Performance Indicators Visualization and Outreach Tool Introduction

Introduction    |    Habitat Loss    |     Contributing Factors    |    Resources

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Introduction to PIVOT

This PIVOT module for the National Estuary Program (NEP) highlights common habitat degradation and loss problems faced by NEP communities around the country. PIVOT's interactive graphics and maps are designed to help users better understand the issues and visually track the National Estuary Program's progress toward achieving its habitat restoration goals.

What you'll find in these pages:

Habitat Loss

"What's the Problem?" summarizes the issue.

"What Are We Doing?" describes how the NEP is addressing this issue at a national level.

"How Can We Map Our Progress?" provides links to

• Maps and Reports that illustrate current conditions and present performance data reported to the National Estuary Program from NEP communities across the nation
• Photos and descriptions of habitat categories used to summarize NEP actions
• Definitions of habitat activity terms used in NEP action reports.

Contributing Factors

An interactive graphic shows how everyday human activities along the coast increase pressures on natural habitat and can impact the health of our estuaries in other ways as well.

Resources

Links are provided here to further information about watersheds, maps, and performance measures useful for reporting progress toward improving the health of coastal watersheds.

The PIVOT framework for reporting performance was developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Coastal Services Center . While PIVOT is applied here by the EPA National Estuary Program at a national level, the framework is also an effective local tool, helping individual communities assess and communicate the success of local management actions. See PIVOT for Tillamook Bay NEP as an example. Or continue reading below to learn more about the PIVOT concept of using maps and graphics to communicate performance.

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Why PIVOT?

Reporting Performance Matters

The National Estuary Program works with local communities to improve the health of our nation's estuaries. Community support and involvement is fundamental to the success of these efforts. Through an extensive stakeholder planning process, NEP communities develop comprehensive conservation and management plans, or CCMPs. These plans serve as documentation of the communities' environmental goals for their estuaries and watersheds as well as blueprints for achieving those goals. As this is a long-term process, keeping the community well informed and connected with plan activities and progress is critical to keeping the plan a vital, living process for the community.

Performance reporting is not only essential for garnering and maintaining community support, it is often mandated. Enabling legislation or other laws—federal or local—may require responsible agencies to report on what progress they are making toward established goals. For the National Estuary Program, several pieces of federal legislation weigh in on performance reporting.

• Estuaries and Clean Water Act of 2000 (PDF)
  This new legislation makes restoring the nation’s estuaries a national priority and funds community-based estuary restoration projects. Reauthorization of EPA's National Estuary Program is included, with funds for estuary management in addition to planning. The core of the bill establishes a five-year program through which the federal government will promote and track estuary restoration.

• Government Performance Reporting Act of 1993 (GPRA) (PDF)
  This act requires that federal agencies should link inputs, outputs, and outcomes of their programs to improve government planning, budgeting, performance, and results overall.

• Clean Water Act Amendments of 1987
  The enabling legislation for the NEP program stipulates that NEPs must "monitor the effectiveness of actions taken pursuant to the plan."

Maps Make Sense

PIVOT takes a geography-centered approach because where things happen matters, in a watershed or in a program area. The ability to see on a map the spatial relationships of factors contributing to priority issues and the management actions designed to address those issues can be powerful. Once those spatial relationships are established, questions about the effectiveness of management actions naturally start to emerge.

What are the monitoring and tracking data that will help measure plan performance through time? Indicators are pieces of information, pre-established during planning, that can lead to conclusions about the effectiveness of actions. How will the community stay informed about plan progress? Maps can help tie management actions to performance data, or indicators. When effectively evaluated and communicated to stakeholders, indicators can help illustrate and even guide progress.

PIVOT focuses on getting results to stakeholders, which may include key decision makers or local citizens. Maps of management issues, actions, and performance, presented in combination with educational text and graphics, provide a visual, intuitive format for informing communities about how well their plans are working.

See how the National Estuary Program is demonstrating its progress by viewing "How Can We Map Our Progress?" under the Habitat Loss section.

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