Social Learning Through Evaluation: A Case Study of Overcoming Constraints for Management of Dryland Salinity

Conventional approaches to evaluation of environmental programs have tended to limit themselves to restricted measures of program effectiveness. This paper shows how a social learning approach can be incorporated into evaluating public environmental programs. A social learning approach is particularly suited to complex environmental challenges which are inherently difficult to understand, predict, and manage, thus complicating the evaluation process. The paper presents an Australian case study of dryland salinity management where there are major knowledge barriers impeding conventional management techniques. The research presented in this paper focused on evaluating a public demonstration program to track its impact through its design, implementation, and monitoring phases. The paper shows that, by incorporating social learning principles and practices, program evaluation can promote collective action, critical reflection, and increased knowledge to underpin improved environmental management.     

Project River Recovery: Restoration of Braided Gravel-Bed River Habitat in New Zealand’s High Country

Ecological restoration is increasingly becoming a primary component of broader environmental and water resources management programs throughout the world. The New Zealand Department of Conservation implemented Project River Recovery (PRR) in 1991 to restore unique braided gravel-bed river and wetland habitat in the Upper Waitaki Basin in New Zealand’s high country of the South Island, which has been severely impacted by hydroelectric power development. These braided rivers are highly dynamic, diverse, and globally important ecosystems and provide critical habitat to numerous native wading and shore bird species, including several threatened species such as the black stilt. The objective of this study was to review and summarize PRR after more than 10 years of implementation to provide information and transfer knowledge to other nations and restoration programs. Site visits were conducted, discussions were held with key project staff, and project reports and related literature were reviewed. Primary components of the program include pest plant and animal control, wetland construction and enhancement, a significant research and monitoring component, and public awareness. The study found that PRR is an excellent example of an ecological restoration program focusing on conserving and restoring unique habitat for threatened native bird species, but that also includes several secondary objectives. Transfer of knowledge from PRR could benefit ecological restoration programs in other parts of the world, particularly riverine floodplain and braided river restoration. PRR could achieve even greater success with expanded goals, additional resources, and increased integration of science with management, especially broader consideration of hydrologic and geomorphologic effects and restoration opportunities.     

Building the Capacity of Grassroots Conservation Organizations to Conduct Participatory Evaluation

Stakeholder participation has become a key factor in the success of grassroots conservation and natural resource management programs. Yet the majority of program evaluations are conducted by external consultants for the purposes of accountability, rather than program improvement. Too often, systematic evaluations of conservation programs are not conducted at all. The objective of this study was to build the capacity of a grassroots conservation organization to conduct participatory evaluation, involving project stakeholders in the design, implementation, and use of evaluation. The study applied a conceptual model for participatory evaluation to the Wildlife Clubs of Kenya (WCK), the largest grassroots conservation program for youth in Africa, involving more than one million youth since 1968. Seven trainings in participatory evaluation were conducted with WCK staff, teachers, and community members. The 120 participants, representing nine WCK regions with 800 clubs, showed a significant increase in attitudes and knowledge regarding evaluation, as reflected by mean test scores before and after training. To institutionalize evaluation at WCK, existing organizational practices were assessed and used as a foundation for developing an evaluation system. Based on club competitions, a new evaluation initiative was launched called the WCK Incentive Program. Participants in all seven workshops identified indicators and sources of evidence for this evaluation system, which now serves as a basis for rewarding outstanding performance in WCK. This study revealed the importance of incentives for evaluation, the need to build on existing structures to promote organizational learning, and the necessity for the conservation community to commit resources to capacity building in participatory evaluation.     

Multiscale Drivers of Water Chemistry of Boreal Lakes and Streams

The variability in surface water chemistry within and between aquatic ecosystems is regulated by many factors operating at several spatial and temporal scales. The importance of geographic, regional-, and local-scale factors as drivers of the natural variability of three water chemistry variables representing buffering capacity and the importance of weathering (acid neutralizing capacity, ANC), nutrient concentration (total phosphorus, TP), and importance of allochthonous inputs (total organic carbon, TOC) were studied in boreal streams and lakes using a method of variance decomposition. Partial redundancy analysis (pRDA) of ANC, TP, and TOC and 38 environmental variables in 361 lakes and 390 streams showed the importance of the interaction between geographic position and regional-scale variables. Geographic position and regional-scale factors combined explained 15.3% (streams) and 10.6% (lakes) of the variation in ANC, TP, and TOC. The unique variance explained by geographic, regional, and local-scale variables alone was <10%. The largest amount of variance was explained by the pure effect of regional-scale variables (9.9% for streams and 7.8% for lakes), followed by local-scale variables (2.9% and 5.8%) and geographic position (1.8% and 3.7%). The combined effect of geographic position, regional-, and local-scale variables accounted for between 30.3% (lakes) and 39.9% (streams) of the variance in surface water chemistry. These findings lend support to the conjecture that lakes and streams are intimately linked to their catchments and have important implications regarding conservation and restoration (management) endeavors.     

Integrating long-term stewardship goals into the remediation process: natural resource damages and the Department of Energy

The United States and other developed countries are faced with restoring and managing degraded ecosystems. Evaluations of the degradation of ecological resources can be used for determining ecological risk, making remediation or restoration decisions, aiding stakeholders with future land use decisions, and assessing natural resource damages. Department of Energy (DOE) lands provide a useful case study for examining degradation of ecological resources in light of past or present land uses and natural resource damage assessment (NRDA). We suggest that past site history should be incorporated into the cleanup and restoration phase to reduce the ultimate NRDA costs, and hasten resource recovery. The lands that DOE purchased over 50 years ago ranged from relatively undisturbed to heavily impacted farmland, and the impact that occurred from DOE occupation varies from regeneration of natural ecosystems (benefits) to increased exposure to several stressors (negative effects). During the time of the DOE releases, other changes occurred on the lands, including recovery from the disturbance effects of farming, grazing, and residential occupation, and the cessation of human disturbance. Thus, the injury to natural resources that occurred as a result of chemical and radiological releases occurred on top of recovery of already degraded systems. Both spatial (size and dispersion of patch types) and temporal (past/present/future land use and ecological condition) components are critical aspects of resource evaluation, restoration, and NRDA. For many DOE sites, integrating natural resource restoration with remediation to reduce or eliminate the need for NRDA could be a win-win situation for both responsible parties and natural resource trustees by eliminating costly NRDAs by both sides, and by restoring natural resources to a level that satisfies the trustees, while being cost-effective for the responsible parties. It requires integration of remediation, restoration, and end-state planning to a greater degree than is currently done at most DOE sites.     

Public support for ecosystem restoration in the Hudson River Valley,USA

We applied the Theory of Planned Behavior to help understand the relationships between environmental beliefs, support for ecosystem restoration actions, and willingness to pay (WTP) for restoration and protection goals in the Hudson River estuary, New York State, USA. We conducted a mail survey with 3,000 randomly-chosen local residents of the Hudson River estuary in the fall of 1999. As hypothesized, the broad ecosystem restoration goals of the Hudson River Estuary Action Plan were more strongly supported than the corresponding specific implementation actions. We found that beliefs and past behavior were better explanatory variables than sociodemographic characteristics for explaining people's support for ecosystem restoration actions and WTP for restoration and protection goals. Because ecosystem restoration goals appear to be more generally acceptable than specific restoration actions, proponents of restoration programs should not become complacent about the need for active public outreach and involvement even if initial restoration program discussions have been low in controversy. Efforts to assess and foster support for ecosystem restoration should be targeted toward audiences identified on the basis of beliefs and past behaviors rather than on sociodemographic characteristics.     

Evaluating public participation in environmental decision-making: EPA's superfund community involvement program

This article discusses an 8-year, ongoing project that evaluates the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund community involvement program. The project originated as a response to the Government Performance and Results Act, which requires federal agencies to articulate program goals, and evaluate and report their progress in meeting those goals. The evaluation project assesses how effective the Superfund community involvement program is in promoting public participation in decisions about how to clean up hazardous wastes at Superfund sites. We do three things in the article: (1) share our experience with evaluating an Agency public participation program, including lessons learned about methods of evaluation; (2) report evaluation results; and (3) address a number of issues pertaining to the evaluation of public participation in environmental decision-making. Our goal is to encourage more environmental managers to incorporate evaluation into their public participation programs as a tool for improving them. We found that written mail surveys were an effective and economical tool for obtaining feedback on EPA's community involvement program at Superfund sites. The evaluation focused on four criteria: citizen satisfaction with EPA information about the Superfund site, citizen understanding of environmental and human health risks associated with the site, citizen satisfaction with opportunities provided by EPA for community input, and citizen satisfaction with EPA's response to community input. While the evaluation results were mixed, in general, community members who were most informed about and involved in the cleanup process at Superfund sites generally were also the most satisfied with the community involvement process, and the job that EPA was doing cleaning up the site. We conclude that systematic evaluation provides meaningful and useful information that agencies can use to improve their public participation programs. However, there need to be institutionalized processes that ensure evaluation results are used to develop and implement strategies for improvement.     

Evaluation model for developing,implementing, and assessing conservation education programs: Examples from Belize and Costa Rica

Evaluation of conservation education programs can: (1) provide accountability in demonstrating a program's worth, (2) offer an opportunity for receiving feedback and improving programs, (3) further our understanding of the process of program development, and (4) promote conservation education by substantiating claims about its benefits. The Planning-Process-Product systems evaluation model provides feedback needed for making decisions about the development, implementation, and outcome of a program. Planning evaluation was useful in assessing the needs, goals, opportunities, and constraints of a number of programs in Costa Rica and Belize, such as a forestry education project and a zoo outreach program. It provided a basis for making planning decisions incorporating specific objectives, such as the reforestation of a region or a change in knowledge and attitudes in program participants. Process evaluation provided a Costa Rican sustainable development program with feedback during its implementation and enabled it to modify and improve its newsletter for local farmers and its ecology classes for school children. Product evaluation assessed project accomplishments, such as the $700,000 raised by the Children's Rainforest group and the 20 miles of riparian land under conservation management as part of the Belize Community Baboon Sanctuary project. Outcomes are compared with the programs original monetary or land management objectives to determine the success of the programs and to provide feedback for improvement.     

A pest is a pest is a pest? The dilemma of neotropical leaf-cutting ants: Keystone taxa of natural ecosystems

Leaf-cutting ants of the generaAcromyrmex andAtta are considered the principal polyphagous pests of the Neotropics Although some members of these genera are of economic importance, have a broad geographic distribution, and are extremely good colonizers, others are endemic and closely interact with native ecosystems. Control is generally practiced against any colony, irrespective of its taxonomic status. Indiscriminate control coupled with habitat destruction threatens endemic species with extinction, and, through habitat simplification, favors other pest species. As nests ofAtta are large, having several square meters of nest surface, the endemic taxa can be easily used as environmental indicators for natural ecosystems Likewise, the pest species can be used to detect environmental disturbance As these ants are keystone species and easily identified by nonspecialists, efforts should be made to integrate these into viable conservation programs     

The need to integrate values into environmental curricula

Many environmental problems are controversial because of conflicting values people hold and because there is not a consensus as to which values should have precedence over others. If environmental managers are to make ethical decisions that reflect environmental values, they must have full understanding of such values and types of ethics and principles of moral reasoning to use in the decision-making process. Unfortunately, integration of values into environmental curricula has often not been explicit or comprehensive. One result is that university-trained environmental managers do not possess the knowledge, skills, and methods necessary for more ethically based decisions. An analysis of attitudes about integrating values and/or ethics into environmental curricula and approaches to do so yields the conclusion that environmental programs should more fully include teaching about values and ethics so that environmental managers can make more ethically sound decisions.     

Lack of theoretical basis for predicting rate and pathways of recovery

An inadequate basis for precisely predicting the outcome of lotic ecosystem recovery, whether due to unaided natural processes or management techniques or both, exists because: (1) the field of ecology has not yet matured as a rigorous predictive science; (2) the precise sequence of events, including climatic occurrences, affecting the recovery process may be unique events and thus rarely or never repeated; and (3) even when attempts are made to control the recolonization process through introduction of species, etc., the interaction of these species may not follow deterministic models. Although this symposium focuses on lotic ecosystems, such systems are influenced strongly by exports from the surrounding land mass and, under certain circumstances, this may be the overriding influence on the recovery process; therefore, unless the boundary conditions are determined realistically, the recovery process may not follow desirable pathways. Despite the lack of a robust theoretical support base for lotic ecosystem recovery, some remarkable and rapid recoveries have occurred to either a close approximation of the original condition or to a condition ecologically superior to the damaged condition. In some cases, the recovery was due entirely to natural processes and, in others, often followed relatively straightforward management practices. There is evidence indicating that lotic ecosystem restoration is both cost effective and likely to produce satisfying results relatively rapidly. It is both fortunate that this is the case, since society is likely to support such efforts when the results have been extraordinarily successful, and unfortunate since restoration ecology needs a predictive capability.     

Adaptive management for sound ecosystem management

Sound ecosystem management meshes socioeconomic attitudes and values with sustainable natural resource practices. Adaptive management is a model for guiding natural resource managers in this process. Ecosystems and the societies that use them are continually evolving. Therefore, managers must be flexible and adaptable in the face of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. To couple good science to management, it is important to develop goals, models, and hypotheses that allow us to systematically learn as we manage. Goals and models guide the development and implementation of management practices. The need to evaluate models and test hypotheses mandates monitoring, which feeds into a continuous cycle of goal and model reformulation. This paper reviews the process of adaptive management and describes how it is being applied to oak/pine savanna restoration at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge as an illustration. Our aim is to help managers design their own adaptive management models for successful ecosystem management.     

Estimating the Cumulative Ecological Effect of Local Scale Landscape Changes in South Florida

Ecosystem restoration in south Florida is a state and national priority centered on the Everglades wetlands. However, urban development pressures affect the restoration potential and remaining habitat functions of the natural undeveloped areas. Land use (LU) planning often focuses at the local level, but a better understanding of the cumulative effects of small projects at the landscape level is needed to support ecosystem restoration and preservation. The South Florida Ecosystem Portfolio Model (SFL EPM) is a regional LU planning tool developed to help stakeholders visualize LU scenario evaluation and improve communication about regional effects of LU decisions. One component of the SFL EPM is ecological value (EV), which is evaluated through modeled ecological criteria related to ecosystem services using metrics for (1) biodiversity potential, (2) threatened and endangered species, (3) rare and unique habitats, (4) landscape pattern and fragmentation, (5) water quality buffer potential, and (6) ecological restoration potential. In this article, we demonstrate the calculation of EV using two case studies: (1) assessing altered EV in the Biscayne Gateway area by comparing 2004 LU to potential LU in 2025 and 2050, and (2) the cumulative impact of adding limestone mines south of Miami. Our analyses spatially convey changing regional EV resulting from conversion of local natural and agricultural areas to urban, industrial, or extractive use. Different simulated local LU scenarios may result in different alterations in calculated regional EV. These case studies demonstrate methods that may facilitate evaluation of potential future LU patterns and incorporate EV into decision making.     

Environmental impact assessment: An international evaluation

Experiences with environmental impact assessment (EIA) in a number of countries are discussed in the light of both explicit and implicit goals and objectives. Adequate environmental information is not always available to decision makers because of failure to apply EIA to all relevant decisions, the continuing inadequacies of prediction and evaluation techniques, the failure to consider alternatives adequately, and the bias of some EISs. EIA frequently results in changes to proposals and may result in stricter environmental management conditions in some cases, but some people regard it as a failure because it has not stopped development. Generally, EIA leads to better integration of environmental factors into project planning. Open procedures and freedom of information encourage responsiveness to EIA procedures, which can be weakened by discretionary powers and lack of access to the courts by public interest groups. However, legal standing may have side effects that offset its advantages. EIA can encourage cooperation and coordination between agencies but does not ensure them. Similarly, it can have a limited role in coordinating interstate and international policies. In the long term, the success of EIA depends on adequate monitoring, reassessment, and enforcement over the life of the project. EIA has generally opened up new opportunities for public participation, and may help to reduce conflict. EIA procedures need to be integrated with other environmental protection and development control programs, and various means exist for reducing its cost to developers and the public.     

Bridging Disciplines, Knowledge Systems and Cultures in Pest Management

The success of research in integrated environmental and natural resource management relies on the participation and involvement of different disciplines and stakeholders. This can be difficult to achieve in practice because many initiatives fail to address the underlying social processes required for successful engagement and social learning. We used an action research approach to support a research-based group with a range of disciplinary and stakeholder expertise to critically reflect on their engagement practice and identify lessons around how to collaborate more effectively. This approach is provided here as a guide that can be used to support reflective research practice for engagement in other integration-based initiatives. This paper is set in the context of an integrated wildlife management research case study in New Zealand. We illustrate how multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches can provide a framework for considering the different conversations that need to occur in an integrated research program. We then outline rubrics that list the criteria required in inter- and trans-disciplinary collaborations, along with examples of effective engagement processes that directly support integration through such efforts. Finally, we discuss the implications of these experiences for other researchers and managers seeking to improve engagement and collaboration in integrated science, management and policy initiatives. Our experiences reaffirm the need for those involved in integrative initiatives to attend to the processes of engagement in both formal and informal settings, to provide opportunities for critical reflective practice, and to look for measures of success that acknowledge the importance of effective social process.     

Early Development of Systems Analysis in Natural Resources Management from Man and Nature to the Miami Conservancy District

Contemporary approaches to natural resources and environmental decision-making typically draw on a “systems” perspective to assess and improve management strategies. This paper describes the early genesis of the systems analysis approach. It concentrates on a period between the mid-19th to early 20th centuries. During the early part of this period, George Marsh's Man and Nature and related works laid out an approach to problem-solving that recognized the relationship among physically disperse elements in the environment, the need to balance benefits against costs, the potential for using quantitative modeling to understand management options, and the importance of integrating human and natural components into solutions. In the early 20th century, the Miami Conservancy District project brought this approach to fruition with its use of complex simulation and optimization modeling, detailed cost–benefit analysis, and its linking of economics, engineering, science, and law into a far-reaching solution to a complex water resources problem. The objective of this paper is to describe the early development and application of this conceptual approach to problem-solving. An examination of the origins of natural resources systems analysis can broaden one's perspective of the contemporary field to understand its roots as a philosophy for environmental problem-solving.     

Environmental planning,ecosystem science,and ecosystem approaches for integrating environment and development

Currently popular concepts such as sustainable development and sustainability seek the integration of environment and development planning. However, there is little evidence that this integration is occurring in either mainstream development planning or environmental planning. This is a function of the history, philosophies, and evolved roles of both. A brief review of the experience and results of mainstream planning, environmental planning, and ecosystem science suggests there is much in past scientific and professional practice that is relevant to the goal of integrated planning for environment and development, but still such commonly recommended reforms as systems and multidisciplinary approaches, institutional integration, and participatory, goal-oriented processes are rarely achieved. “Ecosystem approaches,” as developed and applied in ecology, human ecology, environmental planning, anthropology, psychology, and other disciplines, may provide a more transdisciplinary route to successful integration of environment and development. Experience with ecosystem approaches is reviewed, their advantages and disadvantages are discussed, and they are compared to traditional urban and regional planning, environmental planning, and ecosystem science approaches. Ultimately a synthesis of desirable characteristics for a framework to integrate environment and development planning is presented as a guide for future work and a criterion for evaluating existing programs.     

The significance of environmental impacts: an exploration of the concept

Since environmental impact assessment (EIA) is concerned primarily withsignificant environmental impacts, the concept of impact significance deserves to be defined and applied rigorously. In this article use of the term over the past 15 years in EIA documentation is reviewed. Some recent attempts at elucidating the concept are summarized. Four perspectives on impact significance that emerged from a series of workshops on the ecological basis for EIA are presented. These perspectives include (a) statistical (related to problems of isolating project-induced changes from natural variation), (b) ecological (related to the importance of project-induced changes from a purely ecological perspective), (c) social (related to the acceptability of project-induced changes in important environmental attributes), and (d) project (related to whether project-induced changes will indeed influence project decision making). The following synthesis is proposed: Any exercise in judging the significance of an environmental impact should thoroughly consider (a) the importance of the environmental attribute in question to project decision makers, (2) the distribution of change in time and space, (c) the magnitude of change, and (d) the reliability with which change has been predicted or measured. The implications of considering these factors are discussed.     

The environmental quality business plan: A step-by-step guide

Companies that have the most effective environmental programs are those that have integrated environmental management into the business process. In order to take an environmental program to a higher level, we must determine a way to get business leaders to acknowledge the business benefit of environmental programs. Business integration becomes more likely when you speak the language of management and present tools that they regularly use. Most companies use business plans, therefore the use of an environmental quality business plan is a segue into the business. To catch management's attention, we must present cost improvement projects that will be part of the environmental quality business plan that affect the bottom line. Examples of the types of projects that could potentially save the company millions of dollars are reducing the cost of remediation, or pollution-prevention projects such as minimizing packaging and the elimination of chemical use and waste. Once we catch management's attention, we can get them involved in developing an environmental quality business plan and thus get more business integration and support.     

RESERVOIR WATER QUALITY SAMPLING DESIGN1

ABSTRACT: The design of monitoring programs often serves as one of the major sources of error or uncertainty in water quality data. Properly designed programs should minimize uncertainty or at least provide a means by which variability can be partitioned into recognizable components. While the design of sampling programs has received recent attention, commonly employed strategies for limnological sampling of lakes may not be completely appropriate for many reservoirs. Based on NES data, reservoirs are generally larger, deeper, and morphologically more complex than natural lakes. Reservoirs also receive a majority of their inflow from a single tributary located a considerable distance from the point of outflow. The result is the establishment of marked physical, biological, and chemical gradients from headwater to dam. The existence of horizontal as well as vertical gradients, and their importance in water quality sampling design were the subject of intensive transect sampling efforts at DeGray Lake, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reservoir in southern Arkansas. Data collected were used to partition Variance, identify areas of similarity, and demonstrate how an equitable sampling program might be designed.