Follow up and monitoring

what is follow up

activites tht happen after projects approval, planned during EIA process to manage actual envirometnal effects

goal of follow up

transfrom EIA into a dynamic ongoing managment tool

is follow up a requirement

depends on jurisdiction

• federal: IAA mandates a follow up program

• provincial: varies

3 components of follow up

• Monotorining - contiruouts data collection 

  • tracking key indicators changing over time

• Auditing - analysis phase

  • Doctor comes in an takes the charts, and compares the readings overtime and establish them against various thresholds and baselines

• Ex-post eval

  • The diagnosis part of the treatment plan

    • What went wrong and what are we going to do abt it

monitoring defintion

repeptivie observation and measurment over defined period of time to answer specific questions

• Repeptiive bc single data pont is just a snap shot

• Defined period bc montitoing needs a define start and end point and usally happens over construction phases

• Most impoart part - to answer specific questions

  • Not just oclleting data for data sake.- collecting data to answering a really clear question

purpose of monitioring

identify the nature, cause and magnitude of change in valued components

rationale of monitioring

• compliance

• improve managment

• deepen understanding

compliance monitoring

• The non negoatiable legal reason 4 monitoring

  • to detmeine projects complicance with regulations. mitigations commitemnts and agreeements

  • The act of verifying the component is ticking the boxes, evidience theyre keeping promises

types of complicance monitoring

• Implementation monitoring - simple

  • direct check to enusre ooperating procedures and commitmenss are followed

    • facuility visits and reviewing roports

• regulatory permit montioring

  • tied to projects legal licence to operate

    • invovles tracking specifc condiitons required for permit maintance/renewal

• agreement montioring

  • focus on fufilling terms of agreements with affected groups ( IBAs)

    • tracks commitnets on thins like local housing, hiring and infrastrucutre demands

Monitoring for managment

confirm outcomes, verify effectivness of mitigation and provide an early warig of unexpected problems

• allows for ADAPTIVE MANAGMENT

types of monitoring for managing

• Ambient enviroment quality monitoring

  • focus on effects of project on surrounding area

    • compares data b4 and after prject to track changes

• effectivenn monitoring

  • asks if mitigation measures are actually working

    • verifys that stragegy is effective at holding impacts at acceptable levels

• cumulative effects monitoring

  • zooms out to regional cale, focusing on accumlated state of stress on enviornet from ALL DEVELOPMENTS

  • ESSENTIAL FOR UNDERSTANDING LONGTERM ENVIORMENTAL CHANGE

monitiring for understanding

• purpose

  • serve a learning fucntion, generate new knowedge that can improve future EIA and managment practices

  • instutional learning

types of monitoring for understanding

• expermimental monitoring

  • science driven where not just hoping migiagiron works but setting up a hypothetis and testing it.

  • used for when uncertainity is high and thers a need to learn how system responds

  • grasslands bison reintroduction

• monitoring for knowedlge

  • goa not to mange current project vut to procide lessons learned for mangment of future projects

  • inivles retrospectice (past) data collection

  • often happens long after projects impacts have happened

auditing

asssesment of montioring obsservations agains predetermined objectices, standrds or criteria

• not onoging like monitoring

types of audits

• Draft EIS - does report meet its ToR

• Project impact audit- were predicted impacts same as actual impacts

• decision point audit - how effectice EIS was in making the final decsion - centeral doc. Or a just a procedula doc

• Performance audit - is promoent managing enviomrenal issues well - AUDIT OF THEIR CAPABIITY

• Predictive techinuqie audit - how good were the models used to predict effects

  • Most technical - how well did our groundmodel acutally perform against reality

Ex post evaluation

final stage of follow up -  the so what stage - basically answer the question if montioring gave us the what and auditing is how are we doing- ex post = wo what does alll of this stuff mena and how are we gonna implent this in the future

• comprehensive detmeirnaiton of a projects actual impacts to make judgments, decide on remidal actions and communcate the reusluts

core acticities of ex post eval

• making value judgments- A sociotpotical conversation not really a technical one

  •  weinging actual environmental and social outcomes (all the sicentific data) and weighing agianst what was prediceted and promised and the sociteal values

  • was the societal benefits of the project worth the enviormental cost

• identifying necssary adjustments 

  • detmerin what needs to change

    • CORE OF ADAMTIVE MANAMGENT- using performance info to improve

• Determining remeidal actions 

  • planning how to fix what went wrong

• communicating the final report card

  • sharing results with reugaltos, and public to ensure transp. account. and instutional learnin

hallmakrs of an effective follow up program

• clear objectives

• targeted data collection

• hypotesis or threshold based design

• effects based- not just stress bassed

• use of control sites

• data ocnintuity

• open data and data sharing

• community engagment

clear objectives

Most important - program must be designed to answer specfic, pre-defined questions

• Danger of skipping this step and being vauge = program is data rich but information poor= useless for decision making

• SMART objectives

targeted data collection

monitoring must be focused and efficent- using early wanring inicator to detect stress before harm occurs

• cant monitor everything, focus resources on idnicator that are most useful for understanidng change and informing manamement

• early warning indicators

  • measureable paraters that singal sress on VC before irrversible harm is caused

• criteria of good indicator

  • directly related to VC, physcally and economically pssible to montior, change monitorble b4 too late, capable for quantative analsysis

hypothesis or threshold based design

program should be structured to test predictions or triger specific mnagment actions when certain level lreched

stress and effects based moitiing

cruicial to montor health of enviorment itself not just prjects outputs

stress based monitoring

measures projects actions/outputs

• ex.mesuring volume and conc. of something discharged from pipe

• underlying assumpiton - complicance = no faults and no adverse effects- why effects based is also important

• limtations

  • ignores complexity of envrioment and potential for cummlative effects

  • compliance DOES NOT EQUAL NO IMPACT

EFFECTS BASED MONITORING

measures the conditions or performance of the revicien enviormetn (the VCs)

• ex. measuring health of fish downstream from pipe

• benefit = most direct and relevant way to assess change

control sites

comparing projct sites to unaffected refernce sites= only way to isolate project specfic impacts from natural change

• control impact desing - compares project affected with asimilar unaffected control

• The gold standard - Before after control impact ( BACI)

  • data colected at both control and impact sites BEFORE PROJECT BEGINS TO ESTABLISH A BASELINE

    • can more confidnetly isolates projects true effect

data continuity

consitent methods to produce reliable, longterm trend data

• allows for comparisons that are relevant

• Standariezed operating procedures (SOPS)

  • standarized procedures for every step to ensure consitunity

  • includes robosut uquality control and assurance prjgrams to catch errors and ensure methods are followed year after year

open data and data shring

transparency builds trust and engables broder, regional understanidn ofcummaltive effects

solution = balaced appraoch

• share processand summarieslimt to non-sensetive dta- agree on standard indicators during the EA process tha can be shred openly

• foster trust and regional understranding- opend data builds trust with stakeholders and allows fro better cummative effects assssment- multiple sources

community engagment

transfers monitrong from topdown, expert driven into collabrative partnership.

• invovling local and ing. comm.

  • adds legitamcy ( more credible)

  • incorporates valuabe knoweldge

  • builds coapacity (empowers communits with knwolege to understand and mange their own enviroment)

  • more effiency - focusing monitoring on what truly matters to those most affected