The Use of Science in Natural Resource Planning

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The Use of Science in Natural Resource Planning
and Management in the Atchafalaya Basin
Stephen Faulkner USGS Lafayette, LA
Tijs van Maasakkers Siobhan Watson MIT Cambridge,
MA
Herman Karl MIT-USGS Science Impact
Collaborative Cambridge, MA
Ecosystem Functions and the Dynamic Atchafalaya
River January 11, 2008 Baton Rouge, LA
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Overview

• The role of science in natural resource
  management and collaborative decision making
• Preliminary evaluation of the use of science in
  resource planning and management in the
  Atchafalaya Basin

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Overview

• Summary of resource issues and stakeholder
  conflicts with clear path forward, optimum
  resolutions, and fairy tale ending

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• Decisions Based on Sound Science
• Fact or Myth?

Basing natural resource management decisions on
sound science began at the end of the nineteenth
century in the belief that science would provide
a means of objective and rational management.
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• Decisions Based on Sound Science
• Fact or Myth?

Use of scientific information can lead to better
natural resource management decisions, more
effective environmental policy, and help avoid or
mitigate the consequences of human-induced
stressors on the environment.
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Why is science often ignored or minimized in
important societal decisions even as the call for
decisions based on sound science escalates?
Conflict Complexity Uncertainty Communication
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Science Is Not A Panacea
A myth has grown up in the midst of natural
resource decisionmaking that good science can ,
by itself, somehow make difficult natural
resources decisions for us and relieve us of the
necessity to engage in the hard work of
democratic deliberations that must finally
shoulder the weight of those decisions. (Under
Secretary Rey, USDA cited in Kemmis, 2002)
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Science Is Not A Panacea
Unfortunately, the highly contentious debates
that surround complex natural resource issues
often marginalize the contribution of science to
decisions that get made. This is, in large part,
due to adversarial processes that are created by
and often dominate regulatory disputes and
management issues that transcend socio-political
boundaries.
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Why is science often ignored or minimized in
important societal decisions even as the call for
decisions based on sound science escalates?
Important to distinguish between the process of
decision-making and the outcomes of that
process (both intended and unintended).
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Three important parameters of the decision-making
process 1. Who participates? 2. How do they
communicate and make decisions? 3. What
is the connection between their decisions
and resulting actions?
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Conceptual Participation Model
Adapted from Fung (2006)
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The Atchafalaya Basin has always been a source
of controversy. Nothing about it not even its
name has led to easy agreement. (Reuss, 2004.
Designing the Bayous)
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FLOOD CONTROL Oil and gas Timber Commercial and
recreational fishing Hunting Non-consumptive
wildlife use Navigation Sedimentation Property
rights and access Invasive species Coastal
restoration Nutrient removal Water quality
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Atchafalaya Basin Floodway System
Flood control Hydrologic modifications Sedimentati
on Water quality Land-use change/conversion Oil
and gas Timber Commercial and recreational
fishing Hunting Non-consumptive wildlife
use Navigation Property rights and
access Invasive species Coastal
restoration Nutrient removal . . . .
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The successful application of new knowledge and
breakthrough technologies, which are likely to
occur with ever-increasing frequency, will
require an entirely new interdisciplinary
approach to policy-making one that operates in
an agile problem-solving environment and works
effectively at the interface where science and
technology meet business and public policy. It
must be rooted in a vastly improved understanding
of people, organizations, cultures, and nations
and be implemented by innovative strategies and
new methods and communication. All of this can
occur only by engaging the nations top social
scientists, including policy experts, to work in
collaboration with scientists and engineers from
many fields and diverse institutions on
multidisciplinary research efforts that address
large but well-defined national and global
problems. This will not be easy. It will require
qualitative changes in research cultures and the
way federal agencies consider research funding.
Lane,
2006. Science.
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Collaboration Is the Key
Collaboration science is an emerging field and
its application to ecosystem management requires
field-based experimentation, careful evaluation
of experimental results and interdisciplinary
theory building.
Academics from multiple disciplines take results
of action research project
Research Team in the University
SIC
to build theory
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Why MUSIC?

• MUSIC builds on the work that has been underway
  at MIT and Harvard for the past two decades
• How to intervene in environmental decision-making
  situations in a stakeholder-driven way
• MUSIC emphasizes new techniques and approaches
  to
• Ensure appropriate stakeholder representation
  (assessment tools)
• Develop new roles for professional process
  managers (mediation)
• Develop a better balance between politics and
  science (JFF)
• Develop an experimental approach to interventions
  in human-natural systems (collaborative adaptive
  management)

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Current Projects and Future Projects
Washington State Sustainable Groundwater Supply
Strategies
Gulf of Maine Integrating Marine and Terrestrial
Conservation Measures
Colorado Collaborative Modeling to address water
issues
Great BasinIntegrated Landscape Monitoring
Massachusetts The Siting of Offshore Wind
Generating Facilities
Siting LNG Receiving Facilities
CSI 11 Western States Regional Planning
Sagebrush Ecosystem Restoration
Lower Mississippi ValleyIntegrated Landscape
Science and Monitoring
Washington, DCEnhancing Public Involvement in
the NEPA Process
Mystic River, CRV Urban and Regional Watershed
Management
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Current Projects
Lower Mississippi ValleyIntegrated Landscape
Science and Monitoring Atchafalaya Basin
Conservation Practices in Agricultural
Watersheds
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• Evaluating how scientific information is used in
  resource management and planning in the
  Atchafalaya Basin USACE ABFS Master Plan and
  LADNR ABFS State Master Plan
• Our hypotheses are
• Use of science is constrained by each agencys
  authorities and
• mandates, and
• 2) Numerous institutional barriers stand in the
  way of a more interdisciplinary, integrated
  approach to the conduct and use of science.

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Preliminary Findings
Both plans

• Drafted in partnership with a variety of
  federal, state, and
• citizen representatives

• Recognize the importance of multiple
  stakeholder involvement in planning for the ABFS
  future

• Implicitly embrace a social constructivist
  outlook on the future of the ABFS by
  acknowledging that science alone cannot direct
  future development

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Preliminary Findings
Both plans

• Set out a vision in broad terms that is
  responsive to the concerns of stakeholders.

• Do not identify how those concerns are related
  to management options, potential conflicts, and
  trade-offs.

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Preliminary Findings
Both plans

• Lay out their basin-wide priorities and
  strategies, but leave in-depth scientific
  literature reviews and studies to smaller-scale
  projects.

• Without drawing on scientific literature at the
  landscape scale, may unintentionally leave
  priorities to be locally determined.

• This approach does not address cumulative
  impacts at the landscape scale.

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Preliminary Conclusions

• The principles of ecosystem management can be
  interpreted in many ways. Without consensus on
  what ecosystem management means for the ABFS,
  the various agencies, organizations, and
  stakeholders involved may interpret broad
  guidelines quite differently.

• By setting out broad visions and goals without
  connecting those visions and goals to specific
  strategies, master plans for the ABFS may allow
  the parties involved to feel that they have
  consensus on a vision for the ABFS while
  significant conflicts remain unexposed and
  unexplored.

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Conceptual Participation Model
Adapted from Fung (2006)
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Preliminary Conclusions
Additional challenges once a consensus vision is
reached

• Will we recognize success? Do we know what a
  sustainable ABFS landscape looks like?

• Do we have the scientific capacities and
  resources needed to
• support and implement a consensus vision?
• practice adaptive management?
• monitor and quantify ecosystem processes and
• services at multiple temporal and spatial
  scales?

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Questions? sfaulkner_at_usgs.gov