Decision support experiments and evaluations using seasonal to ...

investment” efforts and their effectiveness. This
self-evaluation program is a unique adaptive
management innovation rarely found in other
basin initiatives. To support these activities, the
Commission funds its own research program
and engages in biophysical and social science
investigations. It also establishes priorities for
investigations based, in part, on the severity
of problems, and the knowledge acquired is
integrated directly into commission policies
through a formal review process designed to
assure that best management practices are
adopted.
From the standpoint of adaptive management,
the Murray–Darling Basin Agreement seeks
to integrate quality and quantity concerns in
a single management framework; has a broad
mandate to embrace social, economic, environmental
and cultural issues in decisions;
and has considerable authority to supplant,
and supplement, the authority of established
jurisdictions in implementing environmental
and water development policies. While water
quality policies adopted by the Basin Authority
are recommended to states and the federal government
for approval, generally, the latter defer
to the commission and its executive arm. The
MDBA also promotes an integrated approach to
water resources management. Not only does the
Commission have responsibility for functions
as widely varied as floodplain management,
drought protection, and water allocation, but
for coordinating them as well. For example,
efforts to reduce salinity are linked to strategies
to prevent waterlogging of floodplains and land
salinization on the Murray and Murrumbidgee
Valleys (MDBC, 2002). Also, the Basin commission’s
environmental policy aims to utilize
water allocations not only to control pollution
and benefit water users, but to integrate its
water allocation policy with other strategies for
capping diversions, governing in-stream flow,
and balancing in-stream needs and consumptive
(i.e., agricultural irrigation) uses. Among
the most notable of MDBC’s innovations is its
community advisory effort.
In 1990, the ministerial council for the MDBC
adopted a Natural Resources Management
Strategy that provides specific guidance for a
community-government partnership to develop
plans for integrated management of the Basin’s
Decision-Support Experiments and Evaluations using Seasonal to
Interannual Forecasts and Observational Data: A Focus on Water Resources
water, land and other environmental resources
on a catchment basis. In 1996, the ministerial
council put in place a Basin Sustainability Plan
that provides a planning, evaluation and reporting
framework for the Strategy, and covers all
government and community investment for sustainable
resources management in the basin.
According to Newson (1997), while the policy
of integrated management has “received wide
endorsement”, progress towards effective
implementation has fallen short—especially
in the area of floodplain management. This has
been attributed to a “reactive and supportive”
attitude as opposed to a proactive one. Despite
such criticism, it is hard to find another initiative
of this scale and sophistication that has
attempted adaptive management based on community
involvement.
Case Study E:
Adaptive Management in Glen Canyon,
Arizona and Utah
Glen Canyon Dam was constructed in 1963 to
provide hydropower, water for irrigation, flood
control, and public water supply—and to ensure
adequate storage for the upper basin states of the
Colorado River Compact (i.e., Utah, Wyoming,
New Mexico, and Colorado). Lake Powell, the
reservoir created by Glen Canyon Dam, has a
storage capacity equal to approximately two
years flow of the Colorado River. Critics of
Glen Canyon Dam have insisted that its impacts
on the upper basin have been injurious almost
from the moment it was completed. The flooding
of one of the West’s most beautiful canyons
under the waters of Lake Powell increased rates
of evapotranspiration and other forms of water
loss (e.g., seepage of water into canyon walls)
and eradicated historical flow regimes. The
latter has been the focus of recent debate. Prior
to Glen Canyon’s closure, the Colorado River,
at this location, was highly variable with flows
ranging from 120,000 cubic feet per second (cfs)
to less than 1,000 cfs.
When the dam’s gates were closed in 1963, the
Colorado River above and below Glen Canyon
was altered by changes in seasonal variability.
Once characterized by muddy, raging floods,
the river became transformed into a clear,
cold stream. Annual flows were stabilized and
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