Canada developed a mandatory, cyclical, adaptive, Environmental Effects Monitoring program for pulp and paper mills and metal mines in the early 1990s. The purpose of the regulatory program was to identify whether there were still environmental concerns when a facility was in compliance with its discharge regulations. After 30 years, deficiencies in cumulative effects assessment and fragmentation of monitoring efforts have stimulated the development of a regional monitoring framework that seeks to integrate the various types of existing monitoring programs into a single assessment framework. The framework has a series of tiers which represent different levels of monitoring intensity and focus, and triggers, which provide focus to move and optimize monitoring efforts according to needs and adjust the scope, intensity, and frequency of monitoring across tiers of effort. Triggers can be developed that utilize regular status monitoring (monitoring triggers), modelling efforts (forecast triggers), existing planning thresholds (management triggers), regulatory limits (compliance triggers) and facility engineering projections (performance triggers) to integrate monitoring efforts into a single database and decision framework. A well designed Environmental Effects Framework can provide the engine to drive the system. Coupling modelling and monitoring efforts in an iterative feedback loop can play several important roles in identifying and managing cumulative effects, including: developing forecasts to predict future ecological states (ie., projected impacts under future climate scenarios), developing forecast triggers to adjust monitoring efforts, and back-casting historical pre-development baselines when past data are absent or incomplete. The fragmented nature of watershed regulation and monitoring presents a plethora of challenges in implementing such a framework but the seminar will present some examples where we are starting to make headway.
The use of environmental effects monitoring programs to drive integrated watershed management and assessment
