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5 Science and Decision Making
Pages 149-176

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From page 149...
... Finally, the committee reviews ongoing progress in developing decision support tools and underscores the roles science and social values play in decision making under risk and uncertainty. SCIENCE SYNTHESES Although previous National Research Council (NRC)
From page 150...
... ; the Synthesis of Everglades Research and Eco­ system Services (SERES) Project, sponsored by the National Park Service; the New Science document produced by the South Florida's Everglades Restoration Task Force's (hereinafter, the Task Force)
From page 151...
... is composed of 50 two-page reports. The SERES Project is a comprehensive synthesis effort involving literature reviews and original scenario analyses.
From page 152...
... Where done well, the more detailed assessment can be coupled with the Key Findings to tell a coherent story about a geographic location. For example, the Lake Okeechobee section of the website provides enough easy-to-access detail to satisfy a more scientific audience while the Key Findings provide the "­ ottom b line" that the policy community desires.
From page 153...
... Clearly the CERP has taken this to heart. At the same time, too few performance measures can understate integrative complexities in an ecosystem and have little explanatory power, which is especially important when the restoration effort involves a complex geography cross cut with equally complex physical, chemical, and ecological issues.
From page 154...
... Other geographical areas (Greater Everglades, North ern Estuaries, Southern Coastal System, and ecosystem components that include some overarching indicators) are not as thoroughly populated with metrics.
From page 155...
... • SAV distribution • SAV acreage Wading birds • Prey -- Wet season biomass • Prey -- Dry season biomass • White ibis -- Location and number of nests • Wood stork -- Location and number of nests • Proportion of wading bird nests in the Everglades Water quality • TP load • Pelagic TP, total nitrogen (TN) , dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN)
From page 156...
... Scientific and Technical Knowledge Gained in Everglades Restoration (1999-2008) The STKG report (RECOVER, 2011a)
From page 157...
... SERES The Synthesis of Everglades Research and Ecosystem Services Project, sponsored by the National Park Service's Critical Ecosystem Studies Initiative, is being conducted by a team of 15 scientists, largely from academia or the Everglades Foundation with a few agency participants. The SERES Project will not repeat the efforts of the other syntheses and indeed makes minimal references to the stoplight indicators, hypothesis clusters, the STKG report, or the 2009 SSR.
From page 158...
... No synthesis of water quality should fail to consider influences of hydrology and vice versa. These chapters also make it clear that modeling of tradeoffs is essential to finding solutions and/or identifying next steps to address the grand challenges facing this restoration effort.
From page 159...
... Ultimately, finding restoration solutions will require an integrated understanding of the interplay between hydrology and water quality, quantification of the tradeoffs, and identification of opportunities to benefit food webs with less than absolute solutions for either issue. The next generation of science and syntheses should start with the recognition that fundamental conflicts exist among the solutions being presented; recognize that science can contribute to these solutions; and be guided by scenario building and optimization approaches (e.g., multi-species)
From page 160...
... Although improvements are needed, the synthesis efforts are a remark able achievement not only in the scale of effort that was required but also in the depth, breadth, and relevance of what was produced. MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT AND RECENT BUDGETARY IMPACTS The importance of monitoring and assessment to the success of Everglades restoration has been recognized from the beginning by the CERP partners and by prior NRC committees.
From page 161...
... By the time of the 2001 draft of the MAP (USACE and SFWMD, 2001) , the Adaptive Assessment Team had reduced the number of performance measures to about 150 (of which about 70 were related to water quality, 20 to hydrology, and 60 to biology and soils)
From page 162...
... , which funds the largest regional monitoring program, reported a reduction of approximately 50 percent in its environmental 4 The RECOVER Greater Everglades module includes the Everglades Protection Area and additional wetland and natural areas within and south of Lake Okeechobee.
From page 163...
... In FIGURE 5-2  SFWMD monitoring expenditures, including expenditure for water quality, ecological, and hydrologic monitoring (including associated staff salaries) , but excluding expenditures for RECOVER MAP monitoring.
From page 164...
... The first part was an initial optimization of each of the four MAP regions (Greater Everglades, Southern Coastal Systems, Northern Estuaries, and Lake Okeechobee) by the MAP regional coordinators in a workshop setting, with the goal of making existing monitoring as efficient and as optimized as possible.
From page 165...
... The regional coordinators' priorities were documented and submitted to the MAP System-wide Prioritization Team, which prioritized the MAP monitoring components for FY 2012. In the third and final step, the MAP System-Wide Prioritization Team (the team)
From page 166...
... The team separated the monitoring components into three tiers based on how well they met the Decision Support Guidelines (Box 5-1) , utilizing the regional coordinators' input and making necessary revisions (in consultation with the regional coordinators)
From page 167...
... Although the CERP is struggling with many budget uncertainties, the committee remains convinced of the importance of system-wide monitoring to the success of ­ verglades E restoration. Therefore, to ensure that existing monitoring is cost-effective and provides sufficient support for CERP planning, adaptive management, and public communication, a comprehensive review of all monitoring programs that were considered in the original design of the MAP is needed, considering recent and projected reductions.
From page 168...
... The Everglades Landscape Model (ELM6) , a transient integrated ecological-hydrologic-water quality model, has been approved by the USACE for project-specific use, but only for hydrologic and water quality applications.
From page 169...
... , simultaneous improvement of both water quality and hydrology is ideally needed to reverse the decline of key ecosystem attributes. Developing regional coupled hydrologic-water quality modeling capability would provide an important tool for quantitative evaluation of a range of alternative restoration scenarios and their potential short- and long-term effects on biotic and abiotic attributes.
From page 170...
... a ELM has been approved for water quality and hydrology applications at a project-level for Decomp. This model has not gone through the USACE ecosystem outputs model approval process with regard to ecological parameters, even though the model has been positively reviewed by an independent panel (Mitsch et al., 2007)
From page 171...
... Models listed here were developed and used after the USACE model review process (USACE, 2011c) went into effect.
From page 172...
... . Other water quality models that seem essential to an ongoing Central Everglades Planning Project, such as the Dynamic Model for Stormwater Treatment Areas (DMSTA)
From page 173...
... is a framework that aims to articulate these differences and organize them into a coherent framework for decision support. MCDA techniques are usually based on three main components: (1)
From page 174...
... Similar elements for structured decision support are proposed for the Central Everglades Planning Project, with notable stakeholder participation emulating the River of Grass participatory process. Important steps have been made toward establishing structured decision support tools for components of the CERP with an emphasis on weighing multiple objectives, and a wide range of stakeholders are now engaged in the Central Everglades Planning Project.
From page 175...
... If the best aspects of these synthesis efforts can be combined and continued in an efficient, ongoing manner, then the effort can help policy makers coalesce around a common vision of scientific principles, key uncertainties, and challenges. In the future, the effectiveness of the synthesis effort could be improved by explicitly addressing tradeoffs, conflicts, and commonalities among water quality, water quantity, and ecosystem responses.
From page 176...
... Being overly cautious with respect to water quality modeling could prevent a thorough exploration of restoration options and limit the understanding of water quality constraints in hydrologic restoration projects. Transparent and systematic mechanisms to build trust and incorporate a range of stakeholder preferences relevant to CERP implementation into deci sion support frameworks would help to clarify and reduce conflict and enhance transparency.


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