Managing Troubled Waters The Role of Marine Environmental Monitoring (1990) / Chapter Skim
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2 The Role of Monitoring in Environmental Management
2 The Role of Monitoring in Environmental Management
Pages 19-37
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From page 19... ...
For example, monitoring coliform bacteria as an indicator of human fecal contamination has been an effective public health measure for decades, triggering direct management actions to close beaches to swimming or shellfish beds to harvesting or to eliminate or improve the treatment of sewage discharges. Other uses of monitoring results include: · Providing environmental managers with a rationale for setting standards.
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From page 20... ...
The Costs of Not Monitoring The costs of not monitoring-or of monitoring ineffectively-include failure to obtain the information needed to assess environmental conditions, to validate and verily predictive models, and to chronicle changes in the environment resulting from natural variations, management actions, and pollution impacts. In short, the cost of not adequately monitoring is a serious shortcoming in our efforts to protect and restore marine environmental quality.
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From page 21... ...
Reflecting the public's concerns, Congress acted swiftly by passing the Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988. Although it can be argued that an improved or more extensive monitoring program could have resolved the issue more effectively, the example points out the inherent limitations of monitoring in linking unexpected phenomena to their causes.
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From page 22... ...
Success Stones in Monitoring The following examples of monitoring to protect public health, validate water quality models, and evaluate pollution abatement have two common characteristics. In all cases, monitoring provided clear and important input to management decisions, and it was targeted at issues that the public and decision makers recognized as important.
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From page 23... ...
Validating Models: Examples from Modeling Estuarine Water Quality One measure of successful monitoring is its contribution to better management decisions. An important use of monitoring results is to calibrate, validate, and verify mathematical models used to forecast the consequences of implementing different management strategies.
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From page 24... ...
After the plants were in operation, the predicted improvements in DO compared well with observed conditions. The models were subsequently used in evaluating additional upgrading of the waste treatment plants and preliminarily assessing the impacts of combined sewer overflows and urban runoff on water quality.
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From page 25... ...
Similarly, monitoring has documented significantly improved water quality, particularly DO concentrations, due to new and upgraded wastewater plants in New York and along the Delaware River estuary. Extensive monitoring performed by municipal dischargers and other public agencies in the Southern California Bight provides other examples of the effectiveness of pollution abatement (NRC in press)
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From page 26... ...
This often poorly defined picture is further confused by the many expectations, viewpoints, and interpretations of the diverse parties involved, from the general public to highly qualified technical specialists. A variety of institutions with different mandates and contributions sponsor marine environmental monitoring and use the information generated by monitoring programs.
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From page 27... ...
Elected officials and appointed members of the executive branches of government are responsible for enacting legislation, setting policy, and controlling agency finances. Elected officials mainly influence marine monitoring programs by developing and modifying legislation that requires marine monitoring activities and by controlling the budgets of agencies responsible for the monitoring programs.
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From page 28... ...
Concerns raised by Maryland officials, for example, about the lack of information needed to define the extent of pollution problems or set priorities for remediation programs were influential in obtaining state and federal funding for Chesapeake Bay monitoring programs. Without visible and active political support, the scope of these programs would have been greatly reduced, and much information about the extent of pollution problems in the bay would not have been collected.
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From page 29... ...
They measure selected water quality variables and routinely report their results to the Chesapeake Bay data center. Citizens who are involved in the program obtain a firsthand awareness of monitoring by taking relatively simple environmental measurements.
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From page 30... ...
In contrast, monitoring programs involving sewage discharges, stormwater runoff, and their effects on human health and living resources in the Southern California Bight have been less successful in building public awareness and confidence. Involving the public in a meaningful way must be actively pursued if support for monitoring is to be gained and maintained and monitoring results are to shape public opinion.
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From page 31... ...
Although setting such broad goals is appropriate for legislation of a national or statewide scope and overspecification of criteria in statutes would have far worse consequences, such generalities leave the implementing agency- and the dischargers with the difficult task of defining specific criteria meaningful for use in designing monitoring programs. Establishing these criteria is often contentious, involving arguments over whether they are meaningful with respect to the statutory or regulatory goal, are too prone to the influence
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From page 32... ...
An example of the great influence of these criteria comes from the regulation of wastewater discharges off Southern California. Through monitoring programs, it was discovered that brittle stars (the ophiuroid Amphioda urt;=a)
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From page 33... ...
. In addition, many marine environmental monitoring programs suffer from the lack of continuity of support needed to define variability and trends or, at least, from frequent uncertainty about the continuity of support.
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From page 34... ...
In addition to the need for technical specialists capable of generating high-quality chemical, biological, and physical data, effective monitoring requires individuals with broad skills and experience in experimental design; data analysis, synthesis, and interpretation; communication of results; and environmental management. Dedicated guidance by one or a few broadly trained and experienced individuals is essential to the success of monitoring programs (Strayer et al.
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From page 35... ...
Monitoring, on the other hand, may be an ineffective reaction to a problem with clear causes and solutions, but for which these solutions may be costly or unpopular. When the problem of floatable materials stranding on New Jersey beaches stimulated great public concern in 1988, state and federal agencies implemented various floatable monitoring programs.
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From page 36... ...
Criteria to guide agency decisions regarding why, when, what, and how to monitor and why, when, and what to stop monitoring as well as guidance on when and how to integrate monitoring data into decision making need to be developed. For the monitoring practitioner who has to work within this complex public policy and environmental management milieu, effectiveness may be best increased by improvements in the presentation of monitoring results to decision makers.
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From page 37... ...
9. Monitoring programs should include mechanisms for periodic review and easy alteration or redirection of efforts when monitoring results or new information from other sources justifies a change.
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