7746

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7746
• Author: Stanford, J. A. and J. V. Ward.
• Title: Management of Aquatic Resources in Large Catchments
• USFW Year: 1991.
• USFW - Doc Type: Recognizing Interactions Between Ecosystem Connectivity and Environmental Disturbance.
• Copyright Material: NO

Integrated Management
In this age of desktop computer power and electronic communication it is
paradoxical that interference management should occur. However, as communication
power has burgeoned, so have agency bureaucracies. For example, the Bureau of
Reclamation has run out of dam sites and is now attempting to add supervision of fish
and wildlife resources of western rivers to its official mandate (our observation).
Indeed, we think that many state and Federal agencies are purposefully fostering an
insular approach to resource management. Each wants to do ecological research,
develop and follow standardized management criteria and procedures for ecological
resources and, most importantly, minimize influence of other agencies. Local and
regional fragmentation of management authority is guaranteed to result in interference
management which in turn fragments catchment ecosystems.
The structure and function of catchment ecosystems and the cumulative effects
of human disturbances are in fact intractable without an integrated analysis based on
long-term data (Magnuson 1990). No single agency can effectively deal with the
plethora of management/research problems on a large catchment scale. Yet, the
bureaucracies and their individual mandates are firmly entrenched, as are the publics
that are increasingly sensitized by the negative effects of interference management and
the illusion of technique.
What should be done? If human disturbances are to be managed for the
purpose of maintaining natural ecological connectivity at the catchment scale,
management agencies must cooperate to minimize interferences. Cooperation is
needed for collection of long-term data that will allow BMPs and other management
actions to be quantified and adjusted before they interfere with each other. That level
of cooperation requires effective information transfer, continual education and
independent coordination.
State-of-the-art ecology almost always originates from research at the university
level or in agency research centers closely allied with universities. Although university-
based research is also often very insular, we note a recent trend toward
interdisciplinary work at the ecosystem level. The long-term research initiatives of the
National Science Foundation described above have greatly fostered this trend. It may
therefore be expected that university research will provide guidance for a new
integrated management ethic.
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