Designing Monitoring Programs to Measure and Determine the Effectiveness of Habitat Restoration Acti

1
Designing Monitoring Programs to Measure and
Determine the Effectiveness of Habitat
Restoration Actions in the Lower Snake River ESU

• Policy Translation TeamSteps 1-5
• Keith Wolf (KWA-Colville.), Ian Parnell (ESSA),
• Steve Katz (NOAA), Charlie Paulsen (Paulsen
  Environmental Research), Nick Bouwes (Eco Logical
  Research)

2
Where are we now?

• March 29, 2005 version provided
• March 29, meeting notes (NWFSC) meeting provided
• Main issue is identification of mature
  monitoring questions for each step
• Progress, but design lacks essential policy
  answers for Steps 6
• Step 7 contingent upon Step 6

3
The DQO processLesson learned

• Answers to DQO question are necessary to develop
  a monitoring program
• Answers to DQO questions are currently too
  general to develop monitoring strategy
• Answers are hard to come by
• There are several types of management questions
  that each require different monitoring designs
• DQO does not incorporate communication between
  customer and those designing RME programs
• First step is to communicate with the customer to
  clarify general management question
• Run specific management question through the DQO
  process before anticipating all management needs

4
The Management Question

• To design a monitoring program we must start with
  a clear concise management question.
• Question from the customer is often too general
  (or is it the right question?)
• Must interact with the customer to mature the
  general question into a clear and concise
  management question.

5
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population response

• What are all the species, down to life-history
  type and gender, of interest?
• What are the spatial boundary of the population
  for which inferences will be made?
• What is the population response you want to
  evaluate to determine whether a change has
  occurred?
• Can/should you infer population level responses
  from discrete or independent variables (e.g.
  monitoring habitat effectiveness)?

6
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population response

• Define change in the population response (i.e.
  what is the reference and final condition)?
• What is the size of change in population response
  you want to be able to detect?
• Over what time period(s) do you want to describe
  this population response?
• Are there surrogate measures that you can be used
  to answer your question?

7
Clarifying the Management Questionexplaining
the population response

• To what factors do you want to be able to
  attribute the observed population response?
• e.g. management actions (e.g. restoration),
  changes in spawner numbers, changes in climate,
  other anthropogenic impacts (e.g. land use, water
  withdraws, etc.), natural disturbances (e.g.
  fires, landslides, floods, etc.)

8
Uncertainty, errors, and costs

• Expectation is that more resources get a better
  answer trade uncertainty for .
• Not entirely resources can improve measurement
  error, not process error.
• Strategies for reducing error can deal with
  either
• Reduce measurement error by
• Collecting more samples,
• More frequent samples,
• Cleaner protocols.
• Reduce process error by
• Doing a different experiment
• Requires a different question
• In any event the diversity of approaches is only
  limited by the diversity of experimental designs
  need specific design features before specifying
  changes to it eg
• To reduce standard error for a t-test ?Increase
  replication
• To reduce process error ? Multivariate approach
  to discriminate process

9
Error and Uncertainty

• What are the risks?
• Can we adequately describe the implications?
• Are they the same as trade-offs?
• Can risks be mitigated (i.e. err to the side of.?

10
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• Initial question
• To what degree have restoration and/or protection
  actions affected the subject population (Table 1,
  Habitat DQO)?

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Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• What are all the species, down to life-history
  type and gender, of interest?
• Answer Spring Chinook population

12
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• What are the spatial boundaries of the population
  for which inferences will be made?
• Answer Marsh creek in the middle fork of the
  salmon

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Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• What is the population response you want to
  evaluate to determine whether a change has
  occurred?
• Answer The number of outmigrating juvenile
  spring Chinook salmon per spawner.

14
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• Define change in the population response (i.e.
  what is the reference and final condition)?
• Answer Change is defined as difference between
  population response at the beginning and end of a
  10 yr period after accounting for variables
  defined in explaining the population response
  (below).

15
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• What is the size of change in population response
  you want to be able to detect?
• Answer A 15 increase in Smolts/Spawner

16
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• Over what time period(s) do you want to describe
  this population response?
• Answer 10 years from now

17
Clarifying the Management Questionthe
population responseEXAMPLE

• Are there surrogate measures that you can be used
  to answer your question?
• Answer Redd counts- so must convert to the
  number of spawning adults. Smolt traps will be
  used to provide estimates smolt abundance

18
Clarifying the Management Questionexplaining
the population response

• To what factors do you want to be able to
  attribute the observed population response?
• Answer The number of spawners, the restoration
  actions within the basin, natural disturbances,
  climate indicators, habitat inventory variables.

19
Clarifying the Management Questionexplaining
the population response

• The initial question
• To what degree have these actions affected the
  subject population?
• into
• The clarified question
• Have (the restoration projects) in Marsh creek in
  the middle fork of the Salmon River produced at
  least a 10 increase in the number of
  outmigrating juvenile spring Chinook salmon per
  spawner in 10 years (with some precision) when
  the number of spawners, natural disturbances,
  climate indicators, and habitat conditions
  not-impacted by the actions have been accounted
  for?

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Use real examples in the DQO process (e.g.
Executive table from Kratz)
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Plan of Action

• Pick a specific management question (e.g.
  subbasin plan)
• Run through question clarifier (answer questions
  through review of plan and, if need be,
  communicate with the customer)
• Fill in DQO for specific management question to
  allow development of Step 7 with Monitoring
  Design Subgroup (May)