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Adaptive governance of riverine and wetland ecosystem goods and services
Citation:
Gunderson, L., B. Cosens, AND A. Garmestani. Adaptive governance of riverine and wetland ecosystem goods and services. JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 183(Part 2):353-360, (2016).
Impact/Purpose:
Adaptive governance encompasses a broad set of institutions, norms, and processes that have arisen in response to institutional failures in natural resource management and governance. Some of those failures are a result of an environmental crisis, when the ecosystem exhibits unexpected dynamics and behaviors. Adaptive governance emerges as a result of shifts in social values, norms, or perhaps lack of institutional diversity.
Description:
Adaptive governance and adaptive management have developed over the past quarter century in response to institutional and organizational failures, and unforeseen changes in natural resource dynamics. Adaptive governance provides a context for managing known and unknown consequences of prior management approaches and for increasing legitimacy in the implementation of flexible and adaptive management. Using examples from iconic water systems in the United States, we explore the proposition that adaptive management and adaptive governance are useful for evaluating the complexities of trade-offs among ecosystem goods and services.
