PRRIP Adaptive Management Plan

• File Number: 8461.100
• Description: Adaptive Management Workgroup ‎(PRRIP)‎
• State: CO
• Basin: South Platte
• Water Division: 1
• Author: PRRIP
• Title: PRRIP Adaptive Management Plan
• Water Supply Pro - Doc Type: Project Overview

experiments at the project level (e.g., mesocosm and microcosm) that take advantage
of experimental design features, such as randomization and controls within specific
project areas, will be possible.
2. Because of the difficulties in applying an experimental approach at the system and
Program scale, observational data collection for monitoring purposes may be the
predominantly "field-scale" approach. However, opportunities will be sought to
implement manipulative studies particularly with the management of Program lands
to test hypotheses. In addition, certain approaches to observational studies (e.g., use
versus availability analysis of species habitat preference) may increase the utility of
these observational data.
3. Relatively modest management treatments (water during certain periods) will reduce
the power of field-scale experiments to detect an effect of the Program over the entire
area of interest. Nevertheless, manipulative experiments at the field, meso, and
microcosm scale may allow relatively powerful experiments that can detect treatment
effects and patterns, and aid in the overall assessment of the Program's effects during
and at the end of the First Increment. Also, the design of Program monitoring will
take advantage of likely natural events such as large natural pulse flows and similar
management of non-Program lands.
4. Large portions of the study area are currently under various types of physical
management (e.g., tree clearing, disking, etc.). At the system level, this may provide
more opportunity to learn species response and response of habitat features to
different management measures, but it will also reduce the Program's ability to
separate Program effects from other activities. At the project scale this form of
system noise can be minimized and accounted for in the research design.
5. Study designs should allow a before/after analysis to determine biological response to
Program management, yet limited quantitative pre-Program data exist. While there is
a paucity of pre-Program data, there may be opportunity to develop pre-proj ect data
for small scale proj ect studies. In addition, the combination of these smaller scale
studies using optimum designs with the Program level correlation and trend analysis
will allow a more powerful approach to determine the effect of the Program on target
species and their habitat.
6. Because the river is a continuum, flows and management actions can not be confined
to certain sections and management actions in one section may have effects on other
sections. Such lack of independence between sites will need to be considered in
experimental design and analysis.
These considerations and others (e.g., time lag) will be integrated as much as practical into
experimental , designs for testing hypotheses at various spatial scales, drawing together three
elements: the CEMs and hypotheses in Section III below; the management objectives, indicators,
and management actions in Section IV below; and the monitoring, research, analytical methods
in the IMRP (Section V below).
III. CONCEPTUAL ECOLOGICAL MODELS AND HYPOTHESES
This section focuses on Conceptual Ecological Models (CEM) and hypotheses. These CEMs are
broad general conjectures about how the Platte River system functions and are to be
September 1, 2006 Adaptive Management Plan 13