2014 Clear Creek Technical Team Report for the Coordinated Long-Term Operation Biological Opinions Integrated Annual Review October 3, 2014

Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) | October 3rd, 2014

2018 Clear Creek Technical Team Annual Report for the Coordinated Long-Term Operations Biological Opinion

Delta Stewardship Council (DSC) | July 1st, 2019

A New Paradigm for Adaptive Management

Ecology and Society | July 1st, 2013

Uncertainty is a pervasive feature in natural resource management. Adaptive management, an approach that focuses on identifying critical uncertainties to be reduced via

Uncertainty is a pervasive feature in natural resource management. Adaptive management, an approach that focuses on identifying critical uncertainties to be reduced via diagnostic management experiments, is one favored approach for tackling this reality. While adaptive management is identified as a key method in the environmental management toolbox, there remains a lack of clarity over when its use is appropriate or feasible. Its implementation is often viewed as suitable only in a limited set of circumstances. Here we restructure some of the ideas supporting this view, and show why much of the pessimism around AM may be unwarranted. We present a new framework for deciding when AM is appropriate, feasible, and subsequently successful. We thus present a new paradigm for adaptive management that shows that there are no categorical limitations to its appropriate use, the boundaries of application being defined by problem conception and the resources available to managers. In doing so we also separate adaptive management as a management tool, from the burden of failures that result from the complex policy, social, and institutional environment within which management occurs.

A Practitioner’s Guide to Instream Flow Transactions in California

SWIFT Working Group, American Rivers, Nature Conservancy, Trout Unlimited, Scott River Water Trust, River Right, Alford Environmental | March 1st, 2016

The purpose of this guide is to help water right holders –and those assisting them – understand their options for keeping water instream in California. Th

The purpose of this guide is to help water right holders –and those assisting them – understand their options for keeping water instream in California. This guide briefly describes some of the most common types of instream flow transactions (i.e., methods for restoring flow for environmental purposes), and discusses in detail how to navigate the process of completing an instream flow dedication by changing a water right, as permitted by Water Code Section 1707. The intended audience for this document includes both water rights holders and practitioners, such as staff for land trusts, water trusts, Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs), and other organizations. This guide focuses on instream dedications via the change petition process administered by the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board). Other publications – for example, the Trust for Public Land’s Water Acquisition Handbook (2003) – provide a more general overview of acquiring water for environmental purposes in California. This guide will provide a description of the change petition process, and offer advice on how to navigate, troubleshoot, and work in partnership with the State Water Board and other natural resource agencies to complete an instream flow dedication.

A Review of Delta Fish Population Losses from Pumping Operations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta

Sacramento Regional County Sanitation District (RegionalSan) | January 30th, 2010

To reduce fish loss at the pumps, the state and federal water export facilities operate facilities which are designed to salvage fish from the water and return them to th

To reduce fish loss at the pumps, the state and federal water export facilities operate facilities which are designed to salvage fish from the water and return them to the Delta. Fish facilities include the SWP Skinner Fish Protection Facility and CVP Tracy Fish Collection Facility. The fish facilities utilize two sets of louvers to prevent fish from entering further into water project operations and ultimately the powerful pumps. The louvers concentrate fish so that they can be removed prior to the water diversions. However, these fish salvage operations are inefficient, as high numbers of fish are lost due to predation in the waterways leading to the fish facilities, and the louvers are inefficient.

A Review of the Use of Science and Adaptive Management in California’s Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan

National Academies Press | May 5th, 2011

California’s draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan—a draft plan to conserve habitat for endangered and threatened species, while continuing to divert water to agriculture

California’s draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan—a draft plan to conserve habitat for endangered and threatened species, while continuing to divert water to agriculture and domestic water users in central and southern California—is incomplete and contains critical scientific gaps. The Bay Delta is a large, complex ecosystem that supplies water from the state’s wetter northern regions to the drier southern regions, and also serves as habitat for many species. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan describes a proposal to construct a tunnel or canal to divert water from the northern Delta to the south, thus reducing the need to convey water through the Delta. This report reviews the use of science and adaptive management in the draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan and identifies opportunities to develop a more successful plan.

Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management

John Wiley and Sons | July 1st, 1978

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

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 wasn't 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 (Munn, 1975): 1. What, if anything, does our understanding of the nature and behavior of ecological systems have to say about the issues, limitations, and potential of environmental assessment? 2. What can be done to bridge the abyss presently separating technical impact assessment studies from actual environmental planning and decision making? 3. To what extent, and under what circumstances, do present methods provide useful predictions of impacts?

Adaptive Management - Applications Guide

U.S. Department of the Interior | January 1st, 2012

The Department of the Interior (DOI) Adaptive Management Working Group sponsored the development of this applications guide to provide thorough examples for a better unde

The Department of the Interior (DOI) Adaptive Management Working Group sponsored the development of this applications guide to provide thorough examples for a better understanding of how adaptive management can be implemented in the field. The applications guide builds on the framework for adaptive management presented in the DOI Adaptive Management Technical Guide, and illustrates the elements of adaptive management with a large number of natural resource examples. The Adaptive Management Working Group includes representatives from most DOI bureaus and offices. Writing teams of resource managers, technical experts, and other specialists worked with the group to identify and describe applications of adaptive management in four thematic areas: climate change, water resources, energy resources, and the interface of human and natural systems. These themes were chosen to illustrate the elements and processes of adaptive management because of their importance to DOI management responsibilities, the current interest in the thematic areas in using adaptive management, and the broad potential in each thematic area for learning-based management. In writing this guide, we attempted to provide enough background about the elements of adaptive management implementation, and the challenges in implementing it, to give the reader a context for the resource examples. We also sought to provide enough detail in the examples to illustrate clearly the elements of adaptive management. Thus, the guide includes summaries of the principles and issues relevant to adaptive management, followed by descriptions of potential and actual applications in each of the four thematic areas. The intention was to provide enough detail about the actual process of adaptive management to be informative, while limiting the scope, complexity, and size of the document.

Adaptive Management - Technical Guide

U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) | January 1st, 2009

The Department of the Interior (DOI) Adaptive Management Working Group (AMWG) sponsored the development of this technical guide to clearly and consistently define adaptiv

The Department of the Interior (DOI) Adaptive Management Working Group (AMWG) sponsored the development of this technical guide to clearly and consistently define adaptive management and describe conditions for its implementation. AMWG membership includes representatives from across DOI’s bureaus and offices. A writing team of resource managers, technical experts, and other specialists worked with AMWG to address four basic questions concerning adaptive management: (1) What is adaptive management? (2) When should it be used? (3) How should it be implemented? (4) How can its success be recognized and measured? These questions were used to organize both the writing effort and the structure of the guide itself, with individual chapters addressing each of the questions. The authors sought to describe adaptive management at an appropriate level of technical detail, while remaining focused on its definition, operational components, and conditions in which it applies. A key challenge was to provide sufficient detail for clarification, while limiting the length and complexity of the document.

Adaptive Management and Science for the Delta Ecosystem

San Francisco Estuary & Watershed Science (UC Davis) | October 1st, 2013

Using science to adaptively guide management for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is widely talked about as good public policy.  Almost every agency, stakeholder, and pl

Using science to adaptively guide management for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is widely talked about as good public policy.  Almost every agency, stakeholder, and planning process professes support and has its own adaptive management and science efforts.  But highly fragmented adaptive management and science cannot solve such urgent complex problems. California’s 2009 Delta Reform Act recognized that meeting the co-equal goals of a sustainable ecosystem and water supply reliability in the Delta required major changes in governance, planning, and management. Such changes also require major changes in how science is organized and employed in management. Here is a straw proposal for integrating the many parochial science and adaptive management programs for the Delta.