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0 river channel. <br />II.C. Standards for Monitoring and Research <br />All monitoring and research will be conducted by following detailed and scientific protocols. <br />Most system level monitoring protocols were developed during the Cooperative Agreement <br />period. Program staff, or contractors under the supervision of Program staff, will develop <br />additional monitoring and research protocols as needed. All protocols will be subject to review <br />by the Program's TAC and approval by the Governance Committee. Monitoring studies are <br />designed to document trends in selected indicators of biological response with statistical <br />inference possible to the appropriate study areas. Research will include detailed studies of <br />specific management actions, studies taking advantage of the limited opportunity for <br />manipulative experiments, and studies that utilize habitat and species response to natural events <br />combined with Program activities. <br />Monitoring is defined as the collection and analysis of repeated observations or measurements <br />over a long period of time to document the status or trend in the parameters of interest. The <br />Program's monitoring is focused on estimating trends in species and habitat and therefore <br />measures factors that directly relate to the condition/status of the species or its habitat. The <br />monitoring portion of the IMRP is designed to detect statistically significant changes in <br />measured parameters over time and document correlations between management activities, other <br />random variables, and those changes. However, monitoring data will not establish a statistically <br />based cause and effect relationship among management actions and the status /condition of <br />species and their habitats. Additionally, this monitoring plan is not. designed to determine the <br />processes influencing the relationship between management actions and the status /condition of <br />species and their habitats. <br />The IMRP is designed to provide monitoring data that are unbiased for the region of interest <br />(system, Program lands, or project specific area). Each portion of the monitoring program (e.g., <br />species use, channel dynamics) will involve protocols and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) <br />detailing the methods of data collection. Protocols and SOPS should not be changed during the <br />monitoring period unless the new approach to monitoring is clearly superior, can overlap with <br />existing monitoring for a period of time and the two methods are highly correlated. <br />The development of monitoring protocols will consider existing (i.e., pre- treatment) data and <br />data collection methods to evaluate the costs and benefits of collecting data with the same <br />methods and in the same locations during the Program. Where appropriate, existing protocols <br />will be used or modified for use in the Program. Quantitative data that have been collected with <br />similar methods and in the same study area will be analyzed with data collected under the IMRP <br />when appropriate. The combined data could be used to conduct a before -after comparison, to <br />calculate an estimate of trend, or conduct resource selection function (RSF) analyses (see Section <br />VI.B). <br />The methods used for Program monitoring have been chosen to provide status and trend <br />estimates of indicators of biological response. The monitoring is designed to collect data quickly <br />