ESSA_logo_MediumESSA_logo_MediumESSA_logo_MediumESSA_logo_Medium
  • Home
  • Approach
    • Our Approach
    • Adapt Card Game
  • Explore ESSA
    • Practice Areas
    • Services
    • Tools
    • Projects
  • News & Insights
    • News
    • Insights
  • Our Clients
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Our Team
    • Where We Work
    • Careers
  • Contact Us
✕

ESSA Article Melding Adaptive Management and Climate Change Adaptation Published in Journal of the American Water Resources Association

July 29, 2019

Adaptive Management and Climate Change Adaptation: Two Mutually Beneficial Areas of Practice, an article written by a team of ESSA scientists including David Marmorek, Marc Nelitz, Jimena Eyzaguirre, Carol Murray and Clint Alexander, was recently published in the Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA).

The 2011 flood in the Missouri River. Corps of Engineers photo of June 16, 2011, showing the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant (Nebraska) surrounded by flood water. Wikimedia Commons.

At ESSA, our scientists have been applying the mindset and principles of Adaptive Management (AM) for four decades in 40 countries, and we have studied climate change and its impacts since the 1990s – both in North America and internationally. However, to date, there has been little overlap between AM and climate change adaptation (CCA).

Having witnessed how climate change and extreme weather events make already challenging AM projects even more difficult, and observed that CCA plans have a much looser approach to monitoring and evaluation than more rigorous AM plans, ESSA scientists began to explore the idea of applying CCA principles to AM and applying AM principles to CCA plans. They then tested their ideas against evidence from five ESSA projects in the Russian, Trinity, Okanagan, Platte and Missouri river basins – each of which are concerned with restoring ecosystems and recovering species. Their ideas coalesced into a presentation delivered in June 2017 at a conference in Virginia and then matured into the article published in JAWRA. The essence of the paper can be summarized in two haiku:

Using CCA

In AM project design

Builds resilience

Applying AM

To climate adaptation

Will improve learning

To read the full paper, click here.

logo

Practice Areas

Adaptive Management
Climate Change Adaptation
Environmental & CEA
Fisheries & Aquatic Sciences
International Development

Services

Facilitation & Engagement
Science Communication
Ecological Modelling
Decision-Support Systems
Monitoring, Design & Evaluation

See Complete Services List

Tools

Jagger’s Law & Turn Taking Optimization
Okanagan Fish Water Management Tool
The Fire & Fuel Effects Model for Forest Planning
El salvador Infrastructure Risk Analysis Framework
Watershed Report Cards

See Complete Tools List

Copyright 2021 ESSA Technologies Ltd | All Rights Reserved
All images are used by permission for photos taken by staff or are licensed under Creative Commons by 2.0