Prioritizing Restoration Monitoring: Using a Viability Analysis to Establish Meaningful Monitoring Metrics and Derive Restoration Endpoints in the St. Clair-Detroit River System

As large-scale restoration plans for degraded aquatic habitats evolve, it is essential for managers to have appropriate guidance and a common vision to achieve consensus on restoration goals. Post-restoration monitoring can be focused using a viability analysis framework, supporting an adaptive management process, to assess the efficacy of implemented strategies. In the St. Clair-Detroit River System (SCDRS), we used a viability analysis framework to achieve a common vision and to evaluate environmental parameters associated with fisheries and aquatic restoration efforts and gage the overall health of the aquatic environment. Steps in deriving the viability analysis included establishing meaningful baseline metrics, identifying information deficiencies, and placing the context of current conditions into a usable format for managers and practitioners. Viability analysis is a robust and accommodating framework which can be adapted to any restoration monitoring program and, through the determination of common desired endpoints, aid consensus building and collaboration across jurisdictional boundaries in the SCDRS.