Monitoring Ecological Impacts: Concepts and Practice in Flowing Waters

by Barbara J. Downes , Leon A. Barmuta , Peter G. Fairweather , Daniel P. Faith , Michael J. Keough , P. S. Lake , Bruce D. Mapstone , Gerry P. Quinn

• ISBN13: 9780521771573
• ISBN10: 0521771579
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-02-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Monitoring Ecological Impacts provides the tools needed to design assessment programs that can reliably monitor, detect, and allow management of human impacts on the natural environment. The procedures described are well-grounded in inferential logic, and the statistical models needed to analyse complex data are given. Step-by-step guidelines and flow diagrams provide clear and useable protocols which can be applied in any region of the world, a wide range of human impacts, and any ecosystem. In addition, real examples are used to show how the theory can be put into practice.

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	xi
Part I Introduction to the nature of monitoring problems and to rivers	1	(42)
Why we need well-designed monitoring programs	3	(11)
Human pressures on flowing waters	3	(2)
The need for this book	5	(2)
The scope, approach and intended audiences of this book	7	(2)
The structure of the book and the purpose of each of the chapters	9	(4)
Important issue	13	(1)
The ecological nature of flowing waters	14	(14)
Rivers and their catchments	14	(4)
The biota of rivers and streams	18	(2)
Concepts of river structure and functioning	20	(3)
Issues of scale and patchiness in flowing waters	23	(3)
Important issues	26	(2)
Assessment of perturbation	28	(15)
Types of disturbance	28	(7)
The purposes of monitoring	35	(7)
Important issues	42	(1)
Part II Principles of inference and design	43	(152)
Inferential issues for monitoring	45	(70)
Sampling	47	(1)
Uncertainty and probability	48	(6)
Variables	54	(3)
Estimation	57	(4)
Statistical models	61	(15)
Analysis of variance (ANOVA)	76	(6)
Hypothesis-testing: classical approach	82	(12)
Hypothesis-testing: the Bayesian approach	94	(3)
Assumptions of statistical analyses of monitoring programs	97	(8)
Univariate and multivariate analysis	105	(8)
Important issues	113	(2)
The logical bases of monitoring design	115	(22)
Classes of monitoring	116	(1)
Monitoring to detect human impacts on the environment	117	(3)
BACI designs	120	(5)
Scales of impact and monitoring	125	(9)
Careful design is the most important step	134	(1)
Important issues	134	(3)
Problems in applying designs	137	(27)
A brief historical sketch	137	(5)
Problems inherent in the nature of rivers	142	(9)
Problems arising from the types of variables used	151	(7)
Social, institutional and political issues	158	(4)
Important issues	162	(2)
Alternative models for impact assessment	164	(31)
Background of approaches	166	(6)
These approaches are different!	172	(2)
Formal sampling and analytical framework	174	(14)
Power considerations	188	(4)
Detecting more subtle effects	192	(1)
Extent of impacts	193	(1)
Flexible analysis/inflexible hypothesis	194	(1)
Important issues	194	(1)
Part III Applying principles of inference and design	195	(197)
Applying monitoring designs to flowing waters	197	(52)
Spatial variation and the location of controls	198	(26)
Temporal variation, and Before and After sampling	224	(10)
Doing the sampling	234	(1)
A worked example - effects of liming to decrease acidity	234	(13)
Important issues	247	(2)
Inferential uncertainty and multiple lines of evidence	249	(40)
A brief revisit of inferential uncertainty and probability	251	(2)
A leves-of-evidence approach	253	(7)
A suggested step-by-step guide to using a levels-of-evidence approach	260	(26)
Some final comments on the process	286	(1)
Important issues	286	(3)
Variables that are used for monitoring in flowing waters	289	(17)
Considerations for choosing variables	298	(5)
Relative weighting of attributes	303	(2)
Important issues	305	(1)
Defining important changes	306	(17)
Why do we need to define changes in terms of `effect sizes'?	306	(4)
Kinds of change, risks and consequences	310	(4)
Practical steps, and some difficulties, in setting an effect size	314	(6)
Important issues	320	(3)
Decisions and trade-offs	323	(18)
Making statistical decisions	323	(3)
Balancing Type I and Type II errors	326	(10)
Cost-benefit analysis and design	336	(1)
Further variations on balanced decision-making	337	(2)
Important issues	339	(2)
Optimization	341	(27)
What we mean by optimization	341	(1)
By now you should have...	341	(2)
You will need an estimate of variance	343	(2)
Developing an idealized sampling scheme...	345	(2)
Trading off	347	(5)
Uncertainty in optimization	352	(1)
Post-monitoring `optimization': implications for decision criteria	353	(1)
A worked example - liming to decrease acidity of streams	354	(12)
Important issues	366	(2)
The special case of monitoring attempts at restoration	368	(13)
Issues concerning the study of ecological restoration	369	(1)
Can BACI designs be applied to ecological restoration?	370	(4)
Analytical techniques applicable to restoration monitoring	374	(3)
How long should we monitor attempts at restoration?	377	(1)
The need for clarity in declaring the goals of restoration	378	(2)
Important issues	380	(1)
What's next?	381	(11)
Links with management decisions as points of negotiation	381	(2)
Changing monitoring objectives with progress in understanding	383	(1)
Role of experiments in verifying mechanistic understanding of an impact	383	(2)
How do we evaluate the effectiveness of a monitoring program?	385	(1)
What research could complement monitoring programs?	386	(1)
Reiterating the principles of this book	386	(6)
References	392	(29)
Index	421