Important Messages
The monitoring program should be based on clear management objectives.
Careful investigation and documentation of the water quality problem pays
off by increasing monitoring efficiency and value of results.
Pollutant load monitoring has a high information value, but the procedure
can be expensive.
Periodic evaluation of selected variables is the most direct route to an answer
on project impact. However, factors that are not related to land treatment
efforts, such as watershed and system inertia, typically confound the detec-
tion of short-term trends.
Biological monitoring and habitat evaluation can be meaningful, cost-effec-
tive approaches for assessing resource condition and project impact.
Monitoring a treatment and a control site before, during, and after land treat-
ment improves the chances of detecting trends or impacts.
Monitoring a treatment and a control site in a paired watershed design also
improves the chances of meaningful results.
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