AM Publications & Resources
Annotated Bibliography: Adaptive Management References
Citation:
Holling, C.S. (Ed.) 1980. Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management.
Vol.3 International Series on Applied Systems Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Toronto,
Canada. pp. 377.
Preface:
This book is a report on our efforts to develop an adaptive approach to
environmental impact assessment and management. It is written for policy makers and
managers who are dissatisfied with the traditional procedures and principles and who seek
some effective and realistic alternatives.
The study was initiated by a workshop convened in early 1974 by SCOPE (Scientific
Committee on Problems of the Environment). The workshop was attended by individuals with
an often bewildering range of experience, concerns, and styles - precisely those
ingredients that are so useful at the very start of an analysis for defining the full
range of issues and possibilities. Three particularly relevant questions emerged:
- What, if anything, does our understanding of the nature and behaviour of
ecological systems have to say about the issues, limitations, and potential of
environmental assessment?
- What can be done to bridge the abyss presently separating technical impact
assessment studies from actual environmental planning and decision making?
- To what extent, and under what circumstances, do present methods provide useful
predictions of impacts?
With those issues identified, a core group comprising the authors of this book
was formed to test and evaluate the concepts, procedures, and techniques available, adding
others where necessary and feasible. It drew upon an international network of expertise
developed at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in
Laxenburg, Austria, combining this with the experience of a Canadian group at the
Institute of Resource Ecology, University of British Columbia, and Canada's Department of
the Environment.
Contents:
Part One: The Approach
- The Nature and Behaviour of Ecological Systems
- Steps in the Process
- Orchestrating the assessment
- Choosing a Technique
- Simplification for Understanding
- Model Invalidation and Belief
- Evaluation of Alternative Policies
- Communication
- An Underview
Part Two: Case Studies
- The Spruce-Budworm/Forest-Management Problem
- Pacific Salmon Management
- Obergurgl: Development in High Mountain Regions of Austria
- An Analysis of Regional Development in Venezuela
- A Wildlife Impact Information System
Citation:
Walters, Carl. 1986. Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources.
Macmillan Publishing Company, New York. 374 p.
Synopsis:
In this book, noted theoretician Carl Walters challenges the traditional
approach to dealing with uncertainty in the management of such renewable resources as fish
and wildlife. He argues that scientific understanding will come from the experience of
management as an ongoing, adaptive, and experimental process, rather than through basic
research or the development of ecological theory.
In the opening chapters, Walters reviews approaches to formulating management objectives
as well as models for understanding how policy choices affect the attainment of these
objectives. In subsequent chapters he presents various statistical methods for
understanding the dynamics of uncertainty in managed fish and wildlife populations and for
seeking optimum harvest policies in the face of uncertainty. Walters concludes with a look
at prospects for adaptive management of complex systems, emphasizing such human factors
involved in decision making as risk aversion and conflicting objectives as well as
biophysical factors. Throughout the text he uses dynamic models and Bayesian statistical
theory as tools for understanding the behaviour of managed systems, and he illustrates
these tools with simple graphs and plots of data from representative cases.
This text/reference will serve researchers, graduate students, and resource managers who
formulate harvest policies and study the dynamics of harvest populations, as well as
analysts (modelers, statisticians, and stock assessment experts) who are concerned with
the practice of policy design.
Contents:
- Introduction
- Objectives, Constraints, and Problem Bounding
- A Process for Model Building
- Models of Renewable Resource Systems
- Simple Balance Models in Applied Population Dynamics
- Embracing Uncertainty
- The Dynamics of Uncertainty
- Feedback Policy Design
- Actively Adaptive Policies
- Adaptive Policies for Replicated Systems
- Adaptive Policy Design for Complex Problems
Citation:
Gunderson, L.H.; C.S. Holling; and S.S. Light (Eds.). 1995. Barriers &
Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutes. Columbia University Press, New York.
593 p.
Synopsis:
The result of a three-year project involving a combination of prominent
ecologists and social scientists, Barriers and Bridges to the Renewal of Ecosystems and
Institutions reviews a series of regional examples in its broad-ranging exploration of two
key questions: Do institutions learn? and How do ecosystems respond to management actions?
The book is a continuation of a series on adaptive environmental management.
To answer these questions, the team of researchers looked at common patterns of pathology
in managed ecosystems, whereby resource exploitation leads to ecological, social, and
institutional breakdown, followed by crisis and, in some examples, reform and learning.
Following an introduction by C.S. Holling describing the range of barriers and bridges to
be discussed, six regional examples are reviewed. The management histories in New
Brunswick forests, the Everglades, Chesapeake Bay, the Columbia River, the Great Lakes,
and the Baltic Sea demonstrate how people and ecosystems coevolve.
In the third section contributors offer perspectives from social science to suggest broad
critical strategies for surmounting barriers and renewing damaged ecosystems. The final
chapter provides a unique synthesis that compares ecological and social dynamics. This
book will appeal to any reader with an interest in our environment, form property rights
advocates to resource practitioners and theorists to environmental activists.
Citation:
McAllister, M.K.; R.M. Peterman, and D.M. Gillis. 1992. Statistical evaluation
of a large-scale fishing experiment designed to test for a genetic effect of
size-selective fishing on British Columbia pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha).
Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 49(7): 1294-1304.
Abstract:
Since 1950, stocks of British Columbia pink salmon (Onchorhynchus gorbuscha)
have shown up to a 34% decrease in mean adult body weight, causing significant reduction
in economic value of commercial harvests. Previous research suggests that this trend is
due to size-selective harvesting of large fish, but changes in oceanographic conditions
are a plausible alternative. Corrective action by management agencies requires that the
true causal mechanism be identified. We therefore examined several possible designs for a
large-scale fishing experiment devised to test the size-selective fishing hypothesis.
These designs would generate accurate and precise field estimates of the heritability (h2)
of growth rate, which is important because it, in combination with the selection
differential (D) caused by fishing, determines how rapidly body size changes. Monte Carlo
simulations showed that block designs with three to six spatial replicates and relatively
short durations generated high statistical power. For example, for h2 = 0.22, D = 0.25 kg,
and four spatial replicates, and 8-yr experiment resulted in power = 0.87, which gave a SE
<0.10 for h2="0.22." We conclude that some experimental designs have good
potential to test the possible effects of size-selective fishing on mean adult size of
British Columbia pink salmon.
Quotes of Interest: "Poor understanding of the population dynamics
of renewable resources can result in reduced economic benefits through incorrect choice of
management regimes."
"We report the expected statistical performance of experimental designs in this paper
and their economic performance in the companion paper."
"Even if mean body size increased, the lack of a rigorous experimental design
(replicated controls and treated stocks) could lead to continued uncertainty over the
cause(s) of the increase, which might or might not be associated with changes in fishing
regulations."
"With an experimental option, managers could expect a greater chance of
eventually identifying the best long-term policy than with any non experimental
alternative (Walters 1986)."
"Although some of the experimental designs examined above were potentially
informative, managers probably need to be convinced that an experiment would yield
economic benefits over the current management approach before they might seriously
consider an experiment."
Citation:
McAllister, M.K. and R.M. Peterman. 1992. Decision analysis of a large-scale
fishing experiment designed to test for a genetic effect of size-selective fishing on
British Columbia pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha). Canadian Journal of
Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 49(7): 1305-1314.
Abstract:
Past work suggested that size-selective harvesting of large fish combined with
heritability of body size has caused the large (up to 34%) decrease in mean adult weight
of British Columbia pink salmon (O. gorbuscha) since 1950. In a companion paper
(Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 49: 1294-1304) we evaluated the statistical performance of a
large-scale fishing experiment that could enable managers to test this hypothesis and at
the same time increase catch biomass if that hypothesis were correct. In this paper we
evaluate the economic performance of the proposed experiment using Monte Carlo simulation
and decision analysis under a wide range of conditions that encompasses existing
biological uncertainties. We accounted for uncertainties through prior probabilities
placed on two key biological hypotheses. We computed the expected economic value of catch
biomass for the experimental and current non experimental (status quo) management
strategies using a 20-yr time horizon and a 10-yr experiment with four spatial replicates.
Under a variety of discount rates, the expected economic value of experimentation exceeded
that of status quo management in most of the conditions examined, in some cases by as much
as 60%.
Points of Interest:
"In all of these cases, authors have claimed that deliberate
experimentation will help to resolve uncertainties about the underlying dynamic components
of the fish populations, with subsequent improvement in their management."
"A major barrier to implementing experimental management is that managers need to be
convinced a priori that an experimental approach has good potential to yield the desired
information and to produce higher economic value than non experimental management
alternatives (Sainsbury 1988; McAllister et al. 1992)."
"Uncertainty about future benefits can be dealt with systematically by applying the
quantitative methods of decision analysis, which (1) reduce the arbitrariness in
decision-making, (2) incorporate risk and uncertainty into the evaluation of decision
alternatives, and (3) maximize the probability of choosing the most beneficial
option."
"Our results indicate that economic objectives for management of pink salmon
fisheries on the central coast of B.C. might be more readily met by experimentation than
by the current management approach..."
Citation:
McAllister, M.K. and R.M. Peterman. 1992. Experimental Design in the Management
of Fisheries: A Review. North American Journal of Fisheries Management. 12: 1-18.
Abstract:
Despite the accumulating theoretical interest in experimental management, there
are few practical applications of it. Because most fisheries management plans lack
rigorous experimental design, managers often face controversy when results appear
consistent with several alternative mechanisms or when results yield little information
about causes of fish population dynamics. We provide a synthesis of the problems of
experimental design in fisheries science and management, and we show how these problems
can be solved to generate better information and better decisions, especially when
combined with proper statistical practices and formal decision analysis. Reasons why
experimental management is currently rare are (1) lack of familiarity of management
agencies with designing management actions to yield information, (2) logistical
constraints placed on replication by fish migratory patterns, (3) resistance by fishermen
who fear experimentation will lower incomes, or (4) risk of stock collapse. However,
recent applications show that these constraints can be overcome if (1) experimentation is
done on a small scale, such as on small stocks, (2) fishermen are compensated when cuts in
fishing effort are required, (3) fishermen believe that experimentation is in their best
interest (e.g., when it is likely to increase harvests), or (4) control populations are
held in reserve in case overharvesting occurs in a treated population. Several
quantitative decision analyses that include uncertainty show that experimentation
sometimes has much higher expected economic value than not experimenting.
Citation:
Bormann, B.T.; P.G. Cunningham; M.H. Brookes; V.W. Manning and M.W. Collopy.
1994. Adaptive Ecosystem Management in the Pacific Northwest. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR 341.
Portland Oregon: United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, PNW Research
Station. 22 p.
Abstract:
A systematic approach to adaptive management is proposed to simultaneously
manage at the regional, provincial, and watershed scales and to reorganize the activity of
agencies to better support the concepts of adaptive management. Reorganizing management
activities into these four groupings is recommended: adjustment (expanded
decision-making); linked, not single actions; feedback, including monitoring; and
information synthesis. A major new focus for the collaborative decision process is to
identify and set priorities among possible future adjustments. Linked actions that
integrate management and research would then be designed to produce the information needed
to decide whether to make proposed adjustments. Feedback and information synthesis will
follow to facilitate and inform future decisions. The strategy requires making better
decisions; improving public participation; and developing science-based management.
Keywords:
Adaptive management, feedback, adjustment, future decisions, linked actions,
management experiments, information synthesis, decision support, science-based management,
public participation, the lacing model.
Citation:
Walters, C.J. and C.S. Holling. 1990. Large-scale Management Experiments and
Learning by Doing. Ecology. 71(6): 2060-2068.
Abstract:
Even unmanaged ecosystems are characterized by combinations of stability and
instability and by unexpected shifts in behaviour from both internal and external causes.
That is even more true of ecosystems managed for the production of food or fiber. Data are
sparse, knowledge of processes limited, and the act of management changes the system being
managed. Surprise and change is inevitable. Here we review methods to develop, screen, and
evaluate alternatives in a process where management itself becomes partner with the
science by designing probes that produce updated understanding as well as economic
product.
Citation:
Walters, C., L. Gunderson and C.S. Holling. 1992. Experimental Policies for
Water Management in the Everglades. Ecological Applications. 2(2): 189-202.
Abstract:
Marshland drainage and water regulation have greatly altered the Florida
Everglades. One of the most visible ecological impacts has been a drastic decline in
nesting populations of wading birds, and several specific hypotheses have been advanced to
explain the decline. Recent efforts at ecological restoration have concentrated on
reestablishing more natural seasonal hydropatterns in freshwater marsh areas now used
extensively by the wading birds. However, nesting colonies were originally concentrated
along the estuarine mangrove edge of the system rather than around upstream marshes.
Hydrological simulation models have been used to reconstruct what hydrological conditions
might have been like in the natural system, and these simulations indicate that freshwater
pools near and flows to the estuary have been drastically reduced, especially late in the
annual spring drying season. An experimental program of increased water releases to the
estuary could be used to test whether estuarine restoration is a necessary condition for
recovery of wading bird populations. This program would require a substantial commitment
to deliver runoff from the Everglades Agricultural Area into the marshes, and to minimize
water diversions for flood control and well field recharge.
Keywords:
Adaptive management; Everglades; hydrology; restoration; simulation; water
regulation; wetlands.
Citation:
Fletcher, C.J. and K.P. Lertzman. 1993. Adaptive and Experimental Management in
Forestry: A Review of Principles and Practice (DRAFT ONLY). School of Resource and
Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada. 48 p.
Introduction:
It is our goal here to review the principles and practice of adaptive
management, particularly its subcomponent of experimental management, and to examine how
such an outlook might be applied to forest management. After briefly examining the
concepts of adaptive and experimental management, we highlight the need for an adaptive
approach to management by examining the types and sources of uncertainty in ecological and
social systems. We then discriminate among different types of adaptive approaches, and
describe some required components of experimental management, most notably elements of
experimental design. Next, we examine some applications of experimental approaches to
resource management. Finally, we discuss some examples of forest management issues that
might benefit from an experimental management outlook, and describe how such management
experiments might be designed.
Citation:
Halbert, C.L. 1993. How Adaptive is Adaptive Management? Implementing Adaptive
Management in Washington State and British Columbia. Reviews in Fisheries Science. 1(3):
261-283.
Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to analyze constraints to the effective
implementation of adaptive management from a sociological and institutional perspective.
Although formal adoption and institutionalization of adaptive management is critical, it
is however insufficient to ensure successful implementation. Successful implementation of
adaptive management requires management to take risk-prone actions while providing
institutional patience and stability. The experimental nature of adaptive management
requires that managers and politicians redefine success so that learning from error
becomes an acceptable part of the learning process. In addition, information must be
collected and analyzed over time frames that often exceed the typical tenure of
politicians. Adaptive management also needs to be predicated on clearly established goals
and decision criteria that will allow for accountability and evaluation of how goals are
being met. Furthermore, the goals must be compatible with natural processes, existing or
achievable technology, and social norms.
One of the fundamental problems to the effective implementation of adaptive management is
an agreed-upon definition of that term and how and if it should be implemented. Its
application would have far greater success in resolving natural resource management
conflicts if it were universally defined as both (1) linking science with management and
(2) implementing management itself as an experiment.
Keywords:
Adaptive management, experimental management, Timber, Fish, and Wildlife
Agreement, natural resource management, dispute resolution.
Citation:
Walters, C. 1995. Adaptive Policy Design for Forest Management in British
Columbia. Fisheries Centre, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C. 5p.
Introduction:
Forest management in B.C. may soon undergo major changes in response to the
forest practices code and other initiatives related to environmental protection,
sustainable harvesting, and maintenance of biodiversity. In this new policy environment,
it is fair to say that there are no longer any reliable standard operating procedures and
decision rules, so that every management decision and initiative should be viewed in some
sense as an experiment with highly uncertain outcomes in terms of new performance measures
like biodiversity. This situation has been widely acknowledged, and there is much interest
in designing a so-called "adaptive management" approach to testing new policy
initiatives. As one of the originators of this approach, perhaps I can offer some
suggestions about how to make it work, based on my experience in fisheries and watershed
management.
The term adaptive management was first introduced to the natural resources
literature by Ray Hilborn and I in 1976, in a fisheries paper that discussed how
scientific research conducted separately from management was not producing useful
predictions for fisheries managers about the consequences of management initiatives that
would take fish populations into domains of abundance for which there was no historical
data or experience to help guide the development of predictions. Books by C.S. Holling
(1978) and I (1986) further expanded the idea of treating natural resource management as
deliberate experimentation, and a book by Kai Lee (1994) has brought further broad
attention to the concept. As these developments proceeded, the term adaptive management
came into wide use by natural resource managers, often in reference to (and justification
for ) trial-and-error or monitor-and-correct management schemes that just represent new
labels for traditional ways of doing management (and that we would not consider to be
sound adaptive management).
In the following paragraphs, I try to provide a commentary about how to design
an adaptive management program for B.C. forests. This program would look very different
from a traditional trial-and-error approach. In particular, it would begin with a careful
and explicit analysis of policy options and admission of major uncertainties, and this
analysis would be used as a basis for restructuring management over the entire operable
forest of B.C., in full recognition of how uncertain we are about the future of every bit
of that forest.
It is sometimes said that adaptive management is not appropriate to forestry,
where very long response times make it difficult to learn by doing compared to other
resources like fisheries. This is nonsense. Forest responses will occur on many time
scales, permitting at least some types of corrective learning quite soon. And whatever the
delay in learning, management must somehow go on. Eventually wise experimental decisions
will help to guide long term husbandry of the resource, and an experimental approach now
will at least prevent broad application of any single policy that might not work and would
preclude options for change in the future. If "forests are forever" as our
industry and government assert, there should be no fear of planning for the long term.
Citation:
Lee, K.N. and J. Lawrence. 1986. Restoration Under the Northwest Power Act.
Environmental Law. 16: 431-460.
Abstract:
Adaptive management is a policy framework designed to meet the unusual
requirements of the Columbia River Basin Fish and Wildlife Program of the Northwest Power
Planning Council. The program attempts to substantially rebuild salmon and steelhead trout
populations decimated by more than half a century of hydropower development. This
unprecedented effort now comprises the world's largest program of biological restoration.
The major challenge facing the program is biological uncertainty. Knowledge of existing
fishing stocks and practices is imperfect. Restoration on the scale contemplated has not
been previously attempted. Yet Congress clearly intended for action to be taken promptly.
Adaptive management emphasizes the learning opportunities implicit in protecting and
enhancing fish and wildlife. By treating program measures as experiments, it is possible
to proceed with rebuilding while learning how to do so more effectively in the future.
Disciplined implementation of the Columbia Basin program can reap significant benefits for
fish and wildlife, complementing advances in management of salmon harvest that have been
achieved recently by state and tribal fisheries agencies.
Citation:
Johnson, F.A. et al. 1993. Developing an Adaptive Management Strategy for
Harvesting Waterfowl in North America. Trans. 58th N.A. Wildl. & Natur. Resour. Conf.
pp. 565-583.
Introduction:
In the half-century since the noted biologist J.C. Salyer made his prediction,
North American waterfowl populations have become among the most intensively-studied avian
communities in the world. The resulting information has led to vast improvements in the
consumptive use of these economically and culturally important resources. Nonetheless, we
believe that Salyer's prophecy remains largely unfulfilled, in part because resource
agencies too often have treated research (i.e., the accumulation of information and
understanding) and management (i.e., the application of information) as mutually exclusive
pursuits. Given limited fiscal resources, we question whether waterfowl managers can
continue to rely on traditional research to provide the knowledge necessary to meet the
challenges of the future. Populations of many waterfowl species and the wetlands that
support them have declined, demands for hunting opportunity remain high, and harvest
management policies are subject to increasing scrutiny by a conservation-minded public.
Moreover, we suggest that the efficacy of waterfowl harvest management will be limited as
long as managers feel compelled to use risk-aversive regulations as a hedge against
uncertainty. As paradoxical as it may seem, we suggest that harvest management could
improve dramatically if uncertainty were not only acknowledged, but incorporated as an
integral part of the decision-making process. We propose an extension to the current
approach for harvesting waterfowl in which management decisions play a dominant role in
reducing uncertainty about population dynamics without sacrificing the objective of
maximizing harvests. We then discuss some practical considerations for implementing this
strategy for managing waterfowl harvests in North America.
Citation:
Walters, C.J. 1993. Dynamic models and large scale field experiments in
environmental impact assessment and management. Australian Journal of Ecology. 18: 53-61.
Abstract:
Dynamic numerical models and field experiments play important roles in impact
assessment and management. Unfortunately, extreme and simplistic views have developed
about whether and how to use these tools, so their complementary values to the manager are
often not recognized. We often hear the outrageous claim (or hope) that numerical models
can often synthesize 'all' relevant information for predicting the impact of policy
choice, hence making experimental experience unnecessary. From experimentalists, we hear
the equally naive criticism that ecological systems are so complex that nothing is
predictable without experimental experience. What we usually get from the proponents of
these extremes are either models that are dangerously unreliable, or experiments that
provide nice scientific answers to the wrong questions. Wise use of modelling begins with
the following points: (i) explicit modelling is an excellent way to clarify policy
concerns and identify processes that are most likely to be important in making predictions
about policy effects; (ii) we can do a very good job of modelling some processes and
relationships, particularly those having to do with basic spatial and temporal scales of
impact as related to physical transport, chemical transformations, and life history
characteristics of indicator populations (longevity, delays and response times due to age
structured rates of reproduction and mortality); and (iii) there are some important
dynamic processes, such as long-term accumulation of toxic materials in the environment,
that unfold over such large space and time scales as to preclude direct experimental study
(leaving only the issue of which models to use in making predictions, not whether to mode
- unless the processes are simply ignored). But points (i) and (ii) represent steps that a
good experimentalist will take anyway: be clear about what practical results an experiment
is intended to produce, and do not waste effort on experiments to measure things that can
be predicted reliably from existing knowledge. The key to successful use of modelling and
experimentation in management is in making good judgments about the interface between
points (ii) and (iii); that is, in making good judgments about both what variables cannot
be reliably predicted, and of these, which to treat experimentally and which to gamble on
predicting from models.
Citation:
Morrison, M. L., B. G. Marcot and R. W. Mannan. In press 1997. Wildlife habitat
relationships: concepts and applications. Second edition. Univ. of Wisconsin Press,
Madison WI.
The Adaptive Management Approach:
We have advocated the use of adaptive management as means of conducting better
habitat management over time. The approach entails identifying areas of scientific
uncertainty, devising field management activities as real-world experiments to test that
uncertainty, learning from the outcome of such experiments, and recrafting management
guidelines based on the knowledge gained (Holling 1978, Irwin and Wigley 1993, Walters
1986). Modeling can play a key role in formalizing our current knowledge and identifying
important areas of uncertainty (Barrett and Salwasser 1982). In an ideal situation,
managment guidelines equate to creation of testable hypotheses; monitoring and adaptive
management studies equate to conducting the experiment; and revision of the management
guidelines equates to reevaluation and interpetation of the study results in terms of
testing the validity of the initial hypothesis.
Adaptive management, however, has seldom been applied successfully or fully in
managing wildlife habitat and ecosystems (Lee 1993, Hilborn 1992). Problems are largely
technical and administrative (Lee and Lawrence 1986). Following are some basic tenets of a
successful approach to adaptive management. They can be used as a checklist for specific
programs to ensure successful application.
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