Data to Decisions: How to Make Science More Relevant for Management of the San Francisco Estuary

Abstract

In a region surrounded by some of the top universities in the nation—as well as headquarters for major federal, state, and local agencies—science in the San Francisco Estuary (the estuary) is arguably world-class. This conclusion is based not only on the sheer volume of literature on estuarine habitats, but also on the range of topics covered, which includes hydrology, chemistry, botany, invertebrate biology, restoration ecology, fisheries, estuarine ecology, political science, human uses, economics, and modeling. While scientific publications are a good indicator of the intensity of research and monitoring in a given region, publications do not necessarily translate into effective resource management. If scientists only have a hazy idea of what resource management is, they may over-value the applications of their work. Another challenge is that resource managers frequently do not have the time to follow all the published scientific literature and may have insufficient contact with scientists working on many important resource issues. A common result is that resource managers provide working scientists with only general priorities for research and monitoring, rather than detailing specific needs that could more efficiently generate actionable science. Getting from science to implementation is hard. To help address at least the first issue, in this essay we provide some suggestions for how scientists interested in having their work applied to resource management can enhance the relevance of their efforts. Here we use the term “managementrelevant science” to include a very broad range of possible activities (e.g., monitoring, research, experiments, modeling, and analysis) that help us to understand how management actions generate different environmental responses. There are two general forms of management-relevant science: foundational research and hypothesis-driven monitoring and evaluation of management actions.