Five Components of Monitoring

Environmental information systems (aka monitoring systems) have five components. These are

• Data acquisition
• Data management
• Information generation
• Information distribution
• Information use

Data acquisition covers both automated and manual data collection, as well as laboratory analysis of collected samples. Typically, data acquisition results in flat files containing data. Examples would include data from a temperature datalogger, measurements from a weatherstation or chemical results from a sampling campaign. Note that such efforts can either produce calibrated data (for instance, a weatherstation will most often output a temperature value) or raw voltage readings (typically the result from dataloggers).

Data management covers the systematic organization of data. It involves data organization in a logical manner, physical storage, association of data with metadata (including sensor types and locations as well as calibration equations to go from raw data to measured parameters), data validation and verification, ownership and access privileges definition, consistent approaches to dealing with the expected lifetime of data, dealing with e.g. obsolescence of technical solutions and data backups, and data integration with existing systems. Storing all data files in one folder on a PC or in one big Excel spreadsheet does not constitute data management.

Information generation covers the generation of information through processing and analysis of data. Often this is performed in conjunction with models. Generating information can be very simple (e.g. creation of a trendline), or require complex numerical modeling (e.g. predicting future contaminant concentrations in an aquifer). In order for information generation to be truly useful, it should be transparent and reproducible.

Information distribution is the process of distributing information in an useable format to different stakeholders. Note that the key point here is that information should be clear and at the appropriate level; while a 600 page pdf report may contain all information, it is not something which is useful for a project manager who only can dedicate a few hours a week to a project

Information use is the process of using the information. Typically, this involves determining additional information needs, making decisions and taking actions. Information use often impacts monitoring. For instance, data acquisition location and frequency can change, or it can be decided that better models and processing tools need to be developed