Cultural and Environmental Monitoring
Effective cultural and environmental monitoring is difficult and relies on the right approach, skills and tools.
Many land and cultural management organisations have trouble designing and implementing monitoring programs that are simple enough to deliver, yet informative enough to produce meaningful findings. This is usually because programs lack a defined, coherent and consistent approach to collecting data, as well the tools for managing and analysing the data once it is collected.
ESS works with clients to help design, implement and undertake monitoring programs that are within the capacity of the group and may still identify environmental or cultural condition change over time. Our approach establishes a methodology, monitoring schedule and a set of data standards that field staff can follow, which produces datasets that can be easily interpreted and analysed. These monitoring programs are underpinned by the use of our tailored data collection tools and information management systems.
Data can be presented for analysis in a number of tailored ways (referred to as 'data products'), such as comparative charts, graphs, trend lines, which are driven in real-time by monitoring data as it is captured. Other more sophisticated tools for analysing change over time such as photo comparison tools/sliders (shown below) and time-series/story maps can also be implemented. These data products are often combined combined to produce live dashboards, which show selected and customised visual summaries of monitoring data in one centralised location.
Key features:
- Development of customised monitoring methodologies within the capacity of the group
- Establishment of a targeted and strategic monitoring program to produce specific and meaningful information
- Integration with automated and external monitoring tools and data sources
- Specialised and tailored tools to collect, store and organise monitoring data
- Customised 'live' data products and dashboards for presenting and analysing monitoring data
Projects involving monitoring environmental and cultural change:
Victorian Government Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning
Njanjma Aboriginal Corporation
