Welcome to River Continuum Concepts

If you are unfamiliar with the River Continuum Concept, you may not understand that the long and unusual name of our group is a play on words. In short, the River Continuum Concept is a keystone synthesis paper in stream ecology. Thus we apply core ecological concepts to a continuum of monitoring situations and incorporated this into our team name: River Continuum Concepts. Please read the journal article if you are interested, but be sure to cite the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences who published the article and the authors who wrote and developed the theory (Vannote et al. 1980).

What We Do

We use applied statistical know-how with scientific knowledge (like the River Continuum Concept, intermediate disturbance hypothesis, serial discontinuity theory and others) to design custom, goal oriented monitoring programs for aquatic ecosystems. This science-based approach to monitoring is something that is surprising rare in consulting firms.

My team specializes in helping small organizations, like conservation districts, make sense out of monitoring protocols to ensure that monitoring efforts are able to address resource management needs.

Our team is lead by Brett Marshall, an aquatic ecologist that began designing aquatic ecology studies in Wisconsin in 1987 and at the EPA's National Water Quality Laboratory (Duluth, Minnesota) also in 1987. During these 20+ years of experience, Brett's work has been recognized by academia, government, and industry as cutting edge. One of the benefits of this experience is contacts; we have connections with researchers around the country and can bring in expertise as needed for especially complicated or large monitoring programs. Please take a moment and browse our pages; and if you need any additional information, use the "CONTACT US" link to... um... contact us.