Glen Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program Administrative History
This administrative history of the Grand Canyon Dam Adaptive Management Program (GCDAMP) includes government reports, oral history interviews and other relevant information about Colorado River law, environmental protection law, hydropower regulation, the Glen Canyon Environmental Studies that served as a precursor to GCDAMP, and the activities of the Adaptive Management Work Group, the Technical Work Group, and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center.
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- Creators: Gold, Barry
- Creators: Lee, Kai N.
An Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management workshop process was used to assist Grand Canyon scientists and managers in developing conceptual and simulation models for the Colorado ecosystem affected by Glen Canyon Dam. This model examines ecosystem variables and processes at multiple scales in space and time, ranging from feet and hours for benthic algal response to diurnal flow changes, to reaches and decades for sediment storage and dynamics of long-lived native fish species. Its aim is to help screen policy options ranging from changes in hourly variation in flow allowed from Glen Canyon Dam, to major structural changes for restoration of more natural temperature regimes. It appears that we can make fairly accurate predictions about some components of ecosystem response to policy change (e.g., autochthonous primary production, insect communities, riparian vegetation, rainbow trout population), but we are moderately or grossly uncertain about others (e.g., long-term sediment storage, response of native and non-native fishes to physical habitat restoration). Further, we do not believe that existing monitoring programs are adequate to detect responses of native fishes or vegetation to anything short of gross habitat changes. Some experimental manipulations (such as controlled floods for beach/habitat- building) should proceed, but most should await development of better monitoring programs and sound temporal baseline information from those programs.
Adaptive management is appraised as a policy implementation approach by examining its conceptual,
technical, equity, and practical strengths and limitations. Three conclusions are drawn: (1) Adaptive management has been more influential, so far, as an idea than as a practical means of gaining insight into the behavior
of ecosystems utilized and inhabited by humans. (2) Adaptive management should be used only after
disputing parties have agreed to an agenda of questions to be answered using the adaptive approach; this is not how the approach has been used. (3) Efficient, effective social learning, of the kind facilitated by
adaptive management, is likely to be of strategic importance in governing ecosystems as humanity searches for a sustainable economy.