Social-ecological systems are characterized by scale specific structure, alternative regimes and high uncertainty. This confounds the management of social-ecological systems by implicitly forcing tradeoffs between multiple ecosystem services within and across scales. Adaptive management is a framework for managing social-ecological systems when uncertainty and controllability are both high. When undertaking management, it is important to account for spatial and temporal scale in order to minimize cross-scale effects of management actions.
Results/Conclusions
This is particularly true when managing for ecosystem services: The iterative nature of an adaptive approach may have the capacity to accommodate tradeoffs between different stakeholder priorities and multiple ecosystem services within and across scales. Thus, utilizing adaptive management (and governance) for provisioning of ecosystem services has potential for the management of social-ecological systems.
The views expressed in this presentation are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.