Implementation Monitoring

There are two kinds of monitoring:  effectiveness monitoring and implementation monitoring. The type of monitoring discussed here is implementation monitoring. Effectiveness monitoring is discussed in a later section, and requires taking baseline data to record the conditions at your site before you make any changes.

Implementation monitoring involves making sure the project is completed according to plan. Sometimes your monitoring may indicate that the plan needs changing as the project progresses, but your ecological objectives should not change. If your project needs a fundamental goal shift midstream, you should probably do a complete re-evaluation.

All stages of your work should be documented, and the documentation updated daily as part of your implementation monitoring. You'll need to keep good field notes and take lots of photos. Implementation monitoring includes documenting the final result of your efforts as part of a project report (see 'Project Reporting'). This is essential, because few projects are done exactly as planned - differences from the original prescription should be noted and explained. Your photos and descriptions of your methods, costs and results will be an important part of this document, and will be essential to future effectiveness monitoring.

Objectives specified by regulatory agencies must sometimes be monitored in order to satisfy regulatory requirements. This may occur when there are concerns about water quality, air quality or fire risk as a result of your project, and all parties should be very clear on how this type of monitoring and data are to be handled.

Laurie Smith
Monitoring water quality during the course of restoration work is a common form of implementation monitoring. The detailed protocol for such monitoring needs to be worked out with regulatory agencies prior to the start of the project.