Our purpose is to summarize a regional adaptive management (AM) process for the Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program (CEERP) that integrates elements from existing program documents and activities to formalize procedures that will enable the CEERP to successfully meet its goal. The focus is on the federal restoration effort, but the CEERP and its adaptive management process includes all restoration avenues in the LCRE as appropriate. An AM process that has active participation and buy-in from key stakeholders is needed to plan and prioritize projects, evaluate effectiveness of constructed projects, and periodically synthesize results in a manner that significantly improves restoration program strategy and decision-making. The standard phases in an AM cycle include deciding, acting, monitoring/research, evaluating, and strategizing. Each phase is dependent on results of previous phases. The process feeds back on itself so that decisions on actions to meet the goal are based on data from monitoring/research, information from evaluation, and guidance from strategizing. In this paper, we describe the goals/objectives, background, phases, teams, deliverables, schedule, and infrastructure for adaptive management of the CEERP.
Two key conditions must exist to have a real and effective AM program: 1) a mandate to take action in the face of uncertainty and 2) institutional capacity and commitment to undertake and sustain an AM program. The mandate has been established with the 2008 FCRPS Biological Opinion, along with the Upper Columbia and the Lower Columbia and Willamette Recovery Plans. The collective institutional capacity and commitment, however, have been insufficient to date. We have attempted to provide specific steps, roles and responsibilities, and work products for adaptive management of the Columbia Estuary Ecosystem Restoration Program. It is up to the primary funding agencies (BPA and USACE), stakeholders (CLT, CREST, LCREP, etc.), and monitoring/research agencies (NMFS, PNNL, USFWS, USGS, etc.) to cooperate and make adaptive management a reality for the betterment of LCRE ecosystems and the salmon populations these ecosystems support.
