Appendix B
Glossary
Baseline: Information collected before or at the start of a given project that provides a basis for planning and/or evaluating subsequent progress and related impacts.
Control: A site (or other entity) that is similar to the conditions of site/entity to be restored, before any restoration activities take place; similarity should be judged by parameters that are relevant to project objectives.
Goal: High-level, strategic contribution of a program or endeavor. For example, a restoration goal may be to improve habitat in an area. An underlying objective could be to improve and maintain oxygenation levels adequate to sustain aquatic life within the next year. An appropriate metric could be measuring dissolved oxygen (DO) before restoration (baseline) and at control/reference site(s) every month at the restoration site. A reasonable target may be DO levels exceeding the chronic criterion for growth of 4.8 mg/L (EPA, 2000).
Metric: Attributes used to measure the degree to which restoration action(s) meets a given target; performance metrics may be quantitative or qualitative.
Objective: Concrete statement of the condition/state one expects restoration to achieve; the specific means of measuring progress towards a goal, along with clear timelines.
Reference: A site (or other entity) that is similar to the desired future state of the site/entity to be restored, after restoration activities take place; similarity should be judged by parameters that are relevant to project objectives.
Target: Expected value/level of a metric at a specified future point in time to evaluate progress; the standard against which actual results are compared and assessed.
Uncertainty: The term uncertainty as used in this report is comprised of different sources of uncertainty including a) “limited knowledge about underlying biological relationships [or processes] (structural uncertainty), sampling variation [. . .] (partial observability), and uncontrolled variation [in the environment] (partial controllability).” (Williams et al., 1996)
