Adaptive Management of the Guadalupe River Watershed, San Jose, CA

Abstract

What is adaptive management? At the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) in San Jose, California, this term has been typically used to describe activities that will occur once a project is complete. SCVWD is beginning to learn that with adaptive management, a project is never really complete. A project is planned, designed, constructed, maintained, and continually improved as part of an overall adaptive management process. Once constructed, the Guadalupe River Flood Protection Project will provide 100-year flood protection for homes and businesses through downtown San Jose and ultimately, downstream, through the heart of Silicon Valley. A key component of the project is adaptive management. In 2002, SCVWD convened an adaptive management team (AMT) consisting of representatives from SCVWD, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, California Department of Fish and Game, San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, City of San Jose, and environmental stakeholders. The AMT helps implement the adaptive management process for the project for the next 100 years and is responsible for evaluating progress towards the achievement of the measurable objectives (MOs) outlined in the project's mitigation and monitoring plan (MMP). The AMT also reviews recommendations proposed by SCVWD and the Corps, and provides additional recommendations to assure achievement of the MOs. Going forward, SCVWD envisions integrating the AMT with other forums to expand the adaptive management concept beyond this stretch of Guadalupe River. SCVWD is also a member of the Guadalupe Watershed Integration Working Group, another collaborative that has been established to ensure MMPs for various projects are executed consistently and examined from a programmatic, watershed management perspective. By developing the adaptive management process beyond just one project, we may better be able to answer the question, what is adaptive management?