Design of a regional environmental effects framework for watershed assessment

We have been developing a regional environmental framework for the Saint John River basin (NB, Canada), composed of an effects-based assessment of the current status of the system, a surveillance program to monitor changes over time, and an investigation of cause framework which is triggered by significant changes over time.  The minimum requirements for establishing a regional environmental framework are to establish a core level of consistency for sample station selection, indicator selection, sampling frequency and timing that does not change from year to year. The goals of the framework are to develop baseline information requirements for initial state of the watershed assessment, develop a number of functional relationships surrounding responses to develop an understanding of targets and thresholds of concern, improve indicators of sustainability in the basin, and provide a foundation for other tools for watershed management, including impact mitigation, resource management, and land use planning.  The regional environmental framework can function to provide a holistic, systematic approach for incorporation of ecological information into a scientific and management framework by building consistency in monitoring programs and placing them into a regional framework, explicitly incorporating research design, scientific data analysis and effect quantification into monitoring programs, quantifying thresholds for environmental stress, enabling the incorporation of regional information (effects-based approach) into project-specific assessments (stressor-based approach), and linking environmental assessment to other forms of practiced environmental management and planning.