Adaptive Management for Water Resources Project Planning (2004) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-11
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Furthermore, biological and ecological scientists increasingly noted that hydrologic variability and extremes -- which the Corps had been traditionally expected to reduce and control -- are often essential to the health of aquatic and coastal ecosystems. These scientific and social changes, along with inadequacies of traditional water management frameworks and approaches, prompted the search for water management and ecosystem restoration strategies that can better respond to new knowledge and to shifting social and economic preferences.
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The foundations of adaptive management rest in many fields, but its initial presentation as a natural resources management paradigm was in the 1970s, when it was offered as a way to help managers take action in the face of uncertainties, to reduce uncertainties, and to craft management strategies capable of responding to unanticipated events. Adaptive management is not a "one size fits all" or a "cookbook" process, as experience with the concept and its related procedures to date is limited and evolving.
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The approach, however, holds promise for helping the Corps better accommodate shifting social preferences and new scientific knowledge so that project operations can be adjusted to ensure progress toward economic and environmental goals. In an effort to better understand the adaptive management concept and how it might be implemented to good effect within the Corps and its project operations, the Corps requested the National Research Council to convene a panel to provide advice on the subject (this report is part of a multiple panel effort, explained in this report's Foreword)
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NEW EMPHASES IN CORPS WATER PROJECT PLANNING AND OPERATIONS The Corps of Engineers began employing adaptive management approaches in the early 1990s. With support from its military and civilian leaders, the Corps is moving forward with adaptive management in select locales and with varying degrees of authorization and resources from the Congress.
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· Adaptive management may be particularly suited to large, complex ecosystem restoration projects, which entail large degrees of risk and uncertainty, multiple, and changing objectives, and phased components. Adaptive management can be especially important in multi-phase activities, as it can promote adaptation of ends and means based on lessons learned that lead to model improvements to support future decisions.
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Stakeholder Collaboration The 1986 Water Resources Development Act (WRDA 1986) changed the financial terms of stakeholder participation in Corps projects, mandating more stringent cost-sharing requirements for local sponsors of Corps projects.
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Stakeholder and agency involvement should begin in the initial stages of adaptive management efforts and should include participation in periodic review of monitoring results and management models. The Corps' experiences with Shared Vision Modeling, which involves stakeholders in assessing possible outcomes through models of assumptions and key processes, is an example of one potentially useful means for promoting stakeholder collaboration.
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Agency-wide implementation of adaptive management will require a breadth of inter-disciplinary expertise that, given political realities, budgetary limitations, and differences across Corps districts, would be difficult and impractical to replicate at every Corps district office. Many Corps staff members are familiar with adaptive management principles and many of them have extensive experience in working with the concept in settings like the Florida Everglades.
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ROLES OF THE ADMINISTRATION AND THE CONGRESS The Corps of Engineers operates at the behest of the administration and the Congress. Four areas in which the implementation of adaptive management requires support of the administration and the Congress are: legislation and guidance; resources to initiate and sustain adaptive management efforts; interagency relations; and project authorization.
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Current policy guidance and budgeting procedures inhibit adaptive management practices. In the case of new Corps projects, the Corps has chosen to limit adaptive management expenditures to no more than three percent of the overall project cost and to a limited duration.
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Interagency Relations Effective adaptive management often requires the participation of multiple federal and state agencies. Although there are examples of useful efforts in interagency coordination (e.g., the Upper Mississippi River Environmental Management Program)
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