Monitoring
Monitoring is conducted both as a quality control measure at the implementation phase of a treatment(s) and as a means to evaluate the treatment(s) effectiveness. Implementation monitoring is conducted by an assigned Project Inspector (PI) whose role is to ensure that a given treatment is implemented to the standards presented in the proposal or, if it has not, determine the extent of additional work required to achieve proposal standards.
Effectiveness monitoring, on the other hand, is undertaken to evaluate whether the implemented treatment has had the intended effect (the monitoring of treatments may be conducted up to 3 years following control of a wild fire). The intensity of monitoring required to evaluate effectiveness varies widely between the treatments.
Of particular relevance in the Winnemucca Field Office is effectiveness monitoring as it relates to grazing or range closure. This treatment is usually implemented to allow either natural vegetation or seeded species to (re)establish after a wild fire. In order to justify a release from closure, there must be sufficient data to indicate that these treatments have been successful. Toward this end, effectiveness monitoring activities are oriented toward addressing the following questions: * Have the desirable species been successfully established and do they provide sufficient cover to adequately protect the site from soil erosion?
* Is there evidence that a self-sustaining community has been established?
* Are vegetative reproduction (e.g. rhizomes) and establishment of the desirable seeded species occurring?
These questions are addressed by comparing the treated area to adjacent, unburned reference areas. The goal is to approximate the percentage of perennial plant cover in the reference area, thereby emulating a pre-burn condition. For areas where existing vegetative types adjacent to the burn areas are severely disturbed, the appropriate ecological or range site descriptions would be used for comparative purposes.
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