Program Goals, Purpose, and Definitions

Justification for Integrated Natural Resource Monitoring

Knowing the condition of natural resources in national parks is fundamental to the Service's ability to manage park resources "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." National Park managers across the country are confronted with increasingly complex and challenging issues that require a broad-based understanding of the status and trends of park resources as a basis for making decisions and working with other agencies and the public for the benefit of park resources. For years, managers and scientists have sought a way to characterize and determine trends in the condition of parks and other protected areas to assess the efficacy of management practices and restoration efforts and to provide early warning of impending threats. The challenge of protecting and managing a park's natural resources requires a multi-agency, ecosystem approach because most parks are open systems, with threats such as air and water pollution, or invasive species, originating outside of the park's boundaries. An ecosystem approach is further needed because no single spatial or temporal scale is appropriate for all system components and processes; the appropriate scale for understanding and effectively managing a resource might be at the population, species, community, or landscape level, and in some cases may require a regional, national or international effort to understand and manage the resource. National parks are part of larger ecosystems and must be managed in that context.

Natural resource monitoring provides site-specific information needed to understand and identify change in complex, variable, and imperfectly understood natural systems and to determine whether observed changes are within natural levels of variability or may be indicators of unwanted human influences. Thus, monitoring provides a basis for understanding and identifying meaningful change in natural systems characterized by complexity, variability, and surprises. Monitoring data help to define the normal limits of natural variation in park resources and provide a basis for understanding observed changes; monitoring results may also be used to determine what constitutes impairment and to identify the need to initiate or change management practices. Understanding the dynamic nature of park ecosystems and the consequences of human activities is essential for management decision-making aimed to maintain, enhance, or restore the ecological integrity of park ecosystems and to avoid, minimize, or mitigate ecological threats to these systems (Roman and Barrett 1999).

The intent of park vital signs monitoring is to track a subset of physical, chemical, and biological elements and processes of park ecosystems that are selected to represent the overall health or condition of park resources, known or hypothesized effects of stressors, or elements that have important human values. The elements and processes that are monitored are a subset of the total suite of natural resources that park managers are directed to preserve "unimpaired for future generations," including water, air, geological resources, plants and animals, and the various ecological, biological, and physical processes that act on those resources. In situations where natural areas have been so highly altered that physical and biological processes no longer operate (e.g., control of fires and floods in developed areas), information obtained through monitoring can help managers understand how to develop the most effective approach to restoration or, in cases where restoration is impossible, ecologically sound management. The broad-based, scientifically sound information obtained through natural resource monitoring will have multiple applications for management decision-making, research, education, and promoting public understanding of park resources.

The five Goals of Vital Signs Monitoring that the 32 networks of parks are addressing as they design and implement their natural resource monitoring program are as follows:

Determine the status and trends in selected indicators of the condition of park ecosystems to allow managers to make better-informed decisions and to work more effectively with other agencies and individuals for the benefit of park resources.
Provide early warning of abnormal conditions of selected resources to help develop effective mitigation measures and reduce costs of management.
Provide data to better understand the dynamic nature and condition of park ecosystems and to provide reference points for comparisons with other, altered environments.
Provide data to meet certain legal and Congressional mandates related to natural resource protection and visitor enjoyment.
Provide a means of measuring progress towards performance goals.

An effective long-term ecosystem monitoring program will:

Enable managers to make better informed management decisions;
Provide early warning of abnormal conditions in time to develop effective mitigation measures;
Provide data to convince other agencies and individuals to make decisions benefiting parks;
Satisfy certain legal mandates; and
Provide reference data for comparison with more disturbed sites.

Legislation and Policy

National Park managers are directed by federal law and National Park Service policies and guidance to know the status and trends in the condition of natural resources under their stewardship in order to fulfill the NPS mission of conserving parks unimpaired (see Summary of Laws, Policies, and Guidance). The mission of the National Park Service (National Park Service Organic Act, 1916) is:

"...to promote and regulate the use of the Federal areas known as national parks, monuments, and reservations hereinafter specified by such means and measures as conform to the fundamental purposes of the said parks, monuments, and reservations, which purpose is to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations".

Congress strengthened the National Park Service's protective function, and provided language important to recent decisions about resource impairment, when it amended the Organic Act in 1978 to state that "the protection, management, and administration of these areas shall be conducted in light of the high public value and integrity of the National Park System and shall not be exercised in derogation of the values and purposes for which these various areas have been established.".

More recently, the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998 established the framework for fully integrating natural resource monitoring and other science activities into the management processes of the National Park System. The Act charges the Secretary of the Interior to "continually improve the ability of the National Park Service to provide state-of-the-art management, protection, and interpretation of and research on the resources of the National Park System" , and to "assure the full and proper utilization of the results of scientific studies for park management decisions." Section 5934 of the Act requires the Secretary of the Interior to develop a program of "inventory and monitoring of National Park System resources to establish baseline information and to provide information on the long-term trends in the condition of National Park System resources."

Congress reinforced the message of the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998 in its text of the FY 2000 Appropriations bill:

"The Committee applauds the Service for recognizing that the preservation of the diverse natural elements and the great scenic beauty of America's national parks and other units should be as high a priority in the Service as providing visitor services. A major part of protecting those resources is knowing what they are, where they are, how they interact with their environment and what condition they are in. This involves a serious commitment from the leadership of the National Park Service to insist that the superintendents carry out a systematic, consistent, professional inventory and monitoring program, along with other scientific activities, that is regularly updated to ensure that the Service makes sound resource decisions based on sound scientific data."

The 2001 NPS Management Policies updated previous policy and specifically directed the Service to inventory and monitor natural systems:

"Natural systems in the national park system, and the human influences upon them, will be monitored to detect change. The Service will use the results of monitoring and research to understand the detected change and to develop appropriate management actions".

Further, "The Service will:

Identify, acquire, and interpret needed inventory, monitoring, and research, including applicable traditional knowledge, to obtain information and data that will help park managers accomplish park management objectives provided for in law and planning documents.</ li>
Define, assemble, and synthesize comprehensive baseline inventory data describing the natural resources under its stewardship, and identify the processes that influence those resources.</ li>
Use qualitative and quantitative techniques to monitor key aspects of resources and processes at regular intervals.</ li>
Analyze the resulting information to detect or predict changes, including interrelationships with visitor carrying capacities, that may require management intervention, and to provide reference points for comparison with other environments and time frames.</ li>
Use the resulting information to maintain-and, where necessary, restore-the integrity of natural systems" (2001 NPS Management Policies).</ li>

Additional statutes provide legal direction for expending funds to determine the condition of natural resources in parks and specifically guide the natural resource management of network parks, including: </ p>

Taylor Grazing Act 1934;</ li>
Fish and Wildlife Coordination Acts, 1958 and 1980;</ li>
Wilderness Act 1964;</ li>
National Historic Preservation Act 1966;</ li>
National Environmental Policy Act of 1969;</ li>
Clean Water Act 1972, amended 1977, 1987;</ li>
Endangered Species Act 1973, amended 1982;</ li>
Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 1974;</ li>
Forest and Rangeland Renewable Resources Planning Acts of 1974 and 1976;</ li>
Mining in the Parks Act 1976;</ li>
American Indian Religious Freedom Act 1978;</ li>
Archaeological Resources Protection Act 1979;</ li>
Federal Cave Resources Protection Act 1988;</ li>
Clean Air Act, amended 1990;</ li>

See the Summary of Laws, Policies, and Guidance relevant to natural resource monitoring in national parks.</ p>

Definition of Key Terms

A natural resource inventory is an extensive point-in-time effort to determine location or condition of a resource, including the presence, class, distribution, and status of plants, animals, and abiotic components such as water, soils, landforms, and climate. Inventories contribute to a statement of park resources, which is best described in relation to a standard condition such as the natural or unimpaired state. Inventories may involve both the compilation of existing information and the acquisition of new information. They may be relative to either a particular point in space (synoptic) or time (temporal).

Monitoring differs from inventory in adding the dimension of time, and the general purpose of monitoring is to detect changes or trends in a resource. Elzinga et al. (1998) defined monitoring as "The collection and analysis of repeated observations or measurements to evaluate changes in condition and progress toward meeting a management objective". Detection of a change or trend may trigger a management action, or it may generate a new line of inquiry. Monitoring is often done by sampling the same sites over time, and these sites may be a subset of the sites sampled for the initial inventory.

Natural resource monitoring is conducted primarily for two purposes: (1) to detect significant changes in resource abundance, condition, population structure, or ecological processes; or (2) to evaluate the effects of some management action on population or community dynamics or ecological processes. Monitoring should have a specific purpose, and is a prerequisite for management action, which is triggered when values reach or exceed some pre-determined threshold value. Monitoring cannot be a "I'll know it when I see it" process.

Monitoring data are most useful when the same methods are used to collect data at the same locations over a long time period (e.g. more than 10-12 years). It is important to note that cause and effect relationships usually cannot be demonstrated with monitoring data, but monitoring data might suggest a cause and effect relationship that can then be investigated with a research study. The key points in the definition of monitoring are that: (1) the same methods are used to take measurements over time; (2) monitoring is done for a specific purpose, usually to determine progress towards a management objective; and (3) some action will be taken based on the results, even if the action is to maintain the current management.

Research has the objective of understanding ecological processes and in some cases determining the cause of changes observed by monitoring. That understanding is needed for determining the appropriate management response to threats. Research is generally defined as the systematic collection of data that produces new knowledge or relationships and usually involves an experimental approach, in which a hypothesis concerning the probable cause of an observation is tested in situations with and without the specified cause. The NPS monitoring program includes a research component to design sampling protocols for various types of park resources at different locations and spatial scales.

Research is usually short term; approximately 80% of research studies last only 1-2 years, and 75% of studies involve only 1 or 2 species. An important exception to this generalization is the collaborative Long-Term Ecological Research program funded by the National Science Foundation, which is conducting long-term research on such things as pattern and control of primary production, spatial and temporal distribution of selected populations, and patterns of nutrient influx and movement through soils, groundwater and surface waters.

Protocols and standard operating procedures used by researchers are usually based on the latest technology and are often too time consuming or expensive to provide data for a long-term monitoring program. The need to publish results in peer-reviewed journals, the measure of successful research, tends to require researchers to continually develop new sampling methods and to debate alternate models and analyses.

Monitoring Attributes are any living or nonliving feature or process of the environment that can be measured or estimated and that provide insights into the state of the ecosystem. The term Indicator is reserved for a subset of attributes that is particularly information-rich in the sense that their values are somehow indicative of the quality, health, or integrity of the larger ecological system to which they belong (Noon 2003). Indicators are a selected subset of the physical, chemical, and biological elements and processes of natural systems that are selected to represent the overall health or condition of the system.

Vital Signs are a subset of physical, chemical, and biological elements and processes of park ecosystems that are selected to represent the overall health or condition of park resources, known or hypothesized effects of stressors, or elements that have important human values. The elements and processes that are monitored are a subset of the total suite of natural resources that park managers are directed to preserve "unimpaired for future generations," including water, air, geological resources, plants and animals, and the various ecological, biological, and physical processes that act on those resources. Vital signs may occur at any level of organization including landscape, community, population, or genetic level, and may be compositional (referring to the variety of elements in the system), structural (referring to the organization or pattern of the system), or functional (referring to ecological processes). Because of the need to maximize the use and relevance of monitoring results for making management decisions, vital signs selected by parks may include elements that were selected because they have important human values (e.g., harvested or charismatic species) or because of some known or hypothesized threat or stressor/response relationship with a particular park resource.

Measures are the specific variables used to quantify the condition or state of an Attribute or Indicator. These are specified in definitive sampling protocols. For example, stream acidity may be the indicator, while pH units are the measure.

For definitions of additional terms relevant to the NPS monitoring program, see the Glossary of Terms Relevant to Natural Resource Monitoring.

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