Adaptive Management

Environmental Assessment, Management & Restoration

Adaptive Management

Adaptive management principles are being considered for use in many water resources projects along river systems. At Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River, the U.S. Department of the Interior has employed this paradigm for the past ten years [view report]. The U.S. Congress mandated the use of adaptive management in the Florida Everglades ecosystem restoration program [view report]. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is also beginning to use the concept in its operations of the Missouri River dam and reservoir system [view report] and in its Upper Mississippi River feasibility study [view report]. The Corps of Engineers is also considering broader implementation of adaptive management principles throughout their ecosystem restoration, flood damage reduction, and navigation activities [view report].

Adaptive management can be valuable where there are competing uses of waters, such as in Texas where the same streams and rivers that sustain habitat for about 250 species of fish also provide water resources for 20 million people [view report]. In the Platte River in Nebraska, Colorado, and Wyoming, critical habitat for four endangered species (least tern, piping plover, whooping crane, and pallid sturgeon) will be affected by river management decisions [view report]. The Columbia River of the northwestern U.S. has to be managed to balance the often-competing needs of salmon, hydropower, and irrigated agriculture [view report]. The Missouri River ecosystem has suffered from introduction of nonnative fish species, navigation enhancement, dams, land-use changes, and population growth and will require creative management strategies for its recovery [view report]. The lands bordering rivers, lakes, and estuaries, or riparian areas, have many important functions, and require protection and careful management as well [view report].

Books Related to Adaptive Management
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