title: It's all in the numbers: acreage tallies and environmental program evaluation.
abstract: Increasingly, performance measurement is being used to hold federal agencies accountable, represent environmental progress, and evaluate the effectiveness of environmental programs. The need to track measurable outputs has created a tendency to present programmatic progress solely by quantifiable data, despite the inherent complexity of natural resource management. Wetlands and fire management programs are two specific environmental arenas that have come to overemphasize the tracking of acreage numbers to validate existing policy direction. In both of these arenas, we find the definition and categorization of "countable" acres to be inconsistent and unreliable. We explore this systemic flaw for both wetlands and fire programs and describe its implications for environmental policy and natural resource management more broadly. We conclude with recommendations for improved performance measurement in these arenas.
authors.affiliation: University of Denver, Sturm Hall 457, 2000 E. Asbury Avenue, Denver, Colorado 80208, USA. lisa.dale@du.edu
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.forename: Andrea K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Gerlak
mesh_terms: D004782:Environmental Health; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005390:Fires; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011640:Public Policy; D014481:United States; D053833:Wetlands