Monitoring habitats before, during, and after management is critical for a few reasons:
- To document the impacts of management actions
- To enable adaptive management in case a particular management activity is having undesired or unanticipated impacts
- To observe climate-related changes over time, allowing management efforts to be adjusted if needed as conditions change
A fun way for anyone to help monitor change over time is through Picture Posts. Establish a Picture Post at a particular area you are interested in monitoring, and each post guides visitors to photograph the site in nine different directions. Over time, the photos can be analyzed to assess change and impacts. For example, the Picture Post website allows users to calculate the Greenness Index from photos. This index is used to study the impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems. Changes in the greenness index over time might indicate changes in phenology - the timing of seasonal changes. Check out this map to see if there are any picture posts in your community already!
