Solving Ecological Problems

As stated in the QLP overview document (that you read at the beginning of the term) the goals for this project are:
• Provide a description of a system that has had action taken to address an ecological problem
• Determine the ecosystem services provided by the system
• Determine a value for each of the ecosystem services provided by the system and an overall value for the system based upon the summed services across the project area
• Compare the value of the system to the cost of the action taken to address the ecological problem
• Describe the management plan for the system and apply adaptive management steps to that plan

All quarter you have been working on rough drafts of the different sections of your final write up and now it is time to put it all together. Below is a list of all the sections required for your final write-up along with a quick description of each section:
Final Write up sections/components
Background (1 page max)
• Identify/describe main environmental issue and human impacts exacerbating problem
• Describe the problem of system and the action taken
• Justify need for system assessment
Relevant Ecosystem services (1 page max)
• Identify and describe ecosystem services provided by the system
• Describe how these services are provided
Values of each relevant service and how calculated (1.5 pages max)
• Describe method for quantifying dollar value of each service provided by system (including calculation for entire area of system)
• Include a table of ecosystem services provided by your system and their values
• Compare your calculated value to costs associated with management actions
• Include a table that shows the ecosystem services provided by your system the unit and total values of each
Management evaluation: Value of services relative to cost of management action (1 page max)
• Explain the current management plan/action
• Considering adaptive management concepts, discuss how system could/should be managed to ensure services are sustainably maintained
• Summarize implications of your study and its findings as a sustainable management case example
References
• Your references must be cited using the same format as QLP assignments 1-4
• You are required to have at least 10 cited references
• Your reference section must have the same format as QLP assignments 1-4
Note: There is a strict 4 page maximum requirement for this assignment (that doesn’t include the reference section). Even though the max page requirements for the sections explained above add up to 4.5 pages, make sure your total of the written sections does not exceed 4 pages. Your reference section can be listed on a fifth page.

Technical details for this assignment
Your document must have a unique title that you create (this is a requirement and you will lose points if you do not create your own unique title). This document must be in paragraph form, 12pt font, single- spaced, with one inch margins. You must include section titles for this assignment. Use the page maximum rules above to limit each section, but make sure you notice that if you add up all section page limit maximums they equal 4.5 pages. However, do not exceed 4 pages for the written portion of this assignment. Since each QLP assignment had a 2 page maximum, you are going to have to condense each QLP assignment to fit the page limits for each of the sections here. You also need to cite all of the details that you include here and list your cited resources in a reference section. The reference section is not included in the 4-page limit requirement, so these can be listed on a fifth page. Make sure you format your citations and your reference section in the same manner as described in the QLP 1 description document.
The QLP assignments
The QLP assignments 1-4 were drafts of your main sections, so you should not be starting from scratch. You should use your QLP 1-4 assignments to build this paper. However, if you just use the drafts that you turned in throughout the quarter, without any edits or changes based upon the LA comments and page length requirements, you will not receive a very high score. To score well on this final write-up, you need to rewrite each QLP, incorporating the comments provided by the TA into the appropriate sections.
Below are the sections that correspond to your QLP assignments:

QLP 1: Background

QLP 2: Ecosystem Services

QLP 3: Economic Value of the System QLP 4: Management Evaluation
Final Write-up Preparation
When you create your final write-up, you will need to use QLP assignments 1-4 and the comments provided to you by the LA on each of those assignments. However, you will need to re-write each section in order to meet the page limit requirements for each section. To do that, you’ll need to only include the most pertinent facts/details in each section from your QLP assignments. Make sure each paragraph has a topic (or topic sentence) and that all the details in each paragraph are part of the topic. Don’t just condense all of the details to each paragraph because they where included in each of your QLP assignments. Everything must be cohesive in each paragraph and deliberate in order to fully describe the main points. Also, make sure that your transitions between paragraphs are smooth, so that the topics of all paragraphs flow smoothly. This means you should make segue statements in each paragraph that connect the concepts in each paragraph with the previous paragraph(s). Remember: Do not exceed the page limit requirements for each section of the final write-up or for the entire document. If you go over the page limit requirements on any section, and/or on the overall document, your score on that section will be greatly reduces.

After reading this description document, if you have any further questions about what should go into each section of the paper, or what the expectations are for each section of the paper, first look at the rubric posted on D2L. If you couldn’t find the answer by looking on the rubric which is posted located on the QLP Final Paper Checklist or the description documents, then email your question to the LA and/or the instructor.