Reimagining large river management using the Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD) framework in the Upper Mississippi River

Ecological Processes

Research

John M. Morton¹  Bryan M. Maitland²  Aaron Shultz³  Doug Limpinsel⁴  Devon C. Oliver⁵  Nicole K. Ward⁵  Heidi M. Rantala⁶  John F. Kocik⁷  David J. Lawrence⁸  Andrew Meier⁹  Joshua Booker^1,10  Mary Grace Lemon^1,11  Jennifer L. Wilkening^1,12  Jeffrey D. Muehlbauer^1,13  Holly Embke^1,14  Abigail J. Lynch^1,15  Laura M. Thompson^1,16  Owen McKenna^1,17  Erik A. Beever^1,18  Kristen L. Bouska^1,19  Jeffrey N. Houser^1,19  Joshua Kocik^2,20  Robert Newman^2,21  Madeline R. Magee^2,22  Greg G. Sass^2,23 

[1] Alaska Wildlife Alliance, 99520, Anchorage, AK, USA;Aquatic Sciences Center, Center for Limnology, UW-Madison, 53706, Madison, WI, USA;Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), 54861, Odanah, WI, USA;Habitat Conservation Division, NOAA, Alaska Region, 99513, Anchorage, AK, USA;Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 55041, Lake City, MN, USA;Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, 55804, Duluth, MN, USA;NOAA NEFSC, 04473, Orono, ME, USA;National Park Service, Climate Change Response Program, 80525, Fort Collins, CO, USA;U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 55947, La Crescent, MN, USA;U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge System, 43449, Oak Harbor, OH, USA;U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge System, 55437, Bloomington, MN, USA;U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Refuge System, 80526, Fort Collins, CO, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, Alaska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Alaska Fairbanks, 99775, Fairbanks, AK, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, 55108, St. Paul, MN, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, National Climate Adaptation Science Center, 22041, Reston, VA, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, National Climate Adaptation Science Center, and School of Natural Resources, University of Tennessee, 37996, Knoxville, TN, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center and Midwest Climate Adaptation Science Center, 58401, Jamestown, ND, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, 59715, Bozeman, MT, USA;Department of Ecology, Montana State University, 59715, Bozeman, MT, USA;U.S. Geological Survey, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, 54603, La Crosse, WI, USA;University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 68503, Lincoln, NE, USA;University of North Dakota, 58202, Grand Forks, ND, USA;Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 53703, Madison, WI, USA;Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 54512, Boulder Junction, WI, USA;

关键词: Ecosystem;    Management;    Transformation;    Social-ecological system;    Anthropocene;    Climate change;    Basin planning;    Cross-scale interactions;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s13717-023-00460-x

 received in 2023-04-29, accepted in 2023-09-11,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundLarge-river decision-makers are charged with maintaining diverse ecosystem services through unprecedented social-ecological transformations as climate change and other global stressors intensify. The interconnected, dendritic habitats of rivers, which often demarcate jurisdictional boundaries, generate complex management challenges. Here, we explore how the Resist–Accept–Direct (RAD) framework may enhance large-river management by promoting coordinated and deliberate responses to social-ecological trajectories of change. The RAD framework identifies the full decision space of potential management approaches, wherein managers may resist change to maintain historical conditions, accept change toward different conditions, or direct change to a specified future with novel conditions. In the Upper Mississippi River System, managers are facing social-ecological transformations from more frequent and extreme high-water events. We illustrate how RAD-informed basin-, reach-, and site-scale decisions could: (1) provide cross-spatial scale framing; (2) open the entire decision space of potential management approaches; and (3) enhance coordinated inter-jurisdictional management in response to the trajectory of the Upper Mississippi River hydrograph.ResultsThe RAD framework helps identify plausible long-term trajectories in different reaches (or subbasins) of the river and how the associated social-ecological transformations could be managed by altering site-scale conditions. Strategic reach-scale objectives may reprioritize how, where, and when site conditions could be altered to contribute to the basin goal, given the basin’s plausible trajectories of change (e.g., by coordinating action across sites to alter habitat connectivity, diversity, and redundancy in the river mosaic).ConclusionsWhen faced with long-term systemic transformations (e.g., > 50 years), the RAD framework helps explicitly consider whether or when the basin vision or goals may no longer be achievable, and direct options may open yet unconsidered potential for the basin. Embedding the RAD framework in hierarchical decision-making clarifies that the selection of actions in space and time should be derived from basin-wide goals and reach-scale objectives to ensure that site-scale actions contribute effectively to the larger river habitat mosaic. Embedding the RAD framework in large-river decisions can provide the necessary conduit to link flexibility and innovation at the site scale with stability at larger scales for adaptive governance of changing social-ecological systems.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Institute of Applied Ecology, CAS and Springer-Verlag GmbH, DE 2023

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