Comparing the monitoring and evaluation systems of watershed management related development projects in Amhara, Ethiopia

Natural resource degradation is both a cause and a result of poverty in Ethiopia. Therefore it is important to include watershed management into efforts to reduce poverty and food insecurity in the country. In order to see if different interventions are effective in restoring the degraded environment, it is important to have a functioning monitoring and evaluation system that includes natural resource degradation and other environmental factors. This study compares the monitoring and evaluation systems used by five different projects involved in watershed management in the Amhara region, Ethiopia. The objective is to find out whether these systems are providing adequate and scientifically valid information about the projects’ success in decreasing erosion. The study has also two sub-objectives: suggesting additional and/or alternative methods for environmental monitoring, and helping the projects learn from each other by providing information about the indicators other projects are using as well as their successes and shortcomings The environmental monitoring of the examined projects is done mostly with management-based indicators that monitor what is being done and assume environmental effects based on empirical knowledge. These management-based indicators are important in identifying where and how project resources are spent and in finding out the rate of adoption of the promoted methods. They serve an important function in the monitoring and evaluation systems but are not sufficient from an environmental point of view. Direct monitoring of erosion is done by one project. This hydrological monitoring system, possibly accompanied with low-cost estimation methods, could well be modified and applied to other projects as well if funds for the establishment of monitoring stations can be found

Local snow and fluvial conditions drive taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic plant diversity in tundra

To understand, how the diversity and hence functioning of tundra ecosystems might respond to altering environmental conditions, fine-scale studies are needed as local conditions may buffer broad-scale environmental changes. Furthermore, species functional traits and phylogeny may provide complementary insights to taxonomic diversity patterns as they link plant communities to ecosystem processes often more closely than species count. Here, we examined taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic plant diversity in relation to fundamental environmental factors, namely, growing degree days, snow persistence, soil moisture, pH and fluvial disturbance in northern Norway. The relationships between eight diversity metrics and environmental predictors were investigated using hierarchical generalised additive models. Our results indicated that taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic plant diversity in tundra are all strongly linked to local snow and fluvial conditions, with average variable importance of 0.19 and 0.14, respectively, whereas the importance of other predictors was low (average variable importance < 0.06). The average explained deviance by the models was 0.23. Predicted hotspots of different diversity metrics overlapped notably and were mostly located along the streams. However, when the effect of taxonomic richness was removed from the phylogenetic and functional diversities their connections with environmental predictors were weaker but indicated strongest relationships with snow and soil pH showing distinct diversity hotspots in areas with low species richness. Our study demonstrates that investigating multiple facets of biodiversity enhances understanding on community patterns and their drivers. Furthermore, our results highlight the importance of addressing local hydrological conditions that represent both resources and disturbances for vegetation. As arctic and alpine areas are probably shifting from snow to rain dominated, incorporating snow and fluvial information into the models might be particularly important to better understand tundra ecosystems under global change.peerReviewe