Social indicators for NPS management provide information about awareness, attitudes, constraints, capacity, and behaviors that are expected to lead to water quality improvement and protection. By measuring these indicators over time, water quality managers can target their project activities and assess whether their projects are accomplishing changes expected to improve and protect water quality.  Monitoring social indicators, like monitoring environmental indicators, gives us valuable information about how well our management strategies are working.

Social indicators complement other environmental and administrative indicators to present a complete picture of project effectiveness. For assistance in developing this social component of the NPS Evaluation Framework, the regional state agency NPS coordinators have initiated this joint project in cooperation with land grant universities throughout the region.

Projects and Products

The Region 5 multi-state Social Indicator Team began in Spring 2005 with support from the region's state water quality agencies, USEPA, and the Great Lakes Regional Water Program. The team developed and is testing a set of social indicators with pilot projects across the region using the Social Indicators for Planning and Evaluation System
(SIPES). The system is described in the handbook provided through the link below.
We also provide sample survey questionnaires used for SIPES and links to articles describing the system.

The SIPES Handbook, version 2.1, January 2010 (pdf coming soon)

Sample survey questionnaire for agricultural audience (464 Kb pdf)

Sample survey questionnaire for urban audience (1.08 Mb pdf)

Genskow, K. and Linda Stalker Prokopy. 2010. "Lessons Learned in Developing Social Indicators for Regional Water Quality Management" in Society and Natural Resources Vol. 23, Issue 1, Pages 83-91.
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a917377039~db=all

Prokopy, L., K. Genskow, et al. 2009. Designing a regional system of social indicators to evaluate nonpoint source water projects. Journal of Extension 47(2): Feature Article 2FEA1.
http://www.joe.org/joe/2009april/a1.php

View the project timeline and additional resources.

Acknowledgements

This project is as a joint effort of the USEPA, state water quality agencies in Region 5, and Land Grant Universities through the USDA-CSREES Great Lakes Regional Water Quality Program. The project is supported through in-kind contributions from participating organizations, the USDA CSREES Great Lakes Regional Water Quality Program, and state funds provided through Section 319 of the Clean Water Act. Development of the social indicator framework involves collaborative contributions from the Regional Social Indicators Project Team, comprised of staff and faculty at USEPA, state agencies, and Land Grant Universities in the USEPA Region 5/ CSREES Great Lakes Region. The project was initiated under the leadership of the CSREES Great Lakes Regional Water Quality Program.

EPA Region 5 Social Indicators Team

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