A New Paradigm for Adaptive Management

By L. Rist, A. Felton, Lars Samuelsson, C. Sandström, O. Rosvall. 2013

124 citations recorded by the source corpus.

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.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Management Science and Operations Research

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/df41227587cf7b7bec91f34929bae021d5581756

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Á. Borja
2. Miroslav Svoboda
3. L. Drössler
4. K. Galvin
5. P. Spathelf
6. Jürgen Bauhus
7. C. Lynam
8. I. Muxika

In Management Science and Operations Research

1. Laura Uusitalo
2. K. Galvin

Citations in the corpus

• Suitability of close-to-nature silviculture for adapting temperate European forests to climate change (2014, background): “…to climate change and future uncertainty (Spittlehouse and Stewart, 2003; Broadmeadow et al., 2005; Millar et al., 2007; Rigling et al., 2008; Innes et al., 2009; Bolte et al., 2009, 2010a;Stokes and Kerr, 2009;Lindner et al., 2010;Seidl et al., 2011; O’Hara and Ramage, 2013; Rist et al., 2013).”
• Placing Transdisciplinarity in Context: A Review of Approaches to Connect Scholars, Society and Action (2019, background): “Rist et al. (2013) claimed that the social and ecological aspects of CAM must be separated for success to occur [131], while Fernandez-Gimenez et al. (2019) argue that social learning emerges from the complex social-ecological dynamics of CAM [132].”
• A Catalogue of Marine Biodiversity Indicators (2016, background): “…is still needed (Rudd, 2014), it is also recognized that the cost and delays associated with gathering information, learning and development process are often responsible for failures encountered in the implementation stage of management plans (Lee, 1999 in Rist et al., 2013; Pitcher et al., 2009).”