Living Observatory Summits
Session prompts
Before the summit we invited speakers for two sessions. Below are the prompts we sent to speakers to consider as they prepared there talks.
Session Goals: This session focuses on the circumstances and decisions that are driving innovation in the practice of cranberry farm wetland restoration. By reflecting on decisions that have been made across several projects, we seek to highlight why and how practice is developing, and identify longer-term implications for monitoring and adaptive management. This session establishes shared context for subsequent sessions and collaborative work.
Presenter Guidance: Please include the following points in your presentation (aim for 10 minutes):
Briefly describe the project context
Describe one or more decisions or emerging practices that you incorporated into your process, or into specific design/implementation solutions.
Provide some reflections on what you learned/observed about each of these decisions.
- Looking ahead, what do you hope to learn about the project over time?
- Is current monitoring sufficient to this end? If not, what additional monitoring do you think would be helpful?
Session goals:
This session will feature and contrast different perspectives and scales of nitrogen assessment related to wetland restoration, including watershed, wetland or stream reach, and/or groundwater wells or seepage faces. Together, these perspectives clarify where and how nitrogen moves and is processed in groundwater and surface water, how restoration driven changes can be measured, and which types of design interventions are most capable of enhancing removal.
Presenter Guidance: Briefly describe how nitrogen was monitored, at what scale, and why those choices were made. The goal is not to present all results, but to explain the logic of different monitoring approaches and to reflect on which proved most informative. Try to address at least two of the questions below.
- What study goals or constraints informed monitoring choices?
- Which measurements were most critical or cost effective, which provided the least value?
- What did the data tell you about N transformations, were new questions exposed?
- Are your current monitoring techniques sufficient to answer your new questions?
- If not, what techniques might be needed to answer those questions?
- What are the major caveats of the monitoring program and its findings?
- E.g. How do spatial and temporal dynamics complicate interpretation, and how should that influence monitoring design?
Group Discussion: This discussion will be initiated in an insight post, framed around the question below. Insights will be recorded in real time by all participants using the LO platform.
What recommendations would you make to future sites where N mitigation is one of the restoration goals?
A question for this group is whether there is interest in developing a synthesis paper on N monitoring (perspective, LO project page, or technical report)? What might it take to make that happen?