Protocol Development

Required Content & Format of Monitoring Protocols

Any successful long-term monitoring program must survive turnovers in personnel (as people change jobs or retire) and technology. In almost all cases measurements over time will be taken by different people. Several important conclusions follow from these facts: (1) sampling protocols must be fully documented, with great enough detail that different people can take measurements in exactly the same way; (2) protocols must include quality control/quality assurance measures, so that it can be demonstrated that any changes in measurements are actually occurring in nature, and not simply a result of measurements being taken by different people or in slightly different ways; and (3) protocols should not rely on the latest instrumentation or technology that may change in a few years, such that measurements cannot be repeated.

The NPS I&M Division and the USGS Status and Trends Program have developed guidelines for the content and format of monitoring protocols. The guidelines, which were published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin (Oakley et al. 2003), have been adopted as the protocol standard by the NPS I&M program and the USGS Status and Trends Program. All monitoring in national parks that uses funding from the NPS I&M program MUST develop protocols that meet the Oakley et al. 2003 protocol standards.

Download the Guidelines for long-term monitoring protocols (Oakley et al. 2003).

Any protocols that are developed using I&M funding should follow the steps outlined in the guidance for the Protocol Development Process . In short, parks are encouraged to adopt or modify existing protocols or portions of protocols developed by other programs and agencies to promote consistency and data comparability. In almost all cases, the first step involved in protocol development is "Do your homework": Thoroughly scope out the issues, monitoring questions, and objectives that will be addressed by the protocol. The developer must be able to answer the question, "who will use the monitoring results and how will they use the data?" Build on existing work and data: review relevant monitoring done by others, other relevant protocols or portions of protocols, and find and evaluate field data collected by others for similar situations. Field data collection, including collection of pilot data to determine variability of the measures, time/effort required for each sample, or to determine sample sizes needed to detect a certain level of change, should be one of the last steps of the protocol development process.

NPS Protocol Database

The NPS I&M Division is developing a Protocol Database to catalog and make available sampling protocols that have been developed by one of the prototype monitoring programs or networks, or that are widely used by other programs or agencies. The database currently contains many legacy protocols that do not conform to the Oakley et al. protocol standards, but over the next few years these will be replaced by more than 200 protocols currently being developed by the I&M networks. As part of the NPS Natural Resource Challange philosophy of "Share the information widely", and because of the current high interest in NPS monitoring protocols by the States and other federal agencies, NPS staff and collaborators are encouraged to make available draft protocols, including some that have not been fully peer- reviewed and tested. The protocol database is organized following the Ecological Monitoring Framework , and a future version will include keywords and a search capability. For each protocol, the database provides a reference and a brief summary of what is included in the protocol, and makes it possible for the user to download an electronic version. For most protocols, the NPS is also developing a relational MS Access database that follows the Natural Resource Database Template scheme, and wherever possible, a stand-alone database or database components (e.g., table structure, queries, data entry forms, code for error checking, etc.) are made available along with the protocol document.

Download Protocol Database

Examples of Protocols used by other Programs and Agencies

Protocol development is a difficult, expensive, time-consuming process that includes a research component. Sampling protocols must be field tested, and experiments must be conducted to determine when and how often a site should be sampled. The EPA, USDA Forest Service, and Natural Resource Conservation Service alone have spent tens of millions of dollars developing and testing sampling protocols. To promote consistency, data comparability, and cost efficiency, the National Park Service should take advantage of these efforts by other agencies by using well-tested, standardized sampling protocols developed by other agencies if they address the park's monitoring objectives.

Information on various sampling protocols being used or developed by the prototype monitoring parks is provided below. Also included is information on indicators and protocols included in the USDA Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program, and particularly methods used in the Phase 3 subset of plots that were formerly known as the Forest Health Monitoring Program. The FIA and FHM programs have developed protocols to sample understory diversity, exotic plant species, down woody debris, and fuel loading that may be particularly interesting to parks. See the following Overview of Forest Monitoring Protocols, with information on how to get further information.

For Water Quality sampling, the Water Resources Division of NPS is developing Guidance for Designing and Conducting Water Qality Monitoring that is compatible with efforts outside of national parks. Included in the WRD guidance are Recommendations for Core Water Quality Monitoring Parameters, and Core Water Quality (Vital Signs) Monitoring Parameters for Marine and Coastal National Parks.

The Resources Inventory Branch of the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks has developed inventory and monitoring methods for birds, mammals, and herptiles, as well as general guidance for sampling vertebrate populations. Most of their Species Inventory Manuals can be viewed or downloaded from their website. Each manual presents standard methods for inventory at three levels of inventory intensity: presence/not detected, relative abundance, and absolute abundance for groups of species with similar inventory requirements. The manual "Species Inventory Fundamentals" includes a discussion of sampling design, sampling techniques, and statistical analyses. A good sampling protocol for terrestrial vegetation was developed in Canada as one of a number of good sampling protocols recommended by the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network.

EPA's EMAP - Surface Waters group has funded development of a set of standardized protocols for sampling various components of lakes, including water quality parameters, fish, benthic invertebrates, and birds. Protocols are described in the 1997 report "Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program Surface Waters: Field Operations Manual for Lakes", EPA/620/R-97/001. Protocols can be downloaded in .pdf format from their EPA Website. Links to other sites concerning aquatic macroinvertebrates and other aquatic monitoring are found at EPA's Biological Monitoring Resources site.

Widely-used protocols for monitoring stream fish, benthic invertebrates, and stream habitat as part of the USGS NAWQA program (National Water-Quality Assessment) are found at NAWQA Website.

Coral Reef Monitoring protocols and assessment methods can be viewed at NOAA's Coral Health and Monitoring Program website.