Monitoring and Evaluation - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 199

Chapter 13
Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring has one single important function: to provide information to enable an evaluation of
the project as it is developing. Monitoring data should evoke some type of response, even if it is a
“do nothing” response. This response will be an informed one and, ideally, one reached by con-
sidering all of the various factors affecting your project. Making intelligent decisions concerning
any action on a restoration project requires a sound monitoring report.
Purpose of Monitoring
Although an important element for any restoration project, monitoring does not seem to receive
the attention it deserves. All too often, projects have sufficient funding for the installation and
the plant establishment period, but not for monitoring, because it is not considered as critical.
We have observed several projects that have failed solely because of the lack of monitoring and a
plan for corrective action when indicated. Nonprofit organizations and governmental stewardship
agencies are constantly faced with the challenge of developing monitoring programs that will pro-
vide the needed data in a cost-effective manner. In many cases, this information can be useful for
modifying future project design approaches or at least for making effective changes.
The primary purpose of monitoring a restoration project is to determine whether the project
has met the objectives agreed upon by the project sponsors and stakeholders. The monitoring
plan and performance measures are developed during the planning phase and refined through
the design phase.
Regardless of the level of effort expended for your restoration project, a monitoring compo-
nent should always be included in your management plan. We have identified three purposes for
monitoring plans. First, monitoring of a restoration project is done primarily to document what is
occurring on the project site. This is a way of assessing the progress of a project over time. Monitor-
ing is helpful in evaluating the performance of specific techniques or materials (fig. 13-1) used on a
site or a portion of a site (Clewell 1999). Various techniques and methods can be used on a project.
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