Challenges and Benefits of Approaches Used to Integrate Regional Monitoring Programs

Abstract

Although challenging to develop and operate, some degree of integrated monitoring is often necessary, especially at regional scales, to address the complex questions of environmental management and regulation. The concept of integration is well-understood, but its practice across programs and studies can be diverse suggesting a broader examination of the existing general approaches is needed. From the literature, we suggest integration of monitoring can occur across three study components: interpretation, analysis, and design. Design can be further subdivided into partial and full integration. Respectively combining information, data, and designs, we further define these types of integration and describe their general benefits and challenges, such as strength of inference. We further use the Oil Sands Monitoring program in northern Alberta as an example to clarify the practices common among integrated monitoring programs. The goal of the discussion paper is to familiarize readers with the diverse practices of integrated monitoring to further clarify the various configurations used to achieve the wider goals of a program.

A critical review of the ecological status of lakes and rivers from Canada's oil sands region

“…We also provided some recommendations. These include, but are not limited to, more use of available industry data, emphasis on areas likely to have the greatest exposure to diffuse sources, evaluating any environmental data collected near facilities that have changed operational status (or sampling near facilities that will to establish a baseline of current status), and movement away from a posteriori (e.g., interpretation and analysis) toward a priori forms of integration (partially or fully integrated designs; Arciszewski et al, 2021). change/services/oil-sands-monitoring.html and https://aws.…”

Exploring the Influence of Industrial and Climatic Variables on Communities of Benthic Macroinvertebrates Collected in Streams and Lakes in Canada’s Oil Sands Region

“…If identifying and tracking industrial influence is required, the analyses also suggest potential opportunities to examine existing data sets, such as fish and water quality, e.g., [64]. Parallel studies, or the modification and augmentation of sampling designs, can also be conducted to further probe the hypotheses generated by this work and may be beneficial for developing regional (and integrated) monitoring protocols in the OSR [65].…”

“…The purpose of this work was to build on previous analysis, i.e., [8], and further examine the potential influence of industrial operations on aquatic ecosystems in the OSR in a retrospective and integrated analysis of existing data [65]. The exploratory, data-driven approach, e.g., [66], was performed using benthic invertebrates collected during the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP; 1997-2015; [42]).…”

A synthetic review of terrestrial biological research from the Alberta oil sands region: 10 years of published literature

“…Established thresholds for evaluating toxicological endpoints, such as tissue burdens, are neither widely available nor widely used in the OS literature. The near complete absence of well‐established thresholds or limits‐of‐change for contaminant burdens in terrestrial organisms, other than those based on bioaccumulation in aquatic prey (Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment [CCME], 1999 ), may hinder adaptive monitoring programs that rely on specific triggers to guide monitoring effort (Lindenmayer & Likens, 2009 ) and encourage the development and/or application of inconsistent criteria, potentially limiting the straightforward consolidation of conclusions, further stalling the development of robust and rigorous integrated monitoring programs (Arciszewski et al, 2021 , forthcoming ).…”