Adaptive Environmental Management Research Articles

Performance standards and monitoring requirements of surface coal mine reclamation success in mountainous jurisdictions of western North America: a review

The regulatory performance standards and monitoring requirements that are used to evaluate reclamation success in nine western North America jurisdictions were reviewed. Ecosystem-based reclamation monitoring, a crucial part of regulatory enforcement and adaptive environmental management, was lacking in most jurisdictions. Reclamation practices and regulatory control in each jurisdiction would be improved greatly by effective long-term monitoring. A set of performance standards (including productivity, land use capability and functional dynamics) is proposed which better integrates with a phased bond release process. As well, a long-term hierarchical (population, community, ecosystem, landscape) monitoring programme is proposed.

Application of AEAM (Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management) to Water Quality in the Latrobe River Catchment

Adaptive environmental assessment and management (AEAM) is a process for the development and exploration of management options for complex systems and is particularly applicable to environmental management issues. It has been applied throughout the world since the 1970s to problems ranging from management of the Florida Everglades to assessing the ecological impacts of hydro-electric schemes. The process is centred around a series of workshops wherein representatives from a wide range of technical and non-technical groups, including discipline specialist, planners, decision makers and other stake holders, define the scope and output requirements for a computer simulation model of the system to be managed. Sub-groups provide information required to represent each such as hydrology, water quality and ecological impacts as well as the linkages between these different areas. The involvement of the whole group in model development ensures a product that is consistent with use requirement and incorporates best-available knowledge of the system at an agreed temporal and spatial scale. This paper reports on an application of the methodology to the development of water-quality management plans for the Latrobe River in Victoria, Australia. This is one of the few such applications of AEAM undertaken in Australia. The fundamental process is briefly presented and the specific methodology used in this application is discussed, with special reference to the workshop outcomes, development of the computer and the benefits of the process to resource managers. The computer simulation is presented and its uses and limitations are discussed. While the computer model is the tangible outcome of the process, the modelling workshops are shown to be of primary importance. They are a highly-efficient medium for the accumulation of information about the system and require participants to focus clearly on problems and achievable solutions from the outset.

Decision making for sustainable development: Selected approaches to environmental assessment and management

Nine approaches to decision making for environmental assessment planning, and management are reviewed to determine how they support principles of sustainable development. The approaches range from environmental impact assessment to adaptive environmental assessment and management. Examples of the eight principles distilled from the literature on sustainable development include the substantive principles of meeting human needs and maintaining ecological integrity, and the process principles of adaptiveness and integration. The more comprehensive approaches are found to support a broader range of principles. The narrower approaches may play important complementary roles in their more rigorous support for individual principles. While tensions confront simultaneous adherence to all eight principles, full support for sustainable development depends on such adherence. The coordinated application of the nine approaches could well support sustainable development in theory, but important substantive principles would remain neglected. Nontechnocratic approaches such as bioregionalism and comanagement hold an unexplored potential for filling this substantive gap.

Systems methods for environmental management

Changes in environmental research, planning, and management over the past 20 years have determined the requirements for new methodological approaches to connect environmental science and policy. This paper identifies the most prevalent directions in which the new approaches are heading based on an overview of five methods developed over the past 15–20 years. These include the environmental impact assessment methods, the adaptive environmental assessment and management approach, the environmental management and training games, decision support systems, and the policy exercise method. Conclusions of this overview are intended to provide guidelines for future methodological efforts to create better interfaces between environmental science and environmental policy.

The Antarctic Treaty System: Environmental protection, conservation, and the question of competing use

The Antarctic Treaty System consists of the Treaty itself, over 130 recommendations made under it, the Agreed Measures for the Conservation of Antarctic Fauna and Flora, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Seals, and the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources. Consultations have been held among parties to the Antarctic Treaty to elaborate an Antarctic minerals regime. It has become clear that how to deal with issues of competing use has begun to emerge as an important political question. In such a context the development of an Antarctic conservation strategy is a potentially helpful step. Competition of use, when it occurs, will be localised and different in different areas. In only tiny parts will it be severe, but these parts may be the biologically richest coastal areas. Various activities and their possible interactions are considered. It is concluded that any arrangement of Antarctic activities which given an automatic priority of one over others is wrong. Similarly, no activity should be subservient to all others. An Antarctic conservation strategy needs to be developed and in its operation the concept of adaptive environmental assessment and management needs to be applied. Within the Antarctic Treaty System there are moves towards assessment. What is needed now is a framework within which such concepts can operate; that is, a conservation and environmental strategy.

Adaptive Environmental Management

(1986). Adaptive Environmental Management. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development: Vol. 28, No. 9, pp. 39-39.

Environmental impact assessment in the association of southeast Asian Nations

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has agreed that environmental protection and sustainable use of natural resources are essential for sound economic development. The Environmental Impact Assessment is viewed as an important management tool and an ASEAN Experts Group on the Environment has been working for several years on a model especially adapted to the region and also on case studies of the implementation of EIA. Progress so far has been frustratingly slow due to misunderstanding, a lack of ecological data, inadequate trained manpower and institutional shortcomings for compliance. The author advocates collaboration on an ASEAN model for performing EIA as a means of accelerating acceptance and implementation. The concept of Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management is proposed as a prototype.

Spruce Budmoth — A Case History Issues and Constraints

An approach, involving all of the agencies that might be involved in a spray permit approval, to the design of a chemical control program for a zeiraphera sp. infestation in extensive white spruce plantations in New Brunswick is described. The issues and constraints encountered in the exercise and that would probably be common to any attempt at implementing chemical control of a pest in plantations are highlighted. Steps that must be taken to resolve some of these difficulties are discussed. Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management is suggested as an approach that might resolve issues and contraints.

Integration of Ecology in Coastal Engineering

This article aims at a brief evaluation of the ECEP-symposium from the viewpoint of ecology. From this viewpoint first of all the importance of coastal zones, and more especially estuaries for man and other life is emphasized. Trial and error in coastal engineering and coastal management is illustrated with some examples derived from the papers of this symposium. On the basis of some rough cost/benefit calculations it becomes clear that without integration of ecological aspects, from the beginning to the end, expensive and unforseen additional expenditures may result with costs comparable or even many times higher than the original project costs. Attention is focussed on the lessons to be learned from the papers. The major observations are briefly classified in order of importance. The main conclusion is first of all to handle carefully the integrity of coastal environments, with special attention for estuaries, and to find solutions for society's problems and wishes without disrupting modifications or transformations. But in doing so the process of change requires a close control in terms of planned modification or transformation, an integral ecosystem approach and an adaptive environmental management strategy. In this relation a new management and design strategy is proposed, with the recognition that we are dealing with a process. It is an open ended strategy which requires adaption to new unforeseen events in decision making or in (new) environments. In conclusion a number of statements are presented.

Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management

Journal Article Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management Get access Edited by Holling C. S.. 1978. Witey-Interscience, Chichester-New York-Brisbane-Toronto. xviii + 377 pages, Mus. $16.50. Reviewed by Campbell Robert W., Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, USDA Forest Service, Corvallis, Oregon 97331 Forest Science, Volume 26, Issue 3, September 1980, Pages 435–436, https://doi.org/10.1093/forestscience/26.3.435 Published: 01 September 1980

Book Reviews

Abstract Abstract Everything a Planner Needs to Know about Leisure Services Systems? Henry C. Hightower Henry C. Hightower is a professor of community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia. His doctoral thesis at the University of North Carolina and a paper at the 1966 AIP meeting were on leisure planning. It has taken fifteen years for him to get over being tired of leisure and return to this aspect of planning. Muddling Toward Frugality Warren Johnson. Sierra Club Books, San Francisco, 1978. 252 pp. $6.95. Planning for Wildlife in Cities and Suburbs Daniel L. Leedy, Robert M. Maestro, and Thomas M. Franklin of the Urban Wildlife Research Center, Inc., Ellicott City, Md., for the Office of Biological Services, Fish and Wildlife Service, U. S. Department of the Interior. Cosponsored by the American Society of Planning Officials. Superintendent of Documents, U.S.G.P.O., Washington, D.C. 20402 Stock Number 024-010-00471-1. January 1978. 64 pp. $2.40 (paperback). (Also published as Planning Advisory Service Report #331 by American Planning Association, available to subscribers only.) The City and Social Theory Michael P. Smith. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1979. 315 pp. $14.95 (cloth), $5.95 (paperback). Environmental Choice, Human Behavior, and Residential Satisfaction William Michelson. Oxford University Press, New York, 1977. 403 pp. $10.50 (cloth), $6.50 (paperback). Housing the Poor: The Case for Heroism Alexander Polikoff. Ballinger Publishing Company. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1978. 216 pp. $15.00. The Challenge of the Resource Exchange Network Seymour B. Sarason and Elizabeth Lorentz. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 1979. 283 pp. $13.95. Current Issues in Urban Economics Peter Mieszkowski and Mahlon Straszheim, eds. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Md., 1979. 589 pp. $25.00. Beyond Capitalist Planning Stuart Holland, Editor. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1978. 222 pp. $18.95. Evaluation: A Systematic Approach Peter H. Rossi, Howard E. Freeman, and Sonia R. Wright. Sage Publications, Beverly Hills, California, 1979. 336 pp. $14.95. Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management C. S. Holling, ed. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester, New York, Brisbane, and Toronto, 1978. 377 pp. $16.50. Protecting the Golden Shore Robert G. Healy, Editor, John S. Banta, John R. Clark, William J. Duddleson. The Conservation Fondation, Washington, D.C., 1978. 257 pp. $6.75 (paperback). The Local Growth Management Guidebook Eddie L. Schwertz, Jr. Southern Growth Policies Board, P.O. Box 12293, Research Triangle Park, N.C., 1979. 191 pp. $8.00 (paperback). Downtown U.S.A.: Urban Design in Nine American Cities Kenneth Halpern. Watson-Guptill Publishers, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1978. 256 pp. $27.50 (hardcover). Collage City Colin Rowe and Fred Koetter. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1979. 185 pp. $22.50.

Book review essays: Holling, C. S., editor, 1978: Adaptive environmental assessment and management. International Series on Applied Systems Analysis 3. Chichester: John Wiley. xiii+377 pp. £7.75

Book review essays: Holling, C. S., editor, 1978: Adaptive environmental assessment and management. International Series on Applied Systems Analysis 3. Chichester: John Wiley. xiii+377 pp. £7.75

IIASA Conference on Adaptive Environmental Management, held in Schloss Laxenburg, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, 13–17 June 1977

IIASA Conference on Adaptive Environmental Management, held in Schloss Laxenburg, 2361 Laxenburg, Austria, 13–17 June 1977