EOV Monitoring Summary

The main steps in EOV include regional calibration, creating a monitoring plan, conducting short-term and long-term monitoring, quality assurance review of the data, and reporting data to land managers. This section provides a brief overview of short-term monitoring and long-term monitoring.

Short-Term Monitoring (STM)

STM focuses on leading indicators across the land base and gives the necessary information to inform management adjustments and verify ecological health trends on an annual basis. STM is designed to be simple, inexpensive, and quick while being scientifically robust.

A landbase monitoring plan identifies and distributes short-term monitoring (STM) sites throughout the farm or ranch.

Each STM site is analyzed by assessing the leading indicators on the Ecological Health Matrix. These have predictive value about the direction of changes and are very useful for informing management. The accredited monitor walks the land base, preferably with the farmer, and works through the indicators comparing visual observation with the indicator descriptors on the Evaluation Matrix. This evaluation is easy to learn and meaningful, requiring about ten minutes per checkpoint. Producers and professionals can learn to conduct STM in a three to five-day training resulting in reliable EHI scores less than a standard deviation of 10 points among monitors.

The Ecological Health Index (EHI score) is the sum of the scores for each indicator. The final score is dependent on the Evaluation Matrix for a given ecoregion. For example in an ecoregion leaning toward the end of the brittleness scale it can range between -140 and +120 points. The EHI includes:

1. Live canopy abundance

2. Microfauna

3. Warm season grasses (Vigor and reproduction of a functional group)

4. Cool season grasses (Vigor and reproduction of a functional group)

5. Forbs and legumes (Vigor and reproduction of a functional group)

6. Trees and shrubs (Vigor and reproduction of a functional group)

7. Contextually desirable species

8. Contextually undesirable species

9. Litter abundance

10. Litter decomposition

11. Dung decomposition

12. Bare soil

13. Soil capping

14. Wind erosion

15. Water erosion

Long-Term Monitoring (LTM)

Long-term monitoring sites are permanent benchmark sites, located at representative areas of the farm or ranch. LTM monitoring begins with the establishment of the landbase baseline and is then repeated every 5 years.

Assessing lagging indicators through LTM is important to detect structural changes of the land base and track the functionality of the ecosystem processes which cannot be assessed with STM for attributes such as soil carbon and botanical composition as these demonstrate slower, more incremental changes and consequently are considered lagging indicators.

LTM encompasses the processes below. All indicators are measured using scientific methodologies.

1. Evaluating vegetation and water infiltration change with a photographic plot and two transects which provide data regarding:

   1. Bare soil cover

   2. Litter Cover

   3. Foliar Cover of Perennial Plants by Species

   4. Cover Percentage by Functional Groups

   5. Biodiversity indicators such as Species Richness and Shannon Wienner Index

   6. Water infiltration

2. A third transect comprised of all the STM criteria for evaluating the Ecological Health Index (EHI) score with quantitative sampling.

3. Soil carbon and health

Note both short-term and long-term monitoring procedures are linked by the Ecological Health Index, calculated using the Evaluation Matrix (Scorecard) for the associated ecoregion.