Data quality standards for monitoring environmental setting of National Park Service units

Nelson, Lisa; Kinseth, Michelle; DeVivo, Joseph

This report documents the standards used by the NPS Inventory and Monitoring central office for activities related to the collection, processing, storage, analysis, and publication of data as described in the national Park Environmental Settings Protocol (DeVivo et al. In Review). The policies and procedures documented complement the quality-assurance standard operating procedures conducted by the NPS Inventory and Monitoring central office and supplement the National Inventory & Monitoring Division Quality Management Plan (DeVivo in review). The plan also serves as a guide for all central office personnel who are involved in Environmental settings protocol activities and as a resource for identifying memoranda, publications, and other literature that describe associated techniques and requirements in more detail. Overview The Environmental Settings protocol provides metrics for natural systems, conservation context, climate, and stream hydrology for areas within and around all park units within NPS. These derived metrics comprise a general set of measures for understanding the landscape context and condition of parks. The national park environmental setting protocol produces a suite of roughly 1,000 nationally-standardized metrics that are reported at multiple scales—from parks to watersheds to standardized areas around parks. Protocol Activities and Modules Data are acquired and derived from regionally- to nationally-standardized external source data through 20 different activities (Table 1). Metrics describing landscape dynamics (land cover, human use and disturbance, and conservation status) as well as climate and hydrologic conditions are derived for each relevant monitoring station or Area of Analysis of interest to each park. The periodicity of new data availability varies among data source ranging from daily to decadal, with some data updated intermittently following quality assurance procedures conducted by each data source provider. Landscape dynamics metrics are calculated annually when new data are published/available, or as updated or corrected versions of previously-published source data are made available. Climate and hydrologic metrics are derived annually.

Data quality standards for monitoring environmental setting of National Park Service units

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