Applied Conservation Science and Adaptive management services.
The scientists of Wetland and Water Resources participate in and coordinate grant-funded, large-scale ecosystem research designed to improve our collective understanding of aquatic system functioning and restoration techniques. We bring this research philosophy to all of our projects through the process of adaptive management. By approaching ecosystem restoration and natural resource planning as a process rather than a set of arbitrarily defined outcomes, we help our clients to continually improve project outcomes.
Adaptive management (commonly described as "learning to do, by doing to learn") capitalizes on the opportunity to learn from actions by explicitly identifying assumptions and data gaps, and then designing and implementing comprehensive monitoring programs that deliver meaningful feedback to project planners. Wetland and Water Resources' scientists and engineers have proven research track-records and extensive experience in applying research practices and principles to project planning and implementation. Specifically, we provide our clients with the following skills and services:
Adaptive management
- Problem delineation and description
- Topic-specific adaptive management plan and program development
- Integrated experimental and pilot studies
- Performance criteria development
- Monitoring design and implementation
- Analytical tool development
- Database design and management
- QA/QC
- Synthesis of "lessons-learned"
- Response measures
- Design and implementation of competing management options to maximize information gathering
- Synthesis of "lessons-learned"
Conceptual modeling
- Problem delineation
- Literature reviews
- Stakeholder surveying and participation
- Knowledge-base assembly and data gap analysis
- Identification of key assumptions
- Written and graphical model representation
- Monitoring design and data feedback to management process
- Meeting facilitation
Applied science
- Experimental design
- Field, lab, and computational research efforts
- Advanced statistical analyses
- Peer-reviewed manuscript preparation
- Peer-review for technical journals
