Adaptive Management is systematic, practical approach to improving resource management policies and practices. It provides a structured process for learning which management actions best meet management objectives, and for reducing resource management uncertainty. In its most effective form, an experimental approach is used to test clearly formulated hypotheses about important, but uncertain, components of a system. This approach follows the six basic steps shown in the diagram at right.
Adaptive Management has been the cornerstone of ESSA's approach since our inception in 1979. Our focus is on helping clients implement various aspects of Adaptive Management to solve resource management problems. We also provide customized training workshops in Adaptive Management in both English and Spanish.
If you and your organization are interested or involved in aquatic or terrestrial resource management, then you may find tremendous benefit from learning more about Adaptive Management, and how it can be applied.
- Are you uncertain about whether you are meeting your resource management objectives?
- Are you having difficulty deciding the best way to meet these objectives?
- Are you uncertain as to the environmental outcomes of some of your management actions?
- Do stakeholders disagree about the outcomes of management actions?
- Do stakeholders disagree about which are the 'best' management alternatives?
- Do you have difficulty deciding, with confidence, among alternative management actions?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Adaptive Management can help. While Adaptive Management is not the 'universal hammer to all environmental nails,' it should be a critical part of the toolbox used by managers and stakeholders to resolve difficult problems.