Measuring Success | Performance Measurement | CZMA Measures
Coastal Zone Management Act Performance Measures
NOAA will use performance measures to assess how well the National Coastal Zone Management Program and National Estuarine Research Reserve System are achieving the goals of the Coastal Zone Management Act. NOAA has led expert panels, collaborative work groups, and studies involving Coastal Management Programs and Reserves to develop performance measures that accommodate varying management structures and differing coastal priorities across coastal states.
Performance measures include three components: indicators of performance, units of measure, and baseline information. Long-term monitoring and data collection of performance measures will be used to establish a baseline and identify trends in coastal resource management outcomes. With appropriate support, it will become a powerful tool for management of the nation’s coastal zone and for demonstrating the success of the CZMA in preserving, protecting, and restoring coastal resources and sustaining coastal communities throughout the United States for this and future generations.
National Coastal Zone Management Program Performance Measures
The National Coastal Zone Management Program has six categories of performance measures: coastal habitats, coastal hazards, coastal water quality, coastal dependent uses and community development, public access, and government coordination and decision-making. Measures will be aggregated across programs for a national and regional picture of coastal zone management.
Implementation of the performance measures is being conducted in a 3-year phased approach which began in 2005. In 2006, coastal states devoted significant resources to establishing systems to collect and report the first year of data for the performance measurement system. The results have provided important data on the Coastal Management Program that will be used to demonstrate the partnership’s effectiveness. However, first year results also demonstrated the need to streamline and improve the performance measures. In 2007, the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management (OCRM) and state Coastal Management Programs worked together to reduce and streamline the performance measures to a core set that can demonstrate effectiveness. OCRM will continue to work with Coastal Management Programs to refine and improve the performance measures based on experience gained during the phased implementation period.
For additional information, contact Laurie Rounds.
National Estuarine Research Reserve System Peformance Measures
The National Estuarine Research Reserve System has performance measures that reflect a focus on education, research, and stewardship of the protected reserves within the coastal zone. A workgroup of NOAA and reserve field staff refined a measurement framework for the NERRS in early 2003. The framework chosen by the workgroup and approved by the NERRS is the pressure-state-response model. In this framework, contextual indicators are separated into indicators tracking “pressures” affecting the resource and community and indicators monitoring the “state” or natural and social conditions in and around reserves. Performance measures corresponding to the NERRS strategic plan demonstrate reserve progress in responding to important trends in estuaries and coastal communities.
Reserves currently track contextual indicators through the System-Wide Monitoring Program. The System-Wide Monitoring Program tracks short-term variability and long-term changes in estuarine waters to understand how human activity and natural events change ecosystems. In addition, reserves have begun to implement performance measures for the Coastal Training Program (CTP). The Coastal Training Program is a system-wide training program that aims to increase informed decision-making related to coastal resource management at local and regional levels.
The NERRS performance measures workgroup is currently engaged in two simultaneous tasks to help select suggested indicators for the performance measurement system: (1) prioritizing pressure and state contextual indicators, and (2) choosing performance indicators corresponding to objectives in the strategic plan. Reserves will continue to phase in priority monitoring programs and management performance indicators as resources become available. Having data about the condition of the estuaries, trends in pressures on the estuaries, and the effectiveness of reserve actions will inform the next round of strategic planning.
For additional information, contact Kate Barba.