Peterson, J., C. Moore, S. Wenger, K. Kennedy, E. Irwin, and M. Freeman. 2007. Adaptive management applied to aquatic natural resources. Chapter 6.4 in Proceedings of the 2007 Georgia Water Resources Conference, March 27-29, Athens.
Abstract
Most natural resource management is conducted under conditions of considerable uncertainty; rarely do we have 100% confidence that management actions will deliver the predicted outcome. Adaptive management is a scientific approach to management that explicitly deals with this uncertainty. It involves predicting management outcomes, collecting data to test those predictions (monitoring), revising the predictions and adapting the management strategy to reflect the new knowledge. In this session, we introduce adaptive management and describe three projects where this tool is applied to aquatic resources.