Who Is Doing What, Where? #Documentationiskey

The Pacific Northwest Aquatic Monitoring Partnership (PNAMP) was created to facilitate collaboration and coordination of the diverse monitoring programs within the region. To support partners, PNAMP has developed a suite of complementary web tools, MonitoringResources.org, designed to assist practitioners in describing how, when, where, and why data are collected. One of the benefits of adequate documentation is in knowing what others are doing so we can work together, be efficient with limited funding, and develop the best strategies for our resources. The Monitoring Methods tool helps users describe their detailed sampling plan, which includes how data are collected, managed, analyzed and reported. The Monitoring Explorer allows users to visualize who is doing what, where. The ability to see the sampling plan along with the location information allows users to view who is doing what, where. This knowledge can inform how proposed projects fit into existing programs, allowing for collaboration opportunities with other organizations when needs are similar. Long term storage of information will preserve yearly documentation, making it easy to find details of how and where the data were collected and analyzed. Consistent documentation supports information sharing between monitoring programs, allowing us to leverage dwindling funds for higher quality data.