management including effluent effects, environmental effects monitoring, compliance, emergency measures, and establishing the need for, probable effects or success of interventions

Slide 11

Environmental Monitoring Goals

  • Delivering effective feedback on the adequacy of policies and programs and on the effects of development patterns or trends
  • Providing timely identification of emerging environmental problems
  • Providing policy-makers with a sound basis for effective action
  • Delivering information effectively to decision-makers including the public, stakeholders, research personnel, and managers so informed decisions and choices can be made

Enhancements are required.

Slide 12

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Slide 13

Exponential Change

Global Change and the Earth System, Challenges for Sustainable Development; International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP)

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Slide 14

A Human Health Adaptive Management Model

A chart of A Human Health Adaptive Management Model. This chart splits into two categories: Yes and No. Yes Category: Are you sick or at risk?, Identify the cause or threat, Treat or eliminate it, Have checkup, Dr. prepares medical report, What are your Values?, Prevention/Treatment. No Category: Monitor Your Health, Have regular medical checkup, Dr. prepares medical report, What are your Values?, Assessment.

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Slide 15

EMAN Adaptive Ecological Management Model: Initiation: Engage all stakeholders in defining Landscape and/or community sustainability(VEC); Develop corresponding ecosystem measures and guidelines; Report to community + Decision-makers on Program needs and choices; (Re)-assess Landscape Community goals if needed; Are critical species or ecosystems threatened or damages?; (at this point the chart splits into no, and yes.) If NO: Monitoring and Assessment: Monitor the status and trends of bioindicators; (back to) Report to community + Decision-makers on Program needs and choices; (continues back into the process.) If YES: Management Action: Identify Stressor(s); Model stressor action and potential intervention; Assess and communicate choice; Public decision process; Apply preferred solution through policy and action; Assess effectiveness; (back to) Report to community + Decision-makers on Program needs and choices; (continues back into the process.)

Modified from Cairns, McCormick & Niederlehner '93

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Slide 16

Opportunities & Challenges

  • Role for Community Groups
  • Need for effective delivery of environmental status, trends as feedback:
    • 3 Pillars
    • 5 Capitals
    • Continuous Improvement
    • Triple Bottom Line
  • Marketing and education
  • Approaching planners, decision-makers, officials

Slide 17

Lessons Learned: Linear Themes

Initial Context Potential Catalysts Potential Outcomes Broader Outcomes

Existing Capacity

Timing & Readiness

Political Will

Partnerships

Environmental Values

Coordination

Inciting Issues

Articulated Planning Needs

Multistakeholder Dialogue

Vision for Sustainability

Ecological Monitoring

Volunteers & Champions

Adaptive Management

Political Influence

Measurement of Indicators

Knowledge

Sosial Networks

Improved Governance

Demand-driven Science

Sustainabillity Models

 

Slide 18

Phases of Community Engagement Spiral

Phases of Community Engagement Spiral: Community Mapping, understanding Connections; Participation Assessment, Identifying Partners; Capacity Building, Making it happen; Information Gathering & Delivery.

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Slide 19

Contributing to Community Sustainability

  • Inform local decisions, facilitate adaptive management, initiate links to science, create Social Capital
  • Local definition of sustainability
  • Can Community Monitoring Network, CitizenScience and other ongoing initiatives
  • Limited experiment: basis for proposed EC program + repeat at multi-community and –sector watershed scale
  • Initial mapping: status, priorities and ownership: Ice, Lichens

Slide 20

Nature and characteristics of info to influence policy process/people

  • Relevant to problems and players;
  • Useable in form and for a specific context;
  • Targeted, accessible and understandable to its audience;
  • Integrated, and suggest a course of action;
  • Timely;
  • Allow decision-makers to weigh choices, trade-offs and consequences
  • Ensure those involved continue to be in control of the problem

Tailor these through dialogue

Slide 21

Broader Issues and Contexts Demand a Modified Approach

  • Ecological (inclusive and complex)
  • Sustainability (choice and risk)
  • Place focus (integrated, comprehensive)
  • Deliver according to the needs of decision-makers
  • Create conditions & capacity to deliver and use tailored information

Slide 22

Potential Enhancements to Environmental S&T Agencies

  • Identify and Respond to emerging concerns
  • Adaptive monitoring, surveys and research
  • Demand-driven designs
  • Focus on Delivery of needed info and Capacity to use
  • Boundary Organization Strategy?

Slide 23

Informing Stakeholder Decisions: Proposed Road Forward

  1. Fully embed in test communities; apply and improve lessons in new; develop increased parks, industrial links & approach for northern and aboriginal
  2. Research & Develop specifications for application in multi-community / multi- functional / multi-sectoral Landscapes/ seascapes/watersheds
  3. Support CCMN Community of Practice

Common Needs:

  • Central coordinating roles + Regional Centers and Networks
  • Scientific support including protocols, suites, training and databases
  • Support for pilots + Seed money for rotating ~20 month community engagement

Slide 24

Application in Other Regimes/Domains: Watersheds, Landscapes, Seascapes

  • Governance Issues: multi-community, multi-sectoral and multi-functional
  • Layer cake of licensing & governance
  • Optimization
    • Water qual/quant management, best practices, optimal yields, economic diversity, cultural values
    • Health, security, sustainability
    • Biodiversity, habitat
    • C sequestration
    • Ecological Services, functions and resilience
  • Criteria, Standards and Effective Delivery

Slide 25

Hamilton Arboreal Lichens

Hamilton Arboreal Lichens: Shows an image of the Hamilton, Ontario area, showing the escarpment outlined with a yellow line.

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Slide 26

Preliminary Vancouver Results

Contour map of air quality based on IAP values

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Slide 27

1960 to 2001 Change in Ice-Off Date

Map of Canada showing 1960 to 2001 Change in Ice-Off Date.

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Slide 28

Benefits

Individuals, Community Groups & Municipalities :

  • Standardized, comparable environmental info tailored to decision-making process
  • Support for adaptive management of resources and sustainability
  • Increased citizen engagement and social capital
  • Effective non-confrontational role for special interests
  • Inclusive process for consensus-building

Slide 29

Benefits

Municipalities Linked in Landscapes/ Watersheds

  • Ability to identify & address shared environmental planning and management concerns
  • Common, comparable data and timely information
  • Joint examination of costs/benefits of alternatives and trade-offs

Slide 30

Natural Resource Agencies

  • Consistent, timely data to support indicators, adaptive management, policy and assessments at all scales
  • Active engagement and dialogue with clients, citizens, partners, and stakeholders
  • Outreach to foster stewardship, sustainability and an engaged public making informed decisions
  • Engagement of urban communities to achieve shared environmental priorities
  • Increasingly effective delivery of research and monitoring to planners and decision-makers at community, watershed and National scales

Slide 31

Opportunities and Directions

  • Partnerships and Relationships
  • Citizen science monitoring coordination and support
  • Stakeholder engagement
  • Demand-driven monitoring and delivery
  • Outcomes as a measure of performance
  • Watershed/Landscape research: services, habitat, BMPs, resilience, governance

Slide 32

EMAN: the Power of Networks

Standardization Engagement Delivery

EMAN NSM: - Sustainability at the Landscape Level: Supporting the Process through Multi-Stakeholder Participation”. Nov 22-26, Penticton

For more information:

Slide 33

WHY: Societal requirements, expectations and under-filled needs

  • Inform the process of sustainability and adaptive management:
    • Timely, useful feedback
    • Place-based
    • Timeliness vs certainty
  • Inform decisions and choices of others: individuals, processes and forums
    • Characterize needs, design to deliver
  • Support appropriate inclusion of environmental info:
    • Triple Bottom Line, 5 Capitals, Continuous Improvement, Natural Step
    • Engage industry, planners, engineers

Slide 34

WHY: Societal requirements, expectations and under-filled needs (cont'd)

  • Develop social capital and community engagement in inclusive processes
  • Deliver useful info to conserve or enhance ecosystem functions and services
    • Status, change, criteria and resilience
    • Relate to human health, welfare, competitiveness, environmental health
  • Meet requirements for sound, responsive, relevant policy
  • Support integrated management at multi-community, multi-use, multi-stakeholder watershed/airshed/landscape/ seascape scales
  • Outcomes as a program performance measure
Last updated: 2006-02-14 Top of Page Important Notices