Buckeye Basins Newsletter: Spring 2002

Buckeye Basins is produced by the Ohio State University Extension, Community Based Watershed Management Team. It is compiled quarterly for watershed coordinators, Extension specialists, and natural resource professionals to include within their newsletters, programs or however they see fit.

In This Issue:

• Riparian Tree Planting Tips
• Evaluating Watershed Education Programs
• Water Quality Monitoring Bill Proposed
• Learning Is a Key to Effective Watershed Management

Riparian Tree Planting Tips

Jerry Iles, OSU South Centers

Tree planting season has nearly arrived. I hope several watershed groups around the state are working toward planting trees to re-establish cover along riparian corridors and enhance stream habitat. I have been involved in many spring tree planting days and they can be tons of fun provided enough volunteers turn out to lighten the load. A good general number of trees per person for planning purposes is 50 -- 75 trees per volunteer. Think in terms of quality not quantity. Plant only what you can monitor and manage. The following are a few tips I learned at "The University of Hard Knocks"

Find and secure written permission from the landowner of the potential planting site. You may want to enhance or widen an area where there is a narrow band of trees or establish a streamside forest where none currently exists. Develop a planting plan to determine your spacing. Use some tree flags if you want to eliminate volunteer questions. Depending on your watershed, public lands may provide a great opportunity for long term protection. Make sure you have chosen native species appropriate for riparian areas

Don't let those roots dry out! Bareroot plants can dry out while you are planting. Consider using small buckets, small trash bags or tree planting bags. Store the trees in a cool shady place. I think it is a good idea to mix up a batch of Terrasorb and dip the tree roots right before planting.

It is very important to have an experienced planter give everyone a good demonstration of how to properly plant using a dibble bar. Be sure to seal your roots and eliminate air pockets by watering each tree to get them off to a good start.

Prepare the site by removing exotic vegetation such as honeysuckle and multiflora rose. Studies have shown that weed control is essential to long term survival. In one study after 11 years, results show 73% of the seedlings survived where weeds were controlled (mowing or careful application of herbicides) as compared to 7% where no weed control was used. Other studies indicate that the use of tree shelters (3 - 4 foot plastic transparent tubes that enclose seedlings) increased growth rate and survivorship of seedlings.

Streamside forest restoration may be one of the most effective and practical activities a local watershed group can accomplish. Good event planning, site preparation and a long term maintenance plan are needed to ensure success.

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Evaluating Watershed Education Programs

Anne Baird, OSU Extension Southwest District Office

Here are some tips on program evaluation to assist you in the design of watershed education programs. These tips are provided courtesy of Dr. Tom Archer, Ohio State University Extension Program Development and Evaluation Specialist. http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~pde/

How can you use evaluation data?

1. Accountability--Let key stakeholders (e.g., funders, legislators, board members) know how successful your outreach efforts have been.
2. Program Quality--Improve the benefit of your programs to clientele.
3. Resource Allocation--Decide which programs are worth more time and which ones it may be time to modify or drop.

4. Marketing--High quality impact statements developed from an evaluation can help market your programs. (Note: See section on Impact Statements below)
5. Self Evaluation--Improving your teaching skills may help you advance professionally.

References on Survey Design and Evaluation Techniques

Not sure on the latest in questionnaire design then you may want to check out Don Dillman's Mail and Internet Surveys: The Tailored Design Method (1999).

If you're having a difficult time deciding what kind of evaluation technique to use to demonstrate a particular outcome The Answers To Program Evaluation: A Workbook by the North Central Extension Region (Number 571 Jan 97) may be helpful. It explains the various evaluation techniques and how to match them with program outcomes you want to demonstrate.

Copies of Water Quality Project Evaluation are still available from OSU Extension contact your District Watershed Management Agent to receive a copy. This publication covers evaluation techniques as well as writing program goals and objectives.

Matching Evaluation Techniques to Program Outcome

This table is an excerpt from The Answers To Program Evaluation: A Workbook

KASA--Knowledge Attitude, Skill, Aspiration

Retrospect Pre and Post Testing

Washington State University has a new evaluation web site where you can learn more about designing a retrospect pre-post test. Participants at the end of a program are asked to think back to what they were like before the program, answer questions related to programs outcomes, and then answer the same questions based on what they are like after having participated in the program. You can login as a guest to explore samples of retrospect evaluations for youth education programs. http://cru23.cahe.wsu.edu/lifeskills/sample.htm

Impact Statements

Impact statements are brief summaries in lay terms that state a programs accomplishments and payoffs to society. Impact statements reveal the difference you are making in people's lives. Used sparingly anecdotes (single quantifiable examples of change) and testimonial from those your program has helped may be used as part of your impact statements. They can put a human face to projects and may resonate with some of your audiences for the evaluation such as elected officials; however they can't replace other evaluation techniques or constitute you entire evaluation.

Possible Impact Statement Outline:

• Topic or Title
• Issue
• What Has Been Done
• Action or Potential Change in Societal/Individual Well Being; Economic Value or Environmental Quality

Before writing an impact statement, ask yourself:

• Did the program increase knowledge?
• How did people use the knowledge?
• What are the public benefits?
• Has it changed behavior or situations?
• Was the change social, economic, environmental or a combination?
• Is there data that quantifies changes?

Where to Go for More Information

There are many different program development and evaluation models available to use when systematically outlining programs. At the present time, the Extension Program Logic Model is being taught to OSU Extension program staff. The OSU Extension program development and evaluation site has information on this model on-line at http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~pde/pdeprdev.htm

The Logic Model was first presented at the second annual University of Wisconsin-Extension, Cooperative Extension program evaluation conference in June 2000. Dr. Taylor-Powell's detailed PowerPoint presentation, "The Logic Model: A Program Performance Framework" is available for review by going to the University of Wisconsin Program Development and Evaluation home page and clicking on the Logic Model. A slide presentation on this model is available at the University of Wisconsin-Extension web site: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/pdande/evaluation/pdf/LogicETP.pdf

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Water Quality Monitoring Bill Proposed

J.P. Lieser, OSU Extension East District Office

A new piece of water quality legislation was introduced by State Representative Tony Core in the Ohio General Assembly on January 23, 2002. The legislation, known as House Bill 479, has received a great deal of scrutiny from professionals who work with water quality issues in Ohio. Representative Core states, that the intention of the bill is to establish requirements for "credible data" to administer the Water Pollution Control Law (Clean Water Act) in Ohio. If you would like to view the bill in its entirety please follow the link at the end of this article.

The following is a summary of opinions voiced by supporters and opponents of the bill.

Supporters Comments

• "The bill will benefit Ohioan's by establishing a formal volunteer monitoring program that will help relieve pressure from the Ohio EPA's Ecological Assessment teams."
• "This legislation will provide legitimacy to the monitoring that individual landowners and volunteers do in the state of Ohio."

Opponents Comments

• "To comply with this bill the OEPA would have to allocate an enormous amount of personnel hours without any additional funding. The Division of Surface Water is already overworked and understaffed."
• "The bill's treatment of the TMDL program seems at best out of place, and at worst as an attempt to completely gut the TMDL process"
• "With respect to the formal establishment of a volunteer monitoring program to provide data regarding the state's surface water, we are supportive. However, the mechanisms proposed in this bill are unworkable and unduly burdensome."

House Bill 479 Link:
http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/bills.cfm?ID=124_HB_479

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Learning Is a Key to Effective Watershed Management

Joe Bonnell, PhD., Project Coordinator for the Ohio Watershed Network

As an educator, I am fascinated by the role that learning can and does play in watershed protection. While many of us recognize the importance of educating the public to minimize their impact on our water resources, we often forget the valuable role that learning plays throughout the watershed planning process.

Why does learning play such a key role in watershed planning and management?

Like all ecosystems, watersheds are complex, involving a seemingly infinite number of factors interacting and influencing each other at every moment of every day. The social and economic systems that drive human behavior, which in turn affects land use, water quality, and hydrologic processes are no less complex. Planning for improvements in ecosystem function one year, much less five or ten years, into the future can seem like an exercise in futility. Regardless of how thorough, decision makers cannot possibly predict the full range of impacts their decisions will have on the physical, biological, and social systems. They have no choice but to take action in the face of great uncertainty -- sort of like taking a blind curve at full speed, hoping there isn't an obstacle in the road ahead! It is this uncertainty that makes learning so critical to the watershed management process.

Because management decisions must be made with imperfect information and uncertain outcomes, resource managers, including local watershed groups, must develop effective processes for learning from the outcomes of their actions so that they can make appropriate adjustments in management strategies. This "adaptive management" approach is one of the keystones of watershed management and makes possible the development and implementation of resource management plans in an imperfect and uncertain environment.

How can watershed groups incorporate learning into the planning process?

The possibilities for integrating learning into watershed planning are too numerous to mention here, but here are some basic considerations that you and your watershed group can incorporate immediately:

• Start with the assumption that no one person or agency can know what is the "best" management strategy in every case. Resolving systemic problems requires input from many different perspectives.

• Create multi-disciplinary teams that involve individuals with technical, social, and cultural knowledge, including watershed residents. Residents can often provide valuable historical and cultural perspectives.

• Come to agreement on how you will measure or describe the impacts of your management decisions. Be sure to include both physical impacts (e.g., water quality, biodiversity, habitat structure) and social impacts (e.g., adoption of management practices, support for management strategies). Get expert advice on developing methods for measuring impacts. Be open to discovering that some of your efforts are not producing results -- don't waste resources on ineffective strategies.

• Develop a process for incorporating evaluation and monitoring data into future decision-making. Someone should be responsible for analyzing evaluation and monitoring data and presenting results to the watershed group. If you do not have a plan for utilizing this data, evaluation and monitoring efforts are a waste of time.

• Identify gaps in your knowledge of the watershed that prevent your group from making wise decisions or that are a source of conflict. When making resource management decisions, you should always be asking, "What questions, if they were answered, would greatly improve our ability to address this issue?" Then assign a person or committee to seek answers to those questions. Where there is conflict, try to come to agreement beforehand on what information sources will be acceptable. You may decide to gather your own data.

These are just a few simple recommendations that will help your group learn systematically from your experiences and, ideally, improve your management strategies over time. For more assistance on evaluation and monitoring methods, consult the OSU Extension Watershed Agent in your region.

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