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• <br />management plans as well as future plans to better meet Program goals and objectives, maximize <br />resources, and best benefit the species. Both levels of adaptive management require that <br />statistically valid and meaningful monitoring and research data be gathered during the First <br />Increment. <br />III.B. Issues for adaptive management and the Program <br />The information from monitoring and research will be used to assess whether Program and <br />project activities are working as originally envisioned and used to recommend modifications as <br />necessary. Initially, existing models for habitat suitability will be used when evaluating <br />biological response to management activities. As new data are collected on habitat use and <br />preference, existing models may be modified or new models may be created and used for <br />evaluating biological response to management activities. Existing and new models must consider <br />the lag time for biological response in a system such as the Platte River. Monitoring and research <br />protocols will be designed to collect empirical data on habitat and species parameters that will <br />facilitate the evaluation of habitat and species models. For example, tern and plover nesting <br />habitat may be defined as sand bars of a certain height above a given river stage. Habitat will be <br />evaluated by collecting data such that the amount of nesting habitat could be estimated from <br />empirical data at multiple river stages. These data can be used to relate flow and land <br />management to nesting success and to evaluate the assumptions about characteristics of suitable <br />habitat. <br />The design of the management and monitoring and research is critical to the value of the <br />resulting data and its usefulness for adaptive management decisions. A number of design issues <br />exist, including: <br />• Program treatments (land and water) will not be applied in a random manner so true <br />experiments will not be possible <br />• Studies will usually be limited to observations of existing conditions with and without <br />Program treatments resulting in a predominance of observational studies as opposed <br />to manipulative studies (i.e. studies where the levels of treatments can be changed to <br />facilitate the conduct of designed studies) <br />• Opportunities for manipulative experiments exist but are limited <br />• Relatively modest management treatments (water during certain periods) will reduce <br />the power of experiments to detect an effect of the Program if an effect actually exists <br />• Some management treatments result in no detectable change (e.g. acquisition and <br />protection of suitable habitats) <br />• Relatively little control exists over the timing of treatments <br />• The preferred designs for determining the effect of the Program should include <br />reference areas but true reference areas are lacking <br />• The preferred designs should allow a before /after analysis to determine biological <br />response to Program management, yet limited quantitative pre - Program data exist. <br />W <br />