Estuarine Environmental Monitoring Programs: Long-Term Studies

MARCOVECCHIO J.E.; BOTTÉ S.E.; DE MARCO S.G.; LOPEZ CAZORLA A.C.; ARIAS A.H.; BALDINI M.; CUBITTO M.A.; FIORI S.; OLIVA A.L.; LA COLLA N.; BLASINA G.E.; MOLINA J.M.; SIMONETTI P.; SERRA A; NEGRIN V; RONDA A.C.; PEREYRA M.T.

The Bahía Blanca Estuary. Ecology and Biodiversity

Springer International Publishing

Año: 2021; p. 521 - 547

The monitoring programs consist of carrying out a permanent surveillance of a natural system, controlling the state and evolution of its variables, quantifying the variations 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 field data or based on experimental data and even combining both (Lindenmayer and Likens 2010). When these programs are carried out for a long period 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 of the system under study (Biber 2013). As long as the continuity of monitoring is maintained, it can be argued that as the program has more seniority (therefore more information), it is easier to identify a significant anomaly or variation in any of the parameters studied, taking into account that the distribution of ?normal? values will be very dense, and therefore those that move away from that model will be easily distinguishable (Gray and Shimshack 2011).