Monitoring and evaluation projects have been developed to assess changes in the social foundations of NRM programs (NHT and NAPSWQ) in Australia, including the performance of regional bodies that are responsible for the delivery of these programs. Monitoring projects have also been used to assess changes in community attitudes and beliefs about mining and environmental issues and to monitoring the outcomes of community engagement programs developed for major infrastructure projects.
Multiple methods are often used in the development of these monitoring programs, which generally include both qualitative and quantitative indicators. Qualitative indicators, presented concurrently with quantitative indicators, provide an important contextual framework for interpretation. The more quantitative indicators are generally based on psychometric scaling and measurement.