Grantee Research Project Results
1998 Progress Report: Community Values and the Long-term Ecological Integrity of Rapidly Urbanizing Watersheds
EPA Grant Number: R825758Title: Community Values and the Long-term Ecological Integrity of Rapidly Urbanizing Watersheds
Investigators: Beck, Michael B. , Steinemann, Anne C. , Patten, Bernard C. , Rasmussen, Todd C. , Norton, Bryan G. , Porter, Karen G.
Current Investigators: Beck, Michael B. , Steinemann, Anne C. , Patten, Bernard C. , Rasmussen, Todd C. , Norton, Bryan G.
Institution: University of Georgia , Georgia Institute of Technology
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: June 1, 1998 through May 31, 2001 (Extended to February 28, 2004)
Project Period Covered by this Report: June 1, 1998 through May 31, 1999
Project Amount: $849,999
RFA: Water and Watersheds Research (1997) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Water , Watersheds
Objective:
The project seeks to integrate ecological, hydrological, and social/policy sciences in a study of a rapidly urbanizing watershed (Lake Lanier, Georgia), where preservation of long-term ecological integrity is perceived as being at stake. More specifically, our goals are to: (i) develop a concept of environmental decision-making in which science-based models are responsive to identified community values, as they evolve in both the short and long term; (ii) develop and apply a procedure for identifying those scientific unknowns crucial to the "reachability" of the community's desired/feared environmental futures; (iii) improve understanding of basic aspects of lake ecosystem behavior, with special reference to the roles of the microbial foodweb, sediment-nutrient interactions, and geochemistry. Research towards the first of these goals is expected to culminate in a more general framework, to which we shall refer as "adaptive community learning", to be facilitated over time with continual mutual feedback between the formation of stakeholder concerns and exploration of their plausibility in terms of the science-based model.
Progress Summary:
The balance of progress in this first year of the project has been towards Objectives (i) and (ii) as set out above. Much preparatory work has been undertaken to establish a rapport with Lake Lanier stakeholders, since eliciting and exploring their concerns for the future are the driving forces of the project. Under Objective (i) we have approached the issue of developing the concept of adaptive community learning from three different, disciplinary perspectives, of public policy, engineering, and integrated assessment. It is well known that adaptive management is a matter of "experimental" management, where experimentation with policy actions is designed to improve understanding of the science base. We are now advocating that the same principle of experimentation be applied to assisting progress towards consensus on environmental actions among the community of stakeholders. Our view emphasizes process, participation, and iteration rather than simple elicitation of preferences. Further, from the perspective of control theory, our present working hypothesis is that policy actions in adaptive management, in the short term, are directed at reducing uncertainty in a system having a fixed structure to its behavior, whereas community concerns in the long term require us to acknowledge the possibility of apparent structural change in our analyses. Under Objective (ii) several community groups and decision-making organizations have been contacted. One group in particular has been identified as being representative of the lake's community as a whole. A survey instrument for eliciting both short- and long-term community values and preferences is in the final stage of design. The responses to the survey are intended to provide definitions of the community's hopes and fears for the (long-term) future behavior of the lake, against which we shall use a science-based model for testing the plausibility of these aspirations. We have this year constructed a prototype model of aquatic foodwebs in Piedmont impoundments and, using the nearby Lake Oglethorpe as a case study for developmental testing, have achieved preliminary "proof-of-concept" for our proposed computational scheme for the analysis of reachable futures. Under Objective (iii) laboratory-based studies have been completed, showing that phosphorus binds quickly (almost instantaneously) to sediment particles under oxic conditions. Previous studies, completed by others prior to the start of the present project, hypothesized that nutrient-rich waters from the Chattahoochee River tended to act as a submerged jet as they passed through the lake. Our counter hypothesis is that differential respiration in the vertical dimension of the water column may provide an equally valid, if not better, explanation of the available field data (for 1996/7). We have accordingly developed a conceptual model of the interaction between readily observable geochemical quantities, primary production, and microbial respiration in order to test this hypothesis. We are proposing to use pH as an indicator capable of discriminating between control of the DO profile by primary production and respiration.
Future Activities:
An essential question now arising from the past year's developments is this. If "experimentation" is to serve the needs of social learning, what exactly within our framework is to be the agent of such perturbation—just as the implementation of policy actions is designed to probe the science base in conventional adaptive management? While addressing this question at a conceptual level, plans are to pass the survey instrument to the identified stakeholder groups early in 1999, with preliminary results expected by the spring of 1999. Development of our model with respect to Lake Oglethorpe will be continued, but gradually transferred to Lake Lanier. We propose to assemble a definition of past behavior for the latter as a blend of the dominant, quantitative trends in the existing conventional data bases (on water chemistry) and the less conventional, qualitative experience of personal observation (for example, on the seasonal and spatial patterns of fish abundance and feeding habits). The survey of stakeholder views is, of course, intended to elicit the companion definition of future behavior. We propose also to explore the properties of Lanier's ecosystem from the perspective of PI Patten's network analysis. In the coming year steps will be taken to encode the data base in a GIS framework; in particular, animation of the (multivariable) temporal dynamics of these observations may be feasible. In parallel with this development a model of the vertical profiles of both the pH and DO is to be constructed and calibrated against the 1996/7 data base as a form of composite hypothesis test. Field work in 1999 will be more substantial than it has been in the past year. Subject to the identification of sufficiently secure, critical sites, diurnal monitoring of water chemistry (nutrients) and chlorophyll-a will be implemented during the spring and/or summer.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 97 publications | 24 publications in selected types | All 15 journal articles |
---|
Type | Citation | ||
---|---|---|---|
|
Norton BG, Steinemann AC. Environmental values and adaptive management. Environmental Values 2001;10(4):473-506. |
R825758 (1998) R825758 (1999) R825758 (Final) |
Exit Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
Ecosystem model; indirect effects; microbial loop; regionalized sensitivity analysis., RFA, Scientific Discipline, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Water, Water & Watershed, Hydrology, Geochemistry, Biochemistry, Ecology and Ecosystems, decision-making, Watersheds, Economics & Decision Making, biogeochemical study, water resources, ecosystem valuation, long term ecological integrity, urban watershed rehabilitation method, valuation of watersheds, community-based research, coefficient variations, availability of water resources, aquatic ecosystems, lake ecosysyems, Monte Carlo simulations, water quality, ecological indicators, ecology assessment models, public policy, microbial food webProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.