Adaptive management and science for the delta ecosystem

Abstract

Using science to adaptively guide management for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is widely talked about as good public policy. Almost every agency, stakeholder, and planning process professes support and has its own adaptive management and science efforts. But highly fragmented adaptive management and science cannot solve such urgent complex problems. California's 2009 Delta Reform Act recognized that meeting the co-equal goals of a sustainable ecosystem and water supply reliability in the Delta required major changes in governance, planning, and management. Such changes also require major changes in how science is organized and employed in management. Here is a straw proposal for integrating the many parochial science and adaptive management programs for the Delta. © 2013 by the article author(s).