Canada’s Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network

Hague Vaughan
Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network
867 Lakeshore Road, P.O. Box 5050
Burlington, Ontario, Canada. L7R 4A6

Abstract
Canada is organising a National Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network with the overall objective of being able to understand what changes are occurring in the environment and why those changes are occurring. Detailed objectives are to understand the nature of ecological change in response to stresses such as climate change, to identify and define new issues, and to contribute to the design of scientifically defensible pollution control and management programmes and the evaluation of their effectiveness. There are numerous stresses affecting ecosystems in Canada, such as increased UV-B radiation from stratospheric ozone depletion, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide, increasing average annual air temperatures, acid rain, tropospheric ozone, and toxic substances. These stresses overlap geographically and as a result the changes in ecosystems are a result of their individual and collective effects. This poses an extra challenge in understanding the ecosystem response and in designing and evaluating appropriate control programmes.

An ideal integrated monitoring site will have long-term, multidisciplinary studies. There are currently over 80 sites across Canada that have become part of the Network and while all are conducting long-term studies, not all have a complete suite of multidisciplinary measurements. EMAN tries to organize sites by ecological elements such as ecozones or water basins. This can allow available information to be pooled, thereby adding benefit to the individual sites and developing a collective understanding of changes within the ecozone or basin. The Network is now being closely linked with the ongoing development and reporting of environmental indicators and periodic assessment of the state of the environment with regard to specific issues or particular geographical areas.

Introduction
Multidisciplinary environmental studies, particularly at the small watershed level, have been carried out in Canada for several decades. Studies were initiated by governments and academic institutions, usually to conduct baseline research or to deal with environmental problems of interest to the specific location. For example, in 1949, the University of British Columbia began studies on forest ecosystems at its Research Forest near Maple Ridge. In the 1960s, the Federal Government initiated studies on lake eutrophication at the Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora, Ontario. Also, in the 1960s, Laval University began the Centre for Arctic Studies at Kuujjuarapik, Quebec, which has focused on arctic and sub-arctic ecological processes. In the 1970s, the Ontario Government conducted a comprehensive study of the effects of cottage development on lakes in the Muskoka area. These multi-year, interdisciplinary studies were very effective in resolving the scientific and policy questions set out by the supporting agencies. However, current environmental problems tend to be much more complex in their ecological effects and they affect larger areas. For example, acid rain has an impact at the multinational regional level and stratospheric ozone depletion is a global concern. The ecological effects of these stresses can be subtle and show up over long periods of time. Equally, reversing the effects by pollution control measures will take a long time. Understanding the acid rain problem and establishing deposition targets in eastern North America utilized input from 15 ecological study sites across eastern Canada and the United States. Understanding the ecological consequences of global climate variability/change will require long-term ecological monitoring sites from around the globe. Therefore, it has become necessary to further develop the concept of long-term multidisciplinary studies.

Environment Canada has been promoting the development of a national network of ecological monitoring and research study sites with the overall objective of understanding what changes are occurring in the ecosystems and why. This document sets out the rationale for this initiative, provides a description of the Network and describes the future directions for ecological monitoring and research.

Rationale for a national ecological monitoring and assessment network
From coast to coast to coast, the Canadian environment is being subjected to a variety of stresses and continuous change in the physical and chemical characteristics of our atmosphere. Important ecological effects of these stresses that have been observed include the following:

• In recent years, decreases in phosphorus concentrations in lakes in the Muskoka area of Ontario due to a combination of acid rain and climate variability were documented (1).
• The concentrations of mercury in loons, sampled at Kejimkujik National Park in 1995, were among the highest ever observed in North America (2).
• The Acid Rain National Early Warning System (ARNEWS) has identified forest deterioration at 17 locations stretching from Ontario to Nova Scotia (3).
• Increased nitrogen deposition should increase forest growth, thus allowing the trees to take up more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (4), but when we look at the situation in eastern Canada, there are decreases in some forest growths rather than the predicted increases (5).
• Zebra mussel populations in the Great Lakes have put native clams at risk (6).

How such changes will alter the biological components of ecosystems is a major concern to Canadians, because large parts of our economy are based on the sustainable use of our fisheries, forestry and agricultural resources.

While some of the stressors and changes are due to natural processes, many are the result of collective human behaviour. The human population of Earth is increasing at about 10,000 per hour, and humans already directly influence about 40% of the global primary production on land. The effects of human-induced changes can be reduced or eliminated by appropriate pollution control and resource management policies. Environmental issues have become more scientifically complex and the appropriate control programmes can be costly and socially disruptive, so it is necessary to provide all Canadians with more comprehensive and reliable scientific information than has been needed when dealing with less complicated problems in the past. This requires long-term, multidisciplinary studies at individual sites plus the ability to compare data from sites in different locations.

There are many examples where ecological monitoring and research has provided the necessary scientific data to develop policies.

• Following experiments at the Experimental Lakes Area, indicating that phosphorus control should reduce lake eutrophication, long-term monitoring in the Great Lakes, and Gravenhurst Bay, Ontario, have demonstrated the effectiveness of phosphorus control programmes in reversing eutrophication.
• Lakes are being monitored to measure the effect of the Canadian and U.S.A. sulphur dioxide control programmes. Lake water quality is improving but the results also show that the interaction of climate variability, the effects of acid rain, and the effects of UV-B reduction are complicating the recovery process (7)(8).
• Studies on calibrated watersheds at Dorset, Ontario resulted in establishing the Ontario Government's policies for managing cottage development on recreational lakes.
• In the early 1980s, the Aquatic Effects Group, established under the Canada-U.S. Memorandum of Understanding on acid rain, was asked to determine an acceptable amount of acid deposition. This was done by looking for acid rain effects at sites with long-term data sets, as a function of the wet deposition of sulphate. Sites receiving more than 20 kg per hectare per year wet sulphate deposition, in acid-sensitive areas, were experiencing acidification damage. The 20 kg per hectare per year deposition target was established "to protect all but the most sensitive ecosystems" and could only have been achieved by comparing results from a number of sites (15 were used) located across the deposition gradient. Recent data are being analysed to establish fully protective deposition values and advise decision-makers on the need and value of further sulphur dioxide controls.
• In response to the high values of mercury found in loons in Kejimkujik National Park, a study is now being organized to involve a number of ecological monitoring sites in other areas that are expected to be differently affected by the flow of polluted air from the United States. The multi-site approach will be used to demonstrate the severity of the mercury problem, help pinpoint the sources of mercury (anthropogenic long-range transport vs. geological) and to develop a scientific rationale for controlling emissions and deposition.

Understanding how ecosystems are changing, and developing the scientific information required by decision-makers, are beyond the resources and abilities of any single organization (e.g., a government or university department or agency). Consequently, it is necessary to develop partnerships within all components of the Canadian and international environmental science community. This is necessary to maximize the quality of the science and the efficiency of conducting the work at a time of economic restraint.

It is against this backdrop of meeting the environmental challenges that Environment Canada has enhanced its coordinating capabilities to promote and assist in mobilising a collective Canadian scientific effort. This programme has four overall objectives:

• To provide a national perspective on how Canadian ecosystems are being affected by the multitude of stresses on the environment.
• To provide scientifically defensible rationales for pollution control and resource management policies.
• To evaluate and report to Canadians on the effectiveness of these policies.
• To identify new issues at the earliest possible stage.

How the network functions
In April 1994 Environment Canada established the Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network Coordinating Office (EMAN CO) at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters in Burlington, Ontario. The staff of five was given the responsibility of organising partnerships with other federal departments, Provinces and Territories, universities, Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and industry, to form a cohesive Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN) consisting of existing ecological monitoring and research sites, and promoting the development of new sites where feasible. The Coordinating Office has a small operating budget which is used to provide money for "grease and glue" activities, i.e., grease the wheels and glue programmes together.

The EMCO staff work in conjunction with seven regional leaders in the five Environment Canada regions. Pacific and Yukon, and Prairie and Northern Region each have assigned a leader for the southern and northern halves of these geographically large regions, while Atlantic, Quebec and Ontario Regions have one leader each. Site-specific and programme leadership is provided by staff of other Federal Departments, Provinces and Territorial agencies, universities, schools and the private sector.

Canada has been divided into fifteen land-based ecozones plus five marine ecozones and it is the EMAN objective to have at least one monitoring site in each of these ecozones. Where there is more than one monitoring site, they can be loosely linked for research purposes, since sites in the same ecozone should have a number of common interests. For example, it will be important to compare all of the results from the Boreal Shield forest with regard to issues such as acid rain or UV-B radiation. Equally, it will be important to compare all sites within the Prairie ecozone regarding the response to issues such as increasing average temperature. For some issues, such as climate change or plant phenology, it may be relevant to compare results from all sites across the country.

A fundamental start-up procedure has been to conduct organizational workshops within each region or ecozone. These workshops bring together the interested parties to get to know each other, exchange information across disciplines and sectors, and compile a list of issues and sites within a given area. The "grease and glue" money is used to provide travel and organizational resources for these workshops.

The Network is building on existing sites which have been established over the years for a number of reasons. For example, the Last Mountain Lake site was established as a National Wildlife Area. The Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario was set up in the 1960s to conduct whole lake manipulation experiments on the causes of lake eutrophication. Studies at Kejimkujik National Park also began in the 1960s, looking at nutrient processes in surface waters; and in the mid-1970s, the Ontario Ministry of Housing established the Research Centre at Dorset to study the effects of cottage development on lakes. Many other sites have been established across the country to look at a variety of research questions and environmental factors. As new issues have emerged, other sites, for example, Turkey Lakes in Ontario and Duschenay in Quebec, were established in response to the need for more information on acid rain.

As of January 2000, there were over 90 sites organized into 17 terrestrial ecological element groups (representing 14 of the 15 terrestrial ecozones) included in the EMAN national directory. In addition, many of the sites situated on the three coasts of Canada are also working in the five marine ecozones although marine sites have not yet been formally organized. It is therefore anticipated that some new sites will be added and, in this time of restraint, some sites may be deleted. There are over 100 agencies involved including those from the federal government, Provinces, universities, private sector and NGOs.

The Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network is generally focused on environmental issues of regional, national or global nature, although problems particular to a specific site are frequently included. The issues are those requiring a long time (i.e., decades) to move through the stages of problem definition, implementation of control programmes and evaluation of the ecological effectiveness of the controls. The issues require multidisciplinary information to guide the process, for example, atmospheric concentrations or deposition, and vegetation, soil, and surface water changes. Some examples of the environmental stresses currently being examined as part of EMAN are as follows:

• The atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has been increasing exponentially for the last hundred years and this seems certain to continue into the foreseeable future.
• Average global temperatures have been increasing for about the last 100 years. In Canada, this has been reflected in higher average temperatures, particularly in the central, western and northern areas where annual average temperatures have increased about 1.5ºC.
• Ultraviolet-B radiation is increasing as a result of stratospheric ozone depletion, and even under the most optimistic international control scenarios, it is believed that ozone depletion will increase for at least the next five years and the ozone layer will not be back to normal conditions until some time after the year 2020.
• Large areas of Canada are subjected to increased deposition of nitrogen from the burning of fossil fuels, and agricultural activities.

Parts of eastern Canada also receive high levels of sulphate deposition, and the combination of sulphate and nitrogen results in acid rain falling on acid-sensitive soils from Ontario eastward to Newfoundland.

High nutrient concentrations in agricultural runoff continue to cause eutrophication of surface waters and increased nitrate concentrations in ground water.

There are observations of increasing mercury concentrations in the atmosphere as a result of incinerating garbage and the burning of coal.

Organochlorine pesticides, PCBs, cadmium, and mercury have built up in Arctic marine food chains to levels that are of concern to aboriginal peoples whose diets and culture are tied to marine mammals.

Invading exotic species, such as purple loosestrife, threaten the natural vegetation communities of many wetlands.

Species population changes, such as the explosion of snow geese in some northern nesting grounds, create ecological damage and shifts in biodiversity.

Recently, the environmental consequences of endocrine disruptors in the environment from natural and anthropogenic sources has become an issue.

An annual national science meeting is held each year, rotating among the five Environment Canada regions. This multidisciplinary meeting has representatives from governments, EMAN sites, universities, NGOs and industry. The meeting is to help with the Network "construction" and to promote discussion on the scientific issues and results coming from the long-term multidisciplinary studies. Substantial support activities are also being carried out by EMCO in the areas of data management, protocol development, quality assurance/quality control procedures, issue-related workshops, and creating inter-site communication links.

EMCO has a major interest in and is applying some resources to the development of extensive volunteer networks. The participants in such networks as those pertaining to climatology, breeding birds, plant phenology, and amphibians have effectively gathered data for decades. These programmes greatly assist various agencies in obtaining extensive environmental information. It is the objective of EMCO to have as many as possible of these extensive networks collecting data at EMAN sites. This will provide additional possibilities of being able to explain any changes that are observed in these measurements, and in turn, being able to extrapolate the results from the EMAN sites to larger geographical areas covered by the extensive network. The volunteer networks are an excellent mechanism to involve the public and to further the educational aspects of environmental issues.

During the next few years, the task is to make the EMAN into a fully operational scientific facility. A preliminary step in this process is for the Network, particularly through the site contacts, to become a major communication link, allowing scientists to distribute information about meetings, conferences, new reports, and so on. The network also needs to be a mechanism for site participants to provide input to indicator development and reporting, assessments and other ecological endeavours.

We envision the Network being seen by members of the public, the media, and management as a source of up-to-date information about local and national issues of interest to the local populations. This information may come from contacting individual sites or by approaching all of the network site contact people (e.g., an email to all site contacts). Site managers are expected to serve as contact points and critical communication links with the public, media, and scientists working at their site, and manage the various requests for information that are distributed along the Network.

Future directions
Although many agencies are experiencing reductions in resources, in total, there are still considerable amounts of money spent by governments and the private sector, universities, and NGOs on environmental monitoring and research. Part of the EMAN challenge is to use available resources as effectively as possible.

The overall operating objective of EMAN is to promote the gathering and use of scientific information for the policy and management decision-making processes and to provide a better link between the policy requirements and the scientific community.The information will be assembled in the form of periodic issue or area related assessments. In addition, some components of the information will be used for the ongoing production of indicators, which will provide Canadians with the current status of various issues, which will be dealt with in greater depth by the periodic assessments.

The Network will only be as effective as the scientists and an interested and concerned public can make it. Many scientists have already seen the Network as an opportunity to develop joint projects over larger areas or with other disciplines. Pooling of data, and even resources, can result in an enhanced programme and output from individual projects. There are many scientists, such as those recognized in the Patricia Roberts-Pichette award, who have capitalized on the Network, the National Meeting and the recognition of policy issues, to develop programmes which have personal interest and career development input as well as substantial value to the overall ecological programme. The Coordinating Office invites and encourages scientists in all parts of the Network to take the initiative in organising programmes so that the scientific total is greater than the sum of the individual parts. The Coordinating Office would like to see the day when more individual scientists become well known as experts on issues or components of issues. That does not mean that they do, or direct, all of the work, but that they serve as a focal point for speaking to the public and the media on a particular issue, and for improving the communications among the scientific community dealing with their particular area of expertise. Overall, we see the Network as providing substantial opportunity for individual scientist development and recognition.