Estuarine environmenta monitoring programs: long-terms studies

MARCOVECCHIO, JORGE EDUARDO; BOTTE, SANDRA E; DE MARCO, SILVIA; LOPEZ CAZORLA, A; ARIAS, ANDRÉS HUGO; BALDINI, M; CUBITTO, MA; FIORI, SANDRA MARCELA; OLIVA, AL; LA COLLA, NOELIA S.; BLASINA, G; MOLINA, JM; SIMONETTI, PIA; NEGRIN, VANESA L.; RONDA, ANA C.; PEREYRA, MARCELO

The Bahia Blanca Estuary

Springer

Año: 2021; p. 521 - 548

A continuous observation and control system of measures and evaluations for adefned purpose is called ?monitoring.? This is an important tool within the impactassessment process and in any vigilance and control program (Pali and Swaans2013; Valle Junior et al. 2015). There is currently a strong consensus that environmental monitoring is not an end-point in itself but an essential step in environmentalmanagement processes (Stelzenmüller et al. 2013). Taking into account the previously mentioned concepts, the importance of monitoring within different processes of human activity can be observed. In addition, and as it is rightly mentioned, it is afundamental tool within all that development or procedure that is desired to be carried out in a controlled and safe way (Collins et al. 2012).The monitoring programs consist of carrying out a permanent surveillance of anatural system, controlling the state and evolution of its variables, quantifying thevariations that occur, and identifying the reasons that generated them. There are different work strategies, both spatial and temporal, and can be developed either exclusively based on feld data or based on experimental data and even combining both(Lindenmayer and Likens 2010). When these programs are carried out for a longperiod of time (e.g., decades), the set of information they provide supports a solidbasis on which it is possible to accurately characterize the structure and operation ofthe system under study (Biber 2013). As long as the continuity of monitoring ismaintained, it can be argued that as the program has more seniority (therefore moreinformation), it is easier to identify a signifcant anomaly or variation in any of theparameters studied, taking into account that the distribution of ?normal? values willbe very dense, and therefore those that move away from that model will be easilydistinguishable (Gray and Shimshack 2011).