Decision support experiments and evaluations using seasonal to ...

The U.S. Climate Change Science Program
An adaptive
management
approach is one that
is flexible and subject
to adjustment in
an iterative, social
learning process.
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insights into the behavior of ecosystems utilized
by humans. In regard to climate variability and
water resources, adaptive management compels
consideration of questions such as the following:
What are the decision-support needs related
to managing in-stream flows/low flows? How
does climate variability affect runoff? What is
the impact of increased temperatures on water
quality or on cold-water fisheries’ (e.g., lower
dissolved oxygen levels)? What other environmental
quality parameters does a changing
climate impact related to endangered or threatened
species? And, what changes to runoff and
flow will occur in the future, and how will
these changes affect water uses among future
generations unable to influence the causes of
these changes today? What makes these questions
particularly challenging is that they are
interdisciplinary in nature 4 .
While a potentially important concept, applying
adaptive management to improving decision
support requires that we deftly avoid a number
of false and sometimes uncritically accepted
suppositions. For example, adaptive management
does not postpone actions until “enough”
is known about a managed ecosystem, but
supports actions that acknowledge the limits of
scientific knowledge, “the complexities and stochastic
behavior of large ecosystems”, and the
uncertainties in natural systems, economic demands,
political institutions, and ever-changing
societal social values (NRC, 2004; Lee, 1999).
In short, an adaptive management approach is
one that is flexible and subject to adjustment
in an iterative, social learning process (Lee,
1999). If treated in such a manner, adaptive
management can encourage timely responses
by: encouraging protagonists involved in water
management to bound disputes; investigating
4 Underscored by the fact that scholars concur, adaptive
management entails a broad range of processes to
avoid environmental harm by imposing modest changes
on the environment, acknowledging uncertainties in
predicting impacts of human activities on natural processes,
and embracing social learning (i.e., learning by
experiment). In general, it is characterized by managing
resources by learning, especially about mistakes, in an
effort to make policy improvements using four major
strategies that include: (1) modifying policies in the
light of experience, (2) permitting such modifications
to be introduced in “mid-course, (3) allowing revelation
of critical knowledge heretofore missing and analysis of
management outcomes, and (4) incorporating outcomes
in future decisions through a consensus-based approach
that allows government agencies and NGOs to conjointly
agree on solutions (Bormann, et al., 1993; Lee,
1993; Definitions of Adaptive Management, 2000).
environmental uncertainties; continuing to constantly
learn and improve the management and
operation of environmental control systems;
learning from error; and “reduc(ing) decisionmaking
gridlock by making it clear…that there
is often no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ management
decision, and that modifications are expected”
(NRC, 2004).
The four cases discussed below illustrate varying
applications, and context specific problems,
of adaptive management. The discussion of
Integrated Water Resource Planning stresses
the use of adaptive management in a variety
of local political contexts where the emphasis
is on reducing water use and dependence on
engineered solutions to provide water supply.
The key variables are the economic goals of cost
savings coupled with the ability to flexibly meet
water demands. The Arizona Water Institute
case illustrates the use of a dynamic organizational
training setting to provide “social learning”
and decisional responsiveness to changing
environmental and societal conditions. A key
trait is the use of a boundary-spanning entity
to bridge various disciplines.
The Glen Canyon and Murray–Darling Basin
cases illustrate operations-level decision making
aimed at addressing a number of water management
problems that, over time, have become
exacerbated by climate variability, namely:
drought, streamflow, salinity, and regional water
demand. On one hand, adaptive management
has been applied to “re-engineer” a large reservoir
system. On the other, a management authority
that links various stakeholders together
has attempted to instill a new set of principles
into regional river basin management. It should
be borne in mind that transferability of lessons
from these cases depends not on some assumed
“randomness” in their character (they are not
random; they were chosen because they are
amply studied), but on the similarity between
their context and that of other cases. This is a
problem also taken up in Section 4.5.2.
4.3.8 Integrated Water Resources
Planning—Local Water Supply
and Adaptive Management
A significant innovation in water resources
management in the United States that affects
climate information use is occurring in the
Chapter 4