Criteria-based ranking (CBR): A comprehensive process for selecting and prioritizing monitoring indicators

Resources allocated to water management often fluctuate. As a result, the types and number of parameters (e.g., indicators for ecosystem health) being measured, in monitoring programs, are frequently reassessed according to management (or political) priorities, limits on budgets, and availability of human resources. The periodic need to refocus monitoring, conflicts with the need to maintain consistent, long-term indicators that are used to demonstrate changes to ecosystem health, or define ‘abnormal’ indicator measures. Conventional approaches are subjective, time-consuming, and non-standardized. This research developed and tested whether a new approach would reduce time and cost, while increasing objectivity and monitoring adaptability (to fluctuating resources). This project was funded by the Canadian Water Network, but the data collected will also support the research objectives of the project titled "Lake Futures: Enhancing Adaptive Capacity and Resilience of Lakes and Their Watersheds: Work Package 3". Lake Futures is a Pillar 3 project under the Global Water Futures Program funded by Canada First Research Excellence Fund

A review of the Muskoka Watershed Council reporting, as well as literature that also reviewed other programs, demonstrated a need for a standard, more objective, approach for identifying, and where budgetary limitations require, prioritizing indicators or reducing their numbers. The Criteria-based Ranking (CBR) process was developed, inspired by tools used in Environmental Assessment. A workshop with members and guests of the Muskoka Watershed Council was carried out on August 5, 2016, at which the CBR process was tested to see if using the process would yield different results than the conventional approach. The outcome of the workshop was that using this standard process generated a very different outcome than what emerged from the conventional approach.

Courtenay, S., Ho, E., and Eger, S. (2019). Criteria-based ranking (CBR): A comprehensive process for selecting and prioritizing monitoring indicators. Waterloo, Canada: Canadian Cryospheric Information Network (CCIN). Unpublished Data. Additional Publication: Ho, E. (2018). Criteria-based ranking (CBR): A comprehensive process for selecting and prioritizing monitoring indicators. MethodsX 5: 1324-1329. doi: 10.1016/j.mex.2018.10.015

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