Assembling a Technical Team
River health assessment is a technical undertaking. Whether collecting new data or analyzing existing datasets, specific discipline expertise is required to develop useful, informative, reliable, and defensible results. River health assessment is also multidisciplinary, and a team of experts is generally necessary to cover the breadth of technical needs. Because your assessment will likely employ considerable professional interpretation, best professional judgement and/or technical data collection and analyses, having knowledgeable practitioners implement the assessment will lend credibility to its results. Technical teams commonly include a hydrologist, fluvial geomorphologist, water quality specialist, riparian ecologist and aquatic biologist. There is no set number of members for such a team. The expertise of some individuals may allow them to assess multiple aspects of river health. You simply need to ensure that the collective expertise of your technical team covers all of the Drivers you choose to include in your assessment. You probably have also completed the assessment scope and this can also help point to the expertise required by your project.
The members of a technical team are often contracted scientists or engineers, academics, and/or staff from resource management agencies and local governments. When forming a technical team, take inventory of your available “in-house” resources first. Consider individuals at the hosting organization or among the broader stakeholder group that might be able to perform certain technical tasks or provide discipline-specific knowledge. Extension agents, graduate students, or university researchers may be available to support your effort. A multidisciplinary scientist or consultant may be well-versed in the methods and approaches used to assess several, or perhaps even all Drivers. More likely, the necessary discipline-specific knowledge will require multiple experts.
Depending on the project location, land ownership and jurisdiction on a local river, government agency partners (e.g., CPW, USFS, BLM) may have in-house specialists capable of providing certain services in-kind, but these agencies commonly limited in the geographies and capacities in which their staff can work. More often, agency staff assists by providing technical advice and existing data and reports. In-depth surveys or analyses may require engagement with consultants, academic researchers, or reliance on technically oriented members of the stakeholder group.
Potential Team Needs
- Wetlands or Riparian Ecologist
- Fluvial Geomorphologist
- Aquatic Biologist
- Hydrologist
- Water Resources Engineer
- GIS Specialist
- Water Quality Specialist
Throughout the process of identifying technical team members, be mindful of the potentially geographically-specific knowledge of team members. Although most trained technical experts are quite capable of learning and applying region-specific knowledge and new methods, a stream ecologist or biologist based on the mountainous West Slope may be less familiar with the riparian plant assemblages and fishery issues in the eastern prairies outside Colorado’s Front Range cities and vice versa.
Soliciting Technical Help
Navigating a project bid process to obtain scientific or engineering assistance can appear maze-like. A variety of methods are typically used–each characterized by various advantages and shortcomings. Requests for Proposals. Requests for Information/Qualifications, and Requests for Quotes, are all regular tools used to assemble a technical team. Although there are significant differences, the difference between each can be blurry. Many bid solicitations for technical services end up blending aspects of each.
Request for Proposal
A Request for Proposals (RFP) is perhaps the most common mechanism used to secure a technical team. It may be used when the assessment organizers do not have a well-defined set of tasks or deliverables, costs, or schedules in mind, which is typical at the start of a health assessment. RFPs solicit information that includes contractor qualifications, related project experience, and a proposed approach, budget, and timeline. Requests for Proposals allow technical consultants or academics to highlight potentially creative and unique approaches and identify potential areas for cost savings. Soliciting technical services via an RFP can take advantage of consultants’ professional knowledge and experience to suggest an approach that best meets the stated assessment purpose.
Request for Information and Request for Qualifications
Requests for Information (RFI), and the similar Requests for Qualifications (RFQ), are essentially a first step in getting to know potential contractors or how they generally envision tackling a project, respectively. The entity leading a river assessment can use an RFQ process to gather broad details about multiple firms’ areas of expertise and prior project experiences. This may not be practical for smaller projects but may be valuable in narrowing down a list of potential technical contractors for larger assessments. If an RFI is used, it should occur very early in the process to set the stage for review of more detailed Requests for Proposals or Requests for Quotes later on.
Request For Quote
In situations where the assessment organizers have a well-defined task list and deliverables in mind, a Request For Quote may be the most appropriate tool. Request for Quotes are focused primarily on pricing for a specific pre-defined service or set of services. For example, consider a stakeholder group conducting an assessment that will include macroinvertebrate sampling and analysis at a fixed set of locations using a method consistent with Colorado Water Quality Control Division (WQCD) sampling protocols. In this case, soliciting an accurate quote for field work, bug identification and lab analysis, and results reporting can all be covered adequately by a Request for Quote.
Clarifying Expectations
While project expectations are often outlined in a contract for work, it can be beneficial to meet with your technical team early in the assessment process to review and refine the project scope, discuss optional add-on tasks, clarify communication expectations among technical team members and between the technical team and stakeholders, and discuss project timelines. Think hard about the preferred timing and tempo of reporting from the technical team. Assessment results will be better understood by stakeholders and decision makers if they arrive at a reasonable pace, with sufficient time for reflection, questions, and learning, before moving on to the next topic. Ultimately, the degree to which stream health information is absorbed by stakeholders largely determines quality and outcome of subsequent decision making around water management or stream restoration actions.
