Adaptive Management in the
Federal Context:
From the Everglades to
Yellowstone
Susan Iott
U.S. Government
Accountability Office
Adaptive Management
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Adaptive management is a strategy for managing
natural resources that focuses on learning and
adapting management actions.
The approach seeks to make decisions around
multiple or conflicting objectives and dynamic
natural systems with uncertain responses to
management action. Climate is one of many
factors involved.
The approach is based on the work of C.S.
Holling, Carl Walters, and Kai N. Lee.
Adaptive Management Used by Federal Agencies
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Federal land and resource management agencies
have numerous situations in which to apply
adaptive management.
Used for difficult, large natural resource
management programs such as the Grand
Canyon Adaptive Management Program (1994-5),
Northwest Forest Plan (1994), the South Florida
Ecosystem Management Restoration (1996), and
the Interagency Bison Management Plan in the
Yellowstone Ecosystem (2000).
Department of the Interior Guidance from 2007
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Adaptive management is a structured, explicit
decision process that involves (1) engaging
stakeholders, (2) identifying the problem, (3)
specifying objectives and tradeoffs, (4)
identifying a range of alternatives from which to
select, (5) specifying assumptions about
resources, (6) projecting consequences of
alternative actions, (7) identifying key
uncertainties, (8) measuring risk for
consequences, (9) accounting for impacts of
decisions/actions, and (10) accounting for legal
constraints.
Recent Department of the Interior Guidance
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Adaptive management is not appropriate
if:
– Decisions cannot be revisited;
– Monitoring cannot be provided;
– Irresolvable conflicts exist;
– Legal constraints exist; or
– Risks are too high.
Two examples
Interagency
Ecosystem
Bison
Management
South
Florida
Ecosystem
Restoration
Interagency Bison Management Plan
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Each winter, bison migrate from Yellowstone National Park
to better grazing areas outside the Park.
The bison and elk of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are
the last known reservoir of brucellosis in the U.S. The
disease is transmitted when the bison (or elk) shed bacteria
in fields where cattle also graze.
Montana has been struggling to keep its brucellosis-free
status, Wyoming and Idaho have just reestablished their
bison-free status after losing it due to suspected wildlife
transmissions.
Two areas in Montana are the subject of a management
plan because of the potential of bison to mingle with cattle.
Interagency Bison Management Plan
Interagency Bison Management Plan
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In 1995, Montana sued the U.S. because of fears
it might lose its brucellosis free status through
the bison.
The state and federal governments negotiated a
plan to manage the bison to settle the lawsuit.
The plan, signed in 2000, involves hazing bison
back into the park and capturing, testing, and
slaughtering most of those that do not move
back into the park. Later phases of the plan
allow a small number of bison to be outside the
park in certain areas.
Interagency Bison Management Plan
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The plan involves adaptive management because
it involves
– monitoring the bison migration patterns,
– developing a vaccine and remote delivery
system, and
– testing bison for brucellosis, and over time,
allowing more to remain outside the park
(increasing risk tolerance).
Interagency Bison Management Plan
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The agencies have not succeeded in using an
adaptive process because
– they don’t have clear objectives,
– they conduct research and monitoring without
a plan to say where the results fit into
decisions being made about the bison,
– they don’t have a feedback loop to bring
scientific and monitoring results back to the
decision makers.
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration
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South Florida is an 18,000 square mile area that
includes the Everglades, Kissimmee River, Lake
Okeechobee, and many water bodies such as
Biscayne Bay and Florida Bay. The different
ecosystems provide habitat and food for many
threatened and endangered species, as well as
6.5 million people.
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration
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Before human intervention, water flowed slowly
from Lake Okeechobee south through the
Everglades to Florida Bay--this absorbed all the
water from hurricanes and released it throughout
dry periods.
Development and drainage of key areas in the
wetlands allowed agriculture to flourish, as well
as homebuilding.
Since at least the 1980s, environmental groups
and state and federal agencies have been
working on a restoration plan to restore the
timing and flow of water.
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration
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The restoration plan has an adaptive
management framework for:
(1) development of performance indicators of the key
factors causing the ecosystem to be degraded and to be
restored, (2) long-term monitoring to track the status of
trends in measures and indicators, research to
understand factors that affect the measures and
indicators, and assessment of monitoring results, and
(3) feedback so that managers will know what to
change.
South Florida Ecosystem Restoration
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Key adaptive management tools were not
available five years ago, including a monitoring
plan for all parts of the ecosystem (wetlands
were well covered) and models for different parts
of the ecosystem (Florida Bay).
The restoration has a Science Coordination Team,
but the team lacked the ability to effectively
coordinate science and bring it back to the Task
Force for decision making. It did not have a plan
for research, consult with managers about key
decisions and input, or synthesize information
about decisions.
Decision Making
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How does adaptive management fit within an
agency’s decision process?
In other words, how do decision
makers and others learn and make
their decisions adaptive?
Policy decision making processes
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In policy making, decisions are made in an
iterative process that involves several steps
(Lasswell and McDougal):
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Intelligence
Promotion
Prescription
Invocation
Application
Evaluation
Termination
Intelligence Phase
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Many different parties involved--the agencies,
public, interest groups, and scientists in different
capacities.
Typically, a specific group of people is identified
to make decisions—including decisions to try
different adaptive experiments. Scientific
information may come from different
agencies.
Scientific information can be unorganized, as in
the case of Yellowstone, or more organized, as in
the case of South Florida. But it needs to be
explicitly brought into the intelligence phase
and reevaluated regularly.
Intelligence Phase
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The case studies show that the land and resource
management agencies already work in situations
with large amounts of uncertainty. GAO’s work
on climate change on federal lands shows that
climate information is one more area for land
managers to consider in their management.
Promotion Phase
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Scientists are part of the effort to highlight
relevant information for decisions--in particular,
which information is better than other
information.
The idea of adaptive management can emphasize
uncertainty and the need to experiment, learn,
adapt, and not treat decisions as final.
Prescription, Invocation, Application
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These phases involve the formal decision to be
made--a law, policy, or legal opinion--and the
decision to apply it to a particular situation.
Scientists can be involved in the process if there
is a scientific board or judgment to be made. In
the case of the South Florida case, for example,
the Science Coordination Team will set up a peer
review process to review the science
underpinning a problem about which a decision
has been made.
Prescription, Invocation, Application
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In the South Florida case, a panel of scientists is
to monitor the results of different water releases
on species using indicators. They can raise the
need to change water releases to the Task Force.
The Task Force, whose members represent
federal, state, and local agencies, make the
decision what to do about water flow.
In the case of the Yellowstone bison, there is not
a mechanism for scientists to raise concerns to
decision makers in the same way. There is no
Task Force or management group for the plan.
Evaluation and Termination
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There is a particular role for scientists in
evaluating natural resource programs and
whether or not they are achieving its intended
results.
That role involves objectives, indicators,
monitoring, and assessment.
Evaluation also involves an assessment of
people’s values and whether or not they are
being met by the decision or policy.
Conclusions
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Adaptive management in a federal context needs
to pay particular attention to who are the leaders
making decisions--and who are the leaders of the
program involved. A geographic focus helps
organize participants from many different
agencies.
Science needs to be organized in a way to
provide information on an ongoing basis to an
iterative decision making process. This means an
emphasis on indicators and monitoring--as well
as science to help interpret indicators.
Conclusions
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Adaptive management requires commitment to
the process and funding to enable it. But
agencies have lots of work and priorities to fund.
It also requires that scientists need to be able to
synthesize their information for input into the
decision process. Interaction with decision
makers about what decisions will need to be
made and what evidence might be relevant to a
decision can help to make a feedback loop
between scientists and the decision makers.