Results Communication

River health assessments are performed to educate the breadth of stakeholders, whomever they may be. Results should aim to facilitate sustainable human development by informing river management decisions. Although developing management goals, objectives, strategies, processes, or actions for rivers goes beyond the bounds of the assessment itself, assessment results will play a foundational role in future management decisions and activities. CoRHAF simplifies the communication of complex river health assessment results by breaking down the riverine ecosystem into a discrete set of river health Drivers, Components, and Metrics. This structure, coupled with the use of straightforward grading rubrics, helps make river health assessment findings understandable and actionable.

General Strategies

A substantial amount of data is amassed during a river health assessment, but stakeholders and decision-makers need more than just results from data analyses, they need useful information. Information is a product of successful data analysis, organization, and interpretation. Its successful communication is what makes information useful. CoRHAF is structured to promote the translation of data into meaningful and actionable information. The CoRHAF terms and definitions support use of a common language around river health. A common language promotes common understanding and productive conversations around river health and management. CoRHAF also facilitates the communication of river health assessment results through diverse media.

Successful communication of the information produced by a river health assessment requires thoughtful consideration. The specific purpose and target audience of an assessment should shape communication strategies. Some audiences require a non-technical and highly-visual presentation of findings. Other audiences may demand a greater degree of technical detail presented in reports, charts and graphs. In some cases, it may be useful to aggregate river health findings on a single reach or across multiple reaches to provide summary views of assessment outcomes. In other cases, aggregation could obscure details that are relevant to the application of the assessment. Regardless of the particulars, dialing in your communication strategy is critical for ensuring that stakeholders can put river health assessment findings to work.

The hierarchical CoRHAF structure gives you fine grained control over the amount of information presented to various audiences. Umbrella concepts and large geographic areas can be broken into successively finer units for assessment and presentation. A presentation can target any level of the hierarchy, from overall river health all the way down to the scientific data that supports individual grades. The condition of specific, well-defined elements of the stream system can be conveyed concisely. If questions arise regarding the rationale underlying a given grade, the attention can shift to the next lower level in the CoRHAF hierarchy for explanation. Lower levels of the hierarchy can be hidden for clarity or the full framework can be presented to display a substantial amount of information which can be understood very quickly or with a small amount of explanation. In all of these cases, the CoRHAF structure makes the focus of the conversation clear.

General Communication Strategy Considerations

Review the assessment purpose to ensure that results are communicated in a way that responds to the overall goals and objectives of the effort.
Consider the intended audience when thinking about the appropriate level of technical detail or jargon to include in your communication media.
Evaluate alternative approaches for organizing and/or aggregating assessment results at a given location or across reaches.
Identify the communication pathways that are most accessible and helpful to your target audience.

Figure: Example river health summary graphic from the State of the Poudre highlighting overall river health grades for four river segments. Focusing attention on overall conditions at a coarse spatial scale helps communicate results quickly to stakeholder groups and the broader community.

Review Your Assessment Purpose

Returning to the assessment’s original purposes can help point the way toward the most appropriate communication strategy. An assessment carried out simply to characterize river conditions across a watershed will likely require a different communication strategy than an assessment intended to inform a survey and prioritization of restoration projects.

Figure: Example representation of overall river health assessment results aggregated to the scale of HUC-12 watersheds.

Local organizations may carry out river health assessments as a foundation for education and outreach campaigns. In these settings, assessment results organized graphically around long river segments or aggregated up to entire sub-watersheds can help raise awareness about the importance of river health and the threats it faces. Such information can encourage the adoption of local resource conservation or land preservation initiatives or promote behavior change at the individual level.

In other settings, river health assessment results may be intended to motivate and support local resource management actions or public policy development. Assessment results presented in graphical form and supported by narrative descriptions or semi-technical reports can be employed to lobby local elected officials for stronger environmental regulations or advocate for more responsible land-use planning. A moderate degree of results aggregation may be beneficial for making straightforward connections between river health and the presence of stressors at a given position in the watershed. Such a strategy can support advocacy for the implementation of best management practices in the management of land, water, and vegetation in the river corridor.

Figure: Representation of riparian assessment results from an assessment in Grand County aggregates information up to river segments to promote rapid and straightforward communication of watershed wide differences in river health to a diverse, non-technical audience.

Where a river health assessment is conducted to establish baseline conditions prior to some planned or expected change to the system (e.g. new reservoir construction), a comprehensive record of river health assessment results is likely preferable. In these settings, extended technical reporting developed around non-aggregated assessment outcomes is probably the optimal communication strategy. Developing a reporting approach that details concerns about resource values at risk in language familiar to resource management and permitting agencies may be required in such cases.

A word of caution

Information loss is an unavoidable consequence of display of aggregated river health conditions. When rolling up your assessment results for the purpose of visual communication, think hard about the conditions (good or bad) that may be masked as a result of your selected communication/visualization strategy. Contemplate how potentially-masked conditions relate to your assessment’s overall goals and objectives.

Consider Your Intended Audience

Knowing the audience for assessment results and customizing communication strategies around that audience is critical. Stakeholders to a river assessment typically exhibit a wide range of technical expertise. Some may be well-versed in water rights, watershed science, and the needs of local water users. Others may be brand new to the topics at hand. While it is important to document all river health analyses thoroughly so that the completed work can be revisited later by interested parties, not all audiences will need or want detailed technical documentation. Instead, the information contained in any reporting materials should be tailored to meet the aptitude and expectations of the target audience. A few typical river assessment audiences are discussed below

Non-Technical Stakeholders

School-aged children, the public at large, conservation organization leadership and boards of directors, or watershed volunteers will benefit from results that are distilled, summarized, and presented in a straightforward fashion. This audience will benefit from the highest degree of data and information summarization Any presentation or print material should be free of jargon and heavily supported by graphics.

Semi-Technical Stakeholders

Conservation organization staff, town and county staff, and elected officials may retain some technical knowledge of river health issues but have limited time to perform extensive reviews of lengthy or complex technical material. These audiences may benefit from brief technical summaries that include bulleted lists of key take-aways, data tables and supporting graphics.

Water Resources Professionals

These audiences retain the highest tolerance for detailed technical reporting. Members of this type of stakeholder group may include resource management agency staff, legal counsel, engineers or scientists. Heavy summarization or aggregation may be unnecessary or undesirable when communicating river health results to this audience.

Figure: Example summary graphic of riparian condition produced for the Grand Valley River Corridor Initiative displays functional condition assessment results at a relatively fine spatial scale, helping to facilitate the identification of riparian restoration projects.

Identify Communication Pathways

A range of options exist for communicating results. The work products and deliverables generated by an assessment may variously reside in technical reports and briefs, executive reports, fact sheets and pamphlets, public presentations and slide decks, local radio and TV appearances, riverside kiosks and posters, and interactive websites.

Data Visualization

Data visualization exists at the nexus between art and science. Effective data visualizations represent data and information in graphic forms that help enhance stakeholder understanding. Visualizations are used to rapidly summarize large datasets or complex information in digestible formats and portions. CoRHAF data visualizations can range from simple to fancy, basic to complex, and static to interactive. Roll-up results will often be a primary featured result and data visualization in any assessment. Good graphical reporting can rapidly convey to users how conditions vary across a river or watershed, and the underlying reasons why. Although CoRHAF relies heavily on school report card style results reporting (due to its widespread acceptance and understanding by many audiences), mapping results and data visualization outputs to other reporting schema can be useful. Consider the following when generating data visualizations to support communication of CoRHAF results:

Data Visualization Best Practices

Define Your Goal: What is the single most important message or insight you want your audience to take away? A clear objective prevents the infographic from becoming a jumble of unrelated facts.
Know Your Audience: Tailor the complexity, language, and visual style to your intended viewers (e.g., general public vs. water resources experts). What context do they already have? What will resonate with them?
Craft a Narrative: Don’t just present charts and numbers. Tell a story with your data. Structure the information logically to guide the viewer through a clear beginning (context/problem), middle (data insights/evidence), and end (conclusion/call to action). Guide the viewer’s eye to the most important information first. Use size, color, contrast, and placement effectively. Your main takeaway should be prominent. Organize the content in a clear, easy-to-follow sequence (often top-to-bottom or left-to-right). Use headings, numbers, or visual cues (like lines or arrows) to structure the information flow.
Be Focused and Selective: Less is often more. Choose only the most relevant information that directly supports your core message(s) about river health. Avoid overwhelming the audience with too much information.
Develop a Purposeful Color Palette: Use a limited, consistent color scheme (often 2-3 main colors plus neutrals). Use of color ramps and palettes should reflect common color usages in society (e.g. use warmer colors for degraded conditions and cooler colors for better conditions). Beware of user accessibility issues that can occur in color-based visualizations. Addressing red-green color-blindness with special color ramps is a common example. Use color strategically to group related items, highlight key findings, or evoke a specific reaction.
Incorporate Relevant Icons and Illustrations: Use high-quality visuals that enhance understanding and engagement without cluttering the design. Consider representing the conditions of Drivers or Components to graphical aspects of plots or maps through use of symbol size, line thickness, fill hatching, etc. Maintain a consistent style for all graphical elements. Ensure icons clearly represent the concepts they are illustrating.

Reports

Technical reporting remains an expected deliverable for most river assessment projects, serving both as a communication tool and records preservation. Including a brief (< 10% of overall document length) Executive Summary with any technical report can help ensure accessibility by a relatively wide audience. More detailed technical information, analysis results, and discussions can be included in the main body of the report. Individual appendices may be developed to present assessment or roll up methodologies. Wide-format summary reports that rely heavily on graphics, tables, and summary bullets may be a good option for use by town councils, county commissioners, or other decision-makers with limited time to dive into technical topics. Here are some things to keep in mind as you generate a technical report:

Report Development Best Practices

Know Your Audience: While technical, the report might be read by diverse stakeholders (scientists, managers, regulators, members of the public). Write clearly and define technical terms and acronyms. Include an Executive Summary presenting the key findings and conclusions concisely for non-specialists or time-constrained readers.
Follow a Logical Structure: Follow a standard scientific report format (e.g., Introduction, Study Area, Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusion/Recommendations, References, Appendices). Ensure a clear, logical flow between sections.
Incorporate Visual Communication Tools: Utilize high-quality maps (clearly showing study sites, watershed boundaries, land use), graphs, charts, and relevant photographs. Ensure all visuals are clearly labeled, referenced in the text, and easy to interpret.
Include Appropriate Transparency and Detail: Provide thorough descriptions of all grading guidelines, assessment methods, data analysis techniques, and roll-up strategies employed during an assessment.

Websites

User-friendly websites such as Storymaps or other styles capable of delivering a curated summary of results are gaining traction as a viable option for presenting CoRHAF assessment results. Converting basic reporting into static websites (i.e., websites with narrative and graphics that don’t include interactive components such as data filters on tables or plots, scrollable maps, etc.) can be achieved with little programming knowledge via technology stacks like WordPress, Wix, Google Pages, etc. Building more complex custom interactivity into web communication products requires a deeper technical understanding and may require professional support. Consider the following website development best practices:

Website Best Practices

Define Your Primary Goal: What is the one thing you want visitors to understand or do? (e.g., Understand the overall health grade? Explore detailed conditions for Drivers, Components, and Metrics ate the reach scale? Learn one action they can take ot improve or protect river health?). Keep this central to your thinking about the rest of the website design.
Know Your Audience: Assume a general audience initially. Avoid overly technical jargon. Explain concepts simply (e.g., what is a watershed? What is a flow regime?).
Prioritize Key Information: Put the most important information (like an overall health score or map) front and center on the homepage. Don’t make users hunt for the main message.
Remember: Simplicity is Key: Avoid clutter. Use ample white space. Limit the number of menu items and pages. Focus on delivering core information effectively rather than being exhaustive on the main pages.
Utilize Mobile-First/Responsive Design: Ensure the website works flawlessly and looks good on all devices (smartphones, tablets, desktops). Many users will access yoru site via mobile devices.

Community Presentations

Individualized reporting and feedback sessions, tailored to the needs of different stakeholder groups or project coordinators such can be an important communication strategy. These events serve both as opportunities to thank stakeholders for their engagement (and funding support?), provide a summary of assessment results and “connect-the-dots” between observed conditions and the need and opportunity for projects, policies, or management actions that may be supported by the assessment findings. Consider the following when crafting a presentation to the community:

Presentation Best Practices

Tailor the Presentation to Stakeholder Interests: What are the key concerns in this specific stakeholder or group? (e.g., drinking water safety, fishing/swimming access, local development impacts, wildlife?). Frame your presentation around these values and concerns.
Define Your Goal: What do you want the audience to know, feel, or do after your presentation? (e.g., Understand the watershed’s basic health? Learn about a specific threat to river health at a specific location in the watershed?). Keep your goal focused.
Assume Limited Background: Start with the basics, but avoid being condescending. Explain concepts of river health, the CoRHAF structure, and what a functional condition grade means as simply as possible.
Focus on “Why Should I Care?”: Directly connect river health to things that matter to the audience: clean drinking water, safe recreation, property values, local wildlife, community aesthetics, flood mitigation.
Translate Data Simply: Instead of complex analysis results, use analogies, functional condition grades, and visual summaries to support the flow of the presentation.
Balance Problems with Solutions: Acknowledge any observed challenges to improving or protecting river health, but also highlight management actions, policies, or projects that stakeholders might implement to achieve local river health goals and objectives.

Multi-media

Additional media, such as TV appearances or recorded video may be an option for communicating results. For example, some Roundtables have made effective use of short YouTube videos discussing focus-topics in watershed management. Interview time on local radio or TV channels represent very targeted opportunities to communicate around a particular watershed health topic or assessment results.

Tip

The trade off in cost and resources required to implement complex multi-media outreach campaigns following a river health assessment may be offset by the increased effectiveness of the communication.