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

PREFACE - Purpose and Scope of Adaptive Management in the Program
Adaptive management in the Program is a systematic process administered by the Governance
Committee for continually improving management by: 1) designing certain Program
management activities to test alternative hypotheses, and 2) applying information learned from
research and monitoring to improve Program management. The process also includes the
flexibility to use information and experience from all sources.
The Governance Committee intends this Adaptive Management Plan (AMP) to describe the
processes and procedures for implementing adaptive management. Terms within the AMP
including, for example, objective or performance measure, have definitions specific to the AMP
(see Sections III and IV). The Governance Committee does not intend the AMP to be used to
determine Endangered Species Act (ESA) compliance or to automatically or implicitly establish
Program requirements (e.g., to create obligations to achieve specific results).1
The AMP will be implemented within the existing Program defined contributions of money,
land, and water unless amended in accordance with Section III.B.1 of the Program Document.
The AMP, which will be amended as learning proceeds, includes those Program management
activities and criteria that are subject to systematic investigation.
The Governance Committee recognizes the importance of implementing the AMP in attempting
to achieve the following overall management objectives for whooping cranes, least terns, piping
plovers, and pallid sturgeon:
1) Improve production of least tern and piping plover from the central Platte River.
2) Improve survival of whooping cranes during migration.
3) Avoid adverse impacts from Program actions on pallid sturgeon populations.
The Governance Committee does not anticipate that these three overall management objectives
will be modified, but the underlying management objectives related to the means of achieving
these objectives, as described in Section IV.A and B. of this document, may be changed through
the process described in 1), 2), and 3) below.
1) If information developed through the AMP, or other information, justifies
changing a management objective, the Governance Committee may do so and will
develop and implement new practices intended to achieve the changed
management objective.
2) If information developed through the AMP, or other information, justifies
abandoning a management objective the Governance Committee may do so.
3) If information developed through the AMP or other information, indicates a
particular practice to achieve a management objective is not working and the
management objective is neither modified nor abandoned, the Governance
1 Adoption of the AMP does not constitute an admission by the states or water users of support or acceptance that
any hypothesis or ecological model is valid, is based on the best science available or should be used as a measure of
appropriate or reasonable accomplishments ar success.
September 1, 2006 Adaptive Management Plan