Is The Whole Less Than The Sum Of The Parts? J. R. Schubel AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA Monitoring of San Francisco Bay.

Is The Whole Less Than The Sum Of The Parts?

J. R. SchubelAQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC • LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA

Monitoring of San Francisco Bay

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San Francisco Bay Area

Urbanization ofSan Francisco

Bay Area

1900 - 1990

1850

1900

1940

1990

Urban Extent

Tidal Wetlands

Major Earthquakes

San Francisco Bay Area1850 - 1990


• Diagnostic?

• More than a chronicle of what has happened?

Topics I will Cover:

• What is monitoring? Why do we do it?

• What monitoring programs currently exist?• What did we learn from the SFO runway reconfiguration assessment experience?

• What are the characteristics of a good program?

• How many of those characteristics do we find in the San Francisco Bay programs?

• Some closing observations.

Topics I will not Cover:

• Compliance monitoring programs in the Bay.

• Comprehensive, in-depth, descriptions of the “Big 3” Bay Monitoring Programs:

– RMP (Regional Monitoring Program)

– USGS-RMP (U.S. Geological Survey-Regional Monitoring Program Partnership)

– IEP (Interagency Ecological Program)

What Is Monitoring?• Monitoring means to watch, to observe, or check

for a special purpose.• Environmental monitoring…

“…is generally intended to produce information about three broad categories of problems: (1) compliance, to ensure that activities are carried out in accordance with regulations and permit requirements; (2) model verification, to check the validity of assumptions and predictions used as the basis for sampling design or permitting and for evaluation of management alternatives; and (3) trend monitoring to quantify longer-term environmental changes anticipated (hypothesized) as possible consequences of human activities.”

– NRC: Managing Troubled Waters

Why Do We Monitor?• “The ultimate goal of environmental monitoring

of all kinds—compliance, model validation and verification, and trends—is protection of the environment, living resources, and human health.”


• “But despite these considerable efforts and expenditures, most environmental monitoring programs fail to provide the information needed to understand the condition of the marine environment or to assess the effects of human activity on it”.


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San Francisco Bay Area

Current major Environmental Monitoring Programs:

• Regional Monitoring Program (RMP) Bay Contaminants Monitoring

• U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Bay Water Quality Monitoring Program

• USGS-RMP Joint Monitoring• Suspended Sediments• Nutrients and Phytoplankton

• Interagency Ecological Program (IEP) • Fish • Invertebrates• Water Quality

Geographic Range

• RMP: SF Bay

• USGS: SF Bay to Rio Vista on Sacramento River historically (Now working in the Delta)

• IEP: Bay, Delta, and Upstream

Goals, Objectives & Driving Questions

• RMP• Water quality objectives compliance• Contaminant spatial and temporal trends• Contaminant sources and loading • Contaminant effects • Synthesis of the sources, distribution, fates, and effects of

contaminants in the estuary ecosystem

• USGS • Understanding how coastal ecosystems function and how those

functions are altered by human disturbances

Goals/Objectives/Driving Questions

• IEP Mission:To provide information on the factors that affect ecological resources in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Estuary that allows for more efficient (sic) management of the estuary.

• IEP Goals• Understand factors in the Sacramento-San Joaquin estuary controlling

the distribution and abundance of selected fish and wildlife resources. • Comply with permit terms requiring ecological monitoring in the estuary.• Identify impacts of human activities on the fish and wildlife resources. • Ensure compliance with Delta water quality objectives.• Make recommendations for water project operation.

Parameters Measured• RMP

– Contaminants in water, sediment, bivalves, fish, bird eggs, bird muscle

– Contaminant loads from rivers and atmosphere– Toxicity in water and sediment– Toxic effects on birds, fish, seals, benthos

• USGS– Nutrients, light, plankton, DO, temperature, and salinity– Sediment dynamics– Hydrodynamics– Pesticides in water

• IEP– Fish populations– Zooplankton– Macro-invertebrates– Nutrients, phytoplankton, DO, Salinity

Measurement Frequency

• RMP: – Annual (long-term trends), episodic (toxicity, loading)

• USGS: – Sediments—ongoing– Nutrients and basic water quality parameters—weekly to

monthly

• IEP: – Fish Populations—monthly, annual monitoring– Water Quality—daily, monthly

Clients for San Francisco Bay’s Monitoring Programs

• RMP– Steering Committee– Regional Board– Wastewater & Stormwater

Dischargers/Dredgers• USGS

– Regulators– Resource Managers

• IEP– Regulators– Resource Managers– Water Contractors

• All– Scientists– Public

Monitoring Products:Transforming Data Into Information

• RMP– Technical Reports– Newsletters– Pulse of the Estuary– Journal Publications– Website

• USGS– Newsletters– Pulse of the Estuary– Journal Publications– Website with data in “real

time”• IEP

– Technical Reports– IEP Newsletter– Journal Publications– Website with data in “real

time”

“State of the Bay” Using Monitoring Data

• Professional Meetings– San Francisco Estuary Project State of the Estuary Conference

(Biennial)

– CALFED Science Conferences (Biennial)

– IEP Workshop (Annual)• General Publications

– IEP Newsletter (Quarterly) and Annual Trends Issue (Annual)

– S.F. Estuary Project Newsletter (Bi-monthly)

– RMP Pulse of the Estuary (Annual)• TBI/SFEI/CEMAR Indicators

RMP’s Niche

• Nearly Exclusive– Systematic monitoring of spatial patterns and long-

term trends of contaminants (Some overlap with NOAA Status and Trends and EMAP)

• Significant Overlap With Other Programs– Contaminant effects (USGS, USFWL, CALFED)– Contaminant loads (CEP)– Fate modeling (CEP)

This completes a brief overview of the major environmental

monitoring programs we have in

San Francisco Bay.

Topics I will Cover:• What is monitoring? Why do we do it?

• What monitoring programs currently exist?

• What did we learn from the

SFO expansion assessment experience?


• How many of those characteristics do we find in the

San Francisco Bay programs?


What’s Missing?Lessons Learned From The SFO Experience

• More detailed (temporal and spatial) sampling of water quality in the South Bay, which is the segment of the Bay that would be most likely to be impacted by SFO expansion.

• A long-term record of annual sampling of resident demersal fishes and analysis for persistent toxicants and selected histopathological disorders.

• Bay-wide monitoring of nutrients on a monthly basis.• Bay-wide monitoring of zooplankton on a monthly basis.• Bay-wide monitoring of benthic or epibenthic

invertebrates. • Bay-wide monitoring of any ecosystem process, such as

primary production, oxygen consumption, system metabolism, sulfate reduction or de-nitrification

• Bay-wide monitoring of microbial communities or functions, either in the water column or sediments.


• Annual sampling of surficial sediments and analysis for chemical concentrations, toxicity in laboratory tests, and composition of the infaunal benthos.

• Annual sampling of the sea surface micro-layer several times during a three-month period each year for chemical concentrations, toxicity in laboratory tests, and populations of zooplankton.


• Bay-wide monitoring on an annual basis quantitative surveys of resident and migratory birds—abundance, distribution, and health.

• Bay-wide monitoring on an annual basis of marine mammals with special emphasis on harbor seals (abundance, distribution, haul-out sites, marine foraging sites, etc).


• Documentation of historical shoreline changes.• A record of sediment bed dynamics: how it responds

to different physical forcing functions. • A long-term record of fluxes across sub-basin

boundaries of water, salt, sediment, chlorophyll, etc.• Documentation of the effects of wetland restoration

projects on the Bay.


• More frequent (every 10 years) bathymetric surveys of the Bay.

• Documentation of historical changes in wetland conditions: area, elevation, vegetation, salinity, etc.

• Inputs of water and sediment from the smaller tributaries.

• Historical records of water quality in tidal creeks and sloughs.


Lessons Learned from SFO Long-Term Monitoring

• A Program that has a statistically valid and spatially comprehensive sampling strategy that allows scientists and managers to quantitatively track changes in the estuary over the long term

• A Program built, at least in part, upon the foundation of existing long-term data collection programs

• A Program that includes a suite of publicly understandable and meaningful indicators or performance measures that can be used to demonstrate the effects of specific human interventions (individual stressors as well as restoration activities) on species and ecological functions of interest.

• A Program that includes indicators of the trophic levels (e.g., phytoplankton, zooplankton, benthos) that are important to species of concern (fish and wildlife)

• A Program that includes indicators of important physical characteristics such as sediment inputs and changes in bay margins (i.e., trends of erosion/accretion) in each region of the bay-delta system

• A Program that tracks changes in acres/hectares of specific habitat types in each region of the estuary


• A Program that includes measures of critical contaminants (Se, Hg, PCBs, PAHs, pesticides) in suspended and bottom sediments and in species of concern such as fish, ducks and marine mammals

• A Program that includes a requirement of regular reporting of findings/trends to both the resource managers, to scientists, and to the public


• A Program that transforms on a timely basis data into informational products tailored to the needs of different user groups.

• A Program that includes a requirement of regular reporting of findings/trends to both the resource managers, to scientists, and to the public


• A Program that has a stable financial base.

• A Program that maintains consistent and appropriate methods of sampling that are well documented.

• A Program that ensures that species selected for sampling include a broad array of forms likely to be sensitive to perturbations, and once this array has been established, it does not change without serious evaluation.


What Are The Characteristics Of A Good, Effective

Environmental Monitoring Program?

• Clear goals and objectives stated as questions or hypotheses… questions are better.

• Clear, unambiguous identification of the clients— primary and secondary.

• Sufficient and stable funding.

Characteristics Of A Good, Effective Monitoring

Program…

• A measurement program designed to meet the goals and objectives.

• Mechanisms to transform the data into a portfolio of informational products designed to answer the questions and appropriate for the clients’ needs.

• Scientific community and the public are partners.


Program…

• Periodic peer review.

• A chronicle—a running account—of how the data and resulting information are used in making environmental decisions and how the data are used by the scientific community


Program…

• Answer questions/test hypotheses• Provide on-line accounting• Provide early warning• Provide information to decision makers


Program…

• Clients--Know who your clients are and what they need. - Managers

- The Public

- Scientists

- Other

• Deliver!


Program…

• Long-term• To be long-term, it must

- Be sustainable financially

- Have a dedicated revenue stream

- Take a minimalist approach to the core

- Produce relevant results


Program…

• Emphasize synthesis/integration• Transform data into information • Be Timely• Tell the evolving story in engaging ways


Program…

A Few Of The Major Reasons Why Environmental Monitoring Programs

Fail:

• They produce “answers in search of questions”, i.e. they produce data and not information!

• They fail to produce data or information on a timely basis.

• They have no constituency. • There is no coupling to managers and

their needs.• There is no stable base of sustained

financial support.

• What is monitoring? Why do we do it?

• What monitoring programs currently exist?

• What did we learn from the

SFO expansion assessment experience?


• How many of those characteristics do we find in the

San Francisco Bay programs?


Topics I will Cover:

Now, It’s Your Turn

Subject A B C D F

Clear goals and objectives the general public can understand.

A carefully crafted architecture of questions the program is designed to answer coherent with these goals and objectives.

Technical design that is based on the current understanding of the San Francisco Bay system linkages and processes.

Stability of financial support.

An identified set of clients.

A Monitoring Report CardFor The RMP

Subject A B C D F

A public education program which involves the public in understanding the importance of the monitoring program, how its results are used, and how they can be involved.

Integration into the decision-making system. (Can you point to specific environmental decisions that were made in response to environmental monitoring data?)

Coupling of results to research and modeling programs designed to support integrated decision-making.

Development of informational products tailored to the primary and secondary clients. The public must be included on this list.


Subject A B C D F

Timely synthesis of results and integration with other relevant data and information to create informational products useful to environmental decision-makers.

Flexibility of program as evidenced by changes in sampling protocols, development of new informational products, etc. in response to changing client/user needs.

Frequency and quality of peer-reviews of the program and responsiveness of the program to those reviews.

An on-going forum of stakeholders to ensure a continuing dialogue.

Integration of the three major San Francisco Bay monitoring programs.

Appropriate allocation of resources to achieve the items above.


Is The Whole Less Than The Sum Of The Parts?


The Power of SimplicitySimplicity is needed at every stage of a regional monitoring program

- Design

- Execution

- Reporting

“I wouldn’t give a whit for simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my right arm for simplicity the other side of complexity.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Make it as simple as possible, but not simpler.”

– Albert Einstein

A Few Personal Observations

• San Francisco Bay is…– Beautiful.– Defines the “sense of place”

of the Bay Region.– Important primarily for its

recreational and aesthetic value.– Perhaps the most highly altered

large coastal system in the United States.

– An estuary for which we need a bold, compelling vision.

– Bridges, airport(s) expansions, Cargill Salt Pond reclamation…

A Few Personal Observations

• Let’s take a lesson from Wayne Gretzky…

• Scenarios

• Victor Hugo

• Will and Ariel Durant

Thank You!

Is The Whole Less Than The Sum Of The Parts? J. R. Schubel AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA Monitoring of San Francisco Bay.

Documents

bay monitoring programs

ecological monitoring

monitoring products

compliance monitoring

san francisco bay area

san francisco bay programs

monthly slide

salinity slide