Course

Environmental data is collected to determine a baseline of the current condition and to understand environmental change. Communities face many different environmental challenges. Monitoring can be used to assess the impact of challenges from climate change, change in management or changes that occur as a result of agriculture, urbanisation etc.

• Air pollution
• Drought
• Water pollution
• Flooding
• Wetland restoration

Click on the book icon below to visit the course section on what you can use to collect environmental data.

There are many different techniques for collecting environmental data. We briefly present some of the commonly used approaches and the basic steps to follow but more information on many of these techniques can be found in the links at the end of this section.

The video below is an example of an environmental monitoring programme from the DETECT project that aimed to combat malaria through community-based environmental monitoring and vector control.

To design an environmental monitoring study you should carry out the following steps:

1. Identify the question/problem – think about what environmental change you are trying to understand.
2. Identify the most appropriate technique or techniques to collect the data - this will also be dependent on your time available, resources and budget to undertake the survey.
3. Design the survey – you will need to consider the following when designing your survey:

• Where will you be carrying out the survey? – one location or multiple locations. You will need to think about where the change will be best detected. Is it best to monitor along a line at regular intervals as you know the change occurs somewhere along that line or in a grid because you know it will happen somewhere in an area or in random locations because you’re not yet sure where the change will happen? For example, for water pollution in a river do you need to sample in many locations along a river to identify where the pollution is coming from or just above and below one discharge pipe?
• How often will you be carrying out the survey? – one off (it is difficult to determine change with just one sample), repeated every hour, day, week, year etc. (the frequency of survey is important and has a bearing on whether you will detect change or not) and if collecting from multiple locations do you need to survey at exactly the same time or can you sample at different times in the different location.
• How will you store your data? – it is important to consider where you will store the data, particularly if you are collecting a lot of data. Typically, it is added to a digital spreadsheet (see Unit 3 – Digital Skills for more information).
• Will the data you collect show the change that you want? – it is important to check that the data you collect does reflect a change rather than being as a response to another factor.
• Use the learning cycle approach to improve your survey, e.g. plan, act, observe and evaluate. If the monitoring study is not providing a complete survey or not giving the complete picture then learn from your mistakes and redesign the survey.

The video below shows an example for how to plan and carry out a community-based environmental monitoring study.

To analyse your data you should carry out the following steps:

1. Data cleaning – there are bound to be some human errors or failures of equipment so you need to sort through your data to remove any results that are incorrect.
2. Visualise the data – before you analyse the data in detail it is worth producing some simple summary statements, a map or charts of what you have found to give you an overall understanding.
3. Statistical analysis – if the data you collected was about amounts, so collected in the form of numbers, then you might want to do some statistical analysis to prove how significant the result is. If the data you collected was more descriptive and not measured then analysis would more likely involve grouping similar responses to identify trends.
4. Assessing the quality of your data – part of the observation stage of a monitoring study is to assess whether the data you collected is robust, i.e. do you and others have confidence in it and can it be verified by other sources of data or information.

Once you have analysed your data you can produce the following types of output to share your information with others.

1. Text summary
2. Graph
3. Map
4. Picture
5. Video

Now, you will have an appreciation for how environmental monitoring can help you to understand the current condition and changes in an environment. You will also have some idea now for how environmental monitoring can help to support and form the basis of management activities. Being aware of the different types of environmental data as well as the steps required to plan, carry out and analyse an environmental monitoring campaign is important to be able to use this information to support environmental management activities.

Illustrations for Unit 4 were produced by Ed Dingli (www.eddingli.com). 

Animations for Unit 4 were produced by Rosie Miles (www.rosiesmiles.com).