Monitoring Ecological Impacts
Concepts and Practice in Flowing Waters

Provides clear and useable protocols for the detection and measurement of human impacts on the environment.

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

9780521065290, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 12 June 2008

452 pages, 37 b/w illus. 36 tables
23 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.66 kg

Review of the hardback: ' … of value particularly to consultants and others involved in ecological monitoring related to waste or other major developments.' Mineral Planning

Monitoring Ecological Impacts provides the tools needed by professional ecologists, scientists, engineers, planners and managers 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 the reader with clear and useable protocols, which can be applied in any region of the world and to a wide range of human impacts. In addition, real examples are used to show how the theory can be put into practice. Although the context of this book is flowing water environments, especially rivers and streams, the advice for designing assessment programs can be applied to any ecosystem.

Part I. Introduction to the Nature of Monitoring Problems and to Rivers: 1. Why we need well-designed monitoring programs
2. The ecological nature of flowing waters
3. Assessment of perturbation
Part II. Principles of Inference and Design: 4. Inferential issues for monitoring
5. The logical bases of monitoring design
6. Problems in applying designs
7. Alternative models for impact assessment
Part III. Applying Principles of Inference and Design: 8. Applying monitoring designs to flowing waters
9. Inferential uncertainty and multiple lines of evidence
10. Variables that are used for monitoring in flowing waters
11. Defining important changes
12. Decisions and trade-offs
13. Optimization
14. The special case of monitoring attempts at restoration
15. What's next?

Subject Areas: Regional & area planning [RP], Ecological science, the Biosphere [PSAF]