U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Circular 1439

Integrating Adaptive Management and 

Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve 

Natural Resource Management:

Challenges and Opportunities

Challenges and Opportunities

Integrating Adaptive Management and 

Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve 

Natural Resource Management: 

By Rebecca S. Epanchin-Niell, James W. Boyd, Molly K. Macauley, 

Lynn Scarlett, Carl D. Shapiro, and Byron K. Williams

Circular 1439

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey
U.S. Department of the Interior

RYAN K. ZINKE, Secretary

U.S. Geological Survey

William H. Werkheiser, Deputy Director

 exercising the authority of the Director

U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia: 2018

For more information on the USGS—the Federal source for science about the Earth, its natural and living 

resources, natural hazards, and the environment—visit https://www.usgs.gov/ or call 1–888–ASK–USGS 

(1–888–275–8747).

For an overview of USGS information products, including maps, imagery, and publications, visit https://store.usgs.gov/.

Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by

the U.S. Government.

Although this information product, for the most part, is in the public domain, it also may contain copyrighted 

materials as noted in the text. Permission to reproduce copyrighted items must be secured from the 

copyright owner.

Suggested citation:

Epanchin-Niell, R.S., Boyd, J.W., Macauley, M.K., Scarlett, Lynn, Shapiro, C.D., and Williams, B.K., 2018, 

Integrating adaptive management and ecosystem services concepts to improve natural resource management—

Challenges and opportunities: U.S. Geological Survey Circular 1439, 62 p., https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1439.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Epanchin-Niell, Rebecca S., 1975- author. | Geological Survey (U.S.),

 issuing body.

Title: Integrating adaptive management and ecosystem services concepts to

 improve natural resource management : challenges and opportunities / by

 Rebecca S. Epanchin-Niell [and five others].

Other titles: U.S. Geological Survey circular ; 1439. 1067-084X

Description: Reston, Virginia : U.S. Geological Survey, 2018. | Series:

 Circular, ISSN 1067-084X ; 1439 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018012009| ISBN 9781411342217 | ISBN 1411342216

Subjects: LCSH: Ecosystem services. | Adaptive natural resource management.

Classification: LCC QH541.15.E267 E73 2018 | DDC 333.72--dc23 | SUDOC I

 19.4/2:1439

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018012009

ISSN 1067-084X (print)

ISSN 2330-5703 (online)

ISBN 978-1-4113-4221-7 
iii

Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................... v

Executive Summary............................................................................................1

Overview.................................................................................................................................................1

Anticipated Benefits of Integration ...................................................................................................2

Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration..............................................................2

Challenges to Implementation............................................................................................................2

Future Directions and Needs..............................................................................................................3

Introduction........................................................................................................ 5

Motivation and Objectives...................................................................................................................6

Approach................................................................................................................................................6

Background............................................................................................................................................7

Adaptive Management ...............................................................................................................7

Ecosystem Services ....................................................................................................................7

Box 1. Anticipated Management ......................................................................................................8

Box 2. Ecosystem Services..............................................................................................................10

Anticipated Benefits of Integration................................................................13

Box 3. Complementarity of Ecosystem Services and 

Adaptive Management.........................................................................................................16

Relevant Contexts for Application of an Integrated Approach...................17

Conceptual Framework for Integration .........................................................19

Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation...............................23

Case 1: Evaluation of Best Management Practices for Suburban Development in 

Clarksburg, Maryland...........................................................................................................24

Case 2: BLM Resource Planning Across Scales—Solar Development In The West.............28

Case 3: Adaptive Waterfowl Harvest Management.....................................................................32

Case 4: The North American Waterfowl Management Plan......................................................34

Reflections on Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration: Case Study Evaluation.............................................................................................. 37

Stakeholders........................................................................................................................................38

Objectives.............................................................................................................................................38

Models..................................................................................................................................................42

Monitoring............................................................................................................................................43

Updating Decisions.............................................................................................................................43

Spatial-Temporal Learning ................................................................................................................43

Contents
iv

Abbreviations

BLM Bureau of Land Management

BMP best management practice

EIS environmental impact statement

MCDA multicriteria decision analysis

NAWMP North American Waterfowl Management Plan

NEPA National Environmental Policy Act

NGO nongovernmental organization

PEIS programmatic environmental impact statement

RFF Resources for the Future

RMP resource management plan

USGS U.S. Geological Survey

Challenges to Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration...........45

Future Directions and Needs.........................................................................49

Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 55

References Cited...............................................................................................56

Appendix 1. List of Workshop Participants .................................................58

Photograph Credits.........................................................................................60

Figures

1. Elements of adaptive management .................................................................................. 9

2. A conceptual example of biophysical and economic production of 

ecosystem service values................................................................................................ 11

3. Conceptual framework for integration of ecosystems services and 

adaptive management ...................................................................................................... 20

4. A conceptual diagram of how a policy or management intervention can 

affect the value of the ecosystem services provided by a system ........................... 21
v

The work described in this circular is the result of collaboration between the 

U.S. Geological Survey and Resources for the Future conducted through Cooperative 

Agreement no. G11AC20548. More information on Resources for the Future can be

found at rff.org.

The authors are very grateful for the time, thought, and resources that workshop 

participants, presenters, and facilitators contributed to make this effort and report possible. 

We thank Dale Humburg of Ducks Unlimited, Leonard Shabman of Resources for the Future, 

and Jim Nichols, Dianna Hogan, and Michael Runge, all of the U.S. Geological Survey, 

for their thoughtful comments on this report. The authors also greatly appreciate the 

expertise, hard work, and high-quality effort provided in producing this document. 

We thank Jonas Casey-Williams for his thorough and timely edits, which greatly improved 

the document’s readability. Carol Quesenberry is thanked for her production and layout 

efforts, which resulted in a beautiful and easy-to-read publication. The authors also 

appreciate the efforts of Shonté Jenkins, who represented the authors throughout 

production and facilitated a smooth process and a high-quality and timely final product. 

The authors wish to express a special appreciation of our dear friend, colleague, and 

coauthor, Molly Macauley—a bold and creative thinker, full of curiosity, dynamism, 

and kindness. We are grateful for the insights and wisdom that Molly shared with us and 

with the world over the years, and for her compassion, encouragement, and mentorship. 

We miss Molly deeply.

Acknowledgments
By Rebecca S. Epanchin-Niell,1

 James W. Boyd,1 Molly K. Macauley,1* Lynn Scarlett,2 Carl D. Shapiro,3

and Byron K. Williams4

1

Resources for the Future.

2

The Nature Conservancy (formerly with Resources for the Future).

3

U.S. Geological Survey.

4

U.S. Geological Survey, retired.

*

Deceased.

Integrating Adaptive Management and 

Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve 

Natural Resource Management: 

Challenges and Opportunities
Executive Summary

Overview

Natural resource managers must make decisions that affect broad-scale ecosystem processes involving large spatial areas, 

complex biophysical interactions, numerous competing stakeholder interests, and highly uncertain outcomes. Natural and social 

science information and analyses are widely recognized as important for informing effective management. Chief among the 

systematic approaches for improving the integration of science into natural resource management are two emergent science 

concepts, adaptive management and ecosystem services. Adaptive management (also referred to as “adaptive decision making”) 

is a deliberate process of learning by doing that focuses on reducing uncertainties about management outcomes and system 

responses to improve management over time. Ecosystem services is a conceptual framework that refers to the attributes and 

outputs of ecosystems (and their components and functions) that have value for humans.

This report explores how ecosystem services can be moved from concept into practice through connection to a decision 

framework—adaptive management—that accounts for inherent uncertainties. Simultaneously, the report examines the value 

of incorporating ecosystem services framing and concepts into adaptive management efforts. 

Adaptive management and ecosystem services analyses have not typically been used jointly in decision making. However, 

as frameworks, they have a natural—but to date underexplored—affinity. Both are policy and decision oriented in that they 

attempt to represent the consequences of resource management choices on outcomes of interest to stakeholders. Both adaptive 

management and ecosystem services analysis take an empirical approach to the analysis of ecological systems. This systems 

orientation is a byproduct of the fact that natural resource actions affect ecosystems—and corresponding societal outcomes—

often across large geographic scales. Moreover, because both frameworks focus on resource systems, both must confront the 

analytical challenges of systems modeling—in terms of complexity, dynamics, and uncertainty.

Given this affinity, the integration of ecosystem services analysis and adaptive management poses few conceptual hurdles. 

In this report, we synthesize discussions from two workshops that considered ways in which adaptive management approaches 

and ecosystem service concepts may be complementary, such that integrating them into a common framework may lead to 

improved natural resource management outcomes. Although the literature on adaptive management and ecosystem services is 

vast and growing, the report focuses specifically on the integration of these two concepts rather than aiming to provide new 

definitions or an indepth review or primer of the concepts individually.

Key issues considered include the bidirectional links between adaptive decision making and ecosystem services, as well 

as the potential benefits and inevitable challenges arising in the development and use of an integrated framework. Specifically, 

the workshops addressed the following questions: 

• How can application of ecosystem service analysis within an adaptive decision process improve the outcomes of 

management and advance understanding of ecosystem service identification, production, and valuation?

• How can these concepts be integrated in concept and practice?

• What are the constraints and challenges to integrating adaptive management and ecosystem services?

• And, should the integration of these concepts be moved forward to wider application—and if so, how?
2 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Anticipated Benefits of Integration

There is substantial uncertainty about the biophysical 

and societal consequences of people intervening in natural 

systems. Adaptive management provides a disciplined, 

quantitative approach to understanding systems and resolving 

decision-relevant uncertainties to improve system management. 

The concept of ecosystem services facilitates the definition 

and measurement of ecology-related societal outcomes. 

Integration thus provides an opportunity to adaptively manage 

not just natural resource conditions but also societal outcomes 

tied to resource conditions. Furthermore, adaptive management 

can help refine, over time, the set of ecosystem service outcomes 

considered as most important to communities and natural 

resource beneficiaries.

A key feature of all management and policy decisions that 

affect natural resources is that they also affect the provisioning 

of ecosystem services. Thus, failure to explicitly consider 

the effects of management or policy decisions on a system’s

suite of relevant ecosystem services can lead to unintended 

consequences, collateral damage, and missed opportunities, 

and these ramifications highlight the importance of expanding 

potentially narrow management objectives to consider the range 

of ecosystem services that may be affected. An ecosystem 

services lens also can broaden the focus of management to 

include consideration of how ecosystem components come 

together in processes and comprise systems and to link those 

processes to the socioeconomic dimensions of resource 

management and implications for communities.

The production and valuation of ecosystem services are 

evolving areas of knowledge, and ecosystem service analysis 

adds complexity and new dimensions of uncertainty to previous 

resource models. Given that adaptive management is a response 

to uncertainty and seeks to improve management outcomes 

in the face of uncertainty, applying adaptive management 

approaches when managing ecosystem services is likely to 

enhance resource outcomes by reducing uncertainties that 

hinder effective management, including uncertainties about 

the effects of management on the production and valuation of 

ecosystem services. In addition, social and technical learning 

can help to refine the set of services to be considered.

Integration of an ecosystem service lens within an adaptive 

management framework also may facilitate stakeholder 

engagement by providing metrics that are meaningful to people, 

ensure that diverse values are represented, communicate 

management objectives more effectively, reframe a problem 

in a way that invites new management options that lessen 

conflict, facilitate weighing of tradeoffs by clearly articulating 

values and objectives, and promote transparency and enhance 

defensibility of decisions.

Adaptive Management-Ecosystem 

Services Integration

A conceptual integration of ecosystem services and adaptive 

management links all elements of adaptive management with 

the identification, production, and valuation of ecosystem 

services. Integration of ecosystem services into adaptive 

management immediately reflects an expansion of the resource 

management objectives and thus has implications for all parts 

of the adaptive process, including which stakeholders are at 

the table, what is monitored, the models that are used, and 

ultimately the management actions that are selected. 

Ecosystem services are already explicitly managed in a 

variety of contexts, and implementing such management 

adaptively, with monitoring, learning, and updating, may lead 

to better outcomes than a static management strategy based 

only on current knowledge. Learning can reduce uncertainty 

in the biophysical and social production processes and hence

in the consequences of possible management actions. Adaptive 

management also can help identify the relevant ecosystem 

services and policy interventions, through stakeholder 

engagement and iterative and adaptive learning about the 

social and biophysical system. 

The report describes four case studies that help to highlight 

and explore the challenges and benefits of implementing an 

integrated adaptive management-ecosystem services approach. 

Although none of the case studies provide a complete example 

for replication elsewhere, they nonetheless provide insights 

about each component of an integrated adaptive managementecosystem services application, as described in the report.

Challenges to Implementation

While the linkage of ecosystem services and adaptive 

management frameworks seems to be a natural fit that could 

improve management outcomes, the integration faces 

institutional, cultural, and technical challenges confronting 

the approaches independently, as well as challenges specific 

to integration. Integration may make management too costly 

and complicated in some cases, and both approaches require 

substantial human capacity and upfront resources. In addition, 

institutional or policy constraints can limit management and 

experimentation. While practical guidance for implementing 

adaptive management is increasingly available, the availability 

of such guidance for ecosystem services remains limited, which 

further challenges the integration. 
Executive Summary 3

Future Directions and Needs

Although serious challenges are faced by both independent 

and integrative application of adaptive management and 

ecosystem services concepts, integration has the potential to 

substantially improve outcomes. Applications that explicitly 

integrate these two decision concepts may make the processes 

easier because the approaches, taken alone, frequently leave 

out key components of the decision context. 

Progress in uniting these approaches will require that the 

joint framework that links the two concepts be as sleek and 

simple as possible, without losing account of socioecological 

processes and uncertainties. We also need better understanding 

of the management contexts for which the benefits of integration 

are most likely to outweigh the capacity, time, and resource 

costs. Applying an integrated adaptive management-ecosystem 

services approach places a premium on being able to explain 

its importance simply and on the approach making management 

easier or providing substantial net benefits. 

Examples are needed of where adaptive managementecosystem services integration has been implemented effectively 

and can be replicated elsewhere. The development of new 

applications likely will depend on decision makers being 

convinced that the integration will solve a real problem that 

they are facing. Such development could arise through 

integration of ecosystem services analysis into an adaptive 

management effort that is just entering its deliberative phase 

or that is in the process of reevaluating objectives or framing. 

Alternatively, adaptive management could be brought to a 

context where ecosystem services already are being managed 

for explicitly but where management is hindered by uncertainty.

Adaptive management and ecosystem services are evolving 

areas of knowledge and application. This, in itself, makes their 

integration challenging. Development of accepted practical 

guidance for applying an ecosystem services approach is 

likely to provide an important foundation for integrating 

ecosystem services evaluation into an adaptive management 

framework. Furthermore, greater interaction among expertise, 

methods, models, and data would be a benefit to both 

communities of practice. 

Furthering this integrative approach depends on continued 

interaction and collaboration between researchers and 

practitioners. Application of the approach is needed to further 

develop conceptual understanding, and we hope that the 

conceptual framework explored in this report will help to move 

the integration forward in practice and research. The feedback 

between concept and application is integral to the development 

of a usable framework and for enhancing adoption of this approach.

Aconceptual integration of ecosystem 

services and adaptive management links 

all elements of adaptive management 

with the identification, production, and 

valuation of ecosystem services. 
4 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

The two frameworks are complementary. 

Greater interaction among expertise, methods, 

models, and data will benefit both communities 

of practice.
Introduction 5

This report is the product of a partnership between the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Science and Decisions Center and 

Resources for the Future. The partnership is focused on better understanding the benefits and challenges of integrating adaptive 

management and ecosystem services to improve natural resource management.

Although the literature on adaptive management and ecosystem services is vast and growing, this report is not intended to 

be an indepth review or primer on these concepts or to provide new definitions or insights regarding these concepts individually. 

Rather, this report synthesizes the results of two workshops that focused on the concepts’ integration and aims to accurately 

reflect the workshop discussions and the insights derived from them.

As frameworks, ecosystem services analysis and adaptive management have a natural—but to date underexplored—affinity. 

Both are policy and decision oriented in that they are attempts to represent the consequences of protection, restoration, and 

resource management actions on outcomes of interest to communities, households, regulators, or businesses. Although adaptive 

management traditionally focuses less on societal outcomes than does ecosystem services analysis, its focus on managementrelevant outcomes is of inherent societal relevance.

Both frameworks take an empirical approach to the analysis of ecological systems. This systems orientation is a byproduct 

of the fact that natural resource actions affect ecosystems—and corresponding societal outcomes—across large landscape and 

watershed scales. Moreover, because both frameworks focus on resource systems, both must confront the analytical challenges 

of systems modeling—in terms of complexity, dynamics, and uncertainty.

Given this affinity, the integration of ecosystem services analysis and adaptive management poses few conceptual hurdles. 

In fact, the two frameworks are complementary. Greater interaction among expertise, methods, models, and data will benefit 

both communities of practice.

Introduction
6 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Motivation and Objectives

Natural resource managers make decisions involving 

ecosystem processes, large spatial areas, complex biophysical 

interactions, numerous competing stakeholder interests, and 

highly uncertain outcomes. Adaptive management (also referred 

to as “adaptive decision making”) and ecosystem services 

analysis are two emergent science concepts that can help 

identify and guide successful resource management strategies. 

Adaptive management is a deliberate process of learning by 

doing that focuses on reducing uncertainties about management 

outcomes and system responses to improve management over 

time. Ecosystem services is a conceptual framework and set of 

methods designed to evaluate how changes in ecosystems and 

natural resources affect economic and societal well-being.

From its outset, adaptive management was developed 

on a foundation of decision analysis and structured decision 

making (Gregory and others, 2012). In fact, the term itself 

describes a particular kind of structured decision making that 

accounts for uncertainty as well as efforts to reduce uncertainty 

that can lead to improved management outcomes (Holling, 1978; 

Walters, 1986; Williams and others, 2009; Williams and 

Brown, 2014). On the other hand, the concept of ecosystem 

services was developed, at least initially, around the recognized 

need and importance of accounting for nature’s value in 

human activities (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). 

To date, much of the work on ecosystem services has focused 

on describing ecosystem services and ascribing value to them.

In this report, we synthesize discussions from two workshops

that explored the conjecture that the concepts and practices of 

ecosystem services and adaptive management are complementary 

and that their integration can lead to improved natural resource 

management outcomes. This document reports on the workshops’ 

initial efforts to explore such an integration. Key issues 

considered include the bidirectional links between adaptive 

decision making and ecosystem services, along with the 

potential benefits and inevitable challenges arising in the 

development and use of an integrated framework. Specifically, 

the workshops addressed the following questions: 

• How can application of ecosystem service analysis 

within an adaptive decision-making process improve 

the outcomes of management and advance understanding 

of ecosystem service identification, production, and 

valuation? 

• What does this integration look like conceptually and 

in practice? 

• What are the constraints and challenges to this integration?

• Should, and if so, how might the integration of these 

concepts be moved forward to wider application?

Approach

To explore potential benefits and challenges of integrating 

ecosystem services and adaptive management approaches for 

managing natural resources, we convened experts for two 

multiday workshops (see appendix 1 for a list of participants). 

The first workshop, held in June 2012, brought together thought 

and policy leaders on adaptive management and ecosystems 

services from Federal agencies, nongovernmental organizations 

(NGOs), academia, and nonprofits. The workshop focused on 

conceptual development of an integrated framework, with 

particular focus on the likely benefits and challenges anticipated 

on the basis of participants’ knowledge. The second workshop, 

held in April 2013, brought together experts and practitioners 

to focus on four case studies, in three natural resource management 

contexts, in which ecosystem services concepts are integrated 

within an adaptive decision process to varying extents. The 

management contexts included evaluation of best management 

practices for development in Clarksburg, Maryland; Bureau 

of Land Management (BLM) resource planning across scales; 

and adaptive waterfowl management. The goal of the second 

workshop was to synthesize understanding gained from the case 

study examples to develop a foundational framework for

integrating ecosystem services and adaptive decision making and 

to explore the benefits and practical challenges of this integration. 

This report represents a synthesis of discussions from the two 

workshops, as well as the authors’ analysis and conclusions.
Introduction 7

Background

Adaptive Management

Adaptive management is a learning-based approach to 

resource management and involves the use of management itself 

to learn about a resource system and the consequences of 

management interventions (box 1). From an operational point 

of view, adaptive management simply means the iterative 

application of learning by doing and adjusting management 

on the basis of what’s learned. Management interventions 

are treated as “experiments,” in which learning contributes 

to management by providing information on which to base 

management decisions, and management reinforces learning 

by implementing actions that are useful in investigating the 

resource system. The sequential application of these activities 

leads to improved understanding of resource behaviors and 

responses and to improved resource management based on 

that understanding.

Ecosystem Services

“Ecosystem goods and services” refers to ecological 

features, qualities, and processes (associated with, for example, 

wetlands, sea marshes, rivers, forests, and grasslands) and 

their contributions to individual, business, and community 

well-being (box 2). These goods and services include harvested 

resources for consumption, water purification, coastal storm 

and surge protection, recreation, mitigation of air pollution, 

soil protection, aesthetic values, existence values, and so forth. 

Many ecosystem services are not obvious and are difficult 

to measure, in part because they generally are not traded in 

markets and have characteristics of public goods. Because 

ecosystem services are difficult to observe and value, their 

value often is unaccounted for in policy and management 

decisions. For this reason, quantifying ecosystem service 

values (monetary or otherwise) can lead to improved natural 

resource decision making. For example, ecosystem service 

values can be used to help evaluate the benefits of alternative 

management actions, to serve as inputs into cost-benefit analyses,

or to design payment schemes that incentivize provisioning 

of ecosystem services by land managers. Ecosystem services 

analysis also can illuminate and resolve natural resource-related 

conflicts and tradeoffs.

Ecosystem service analysis requires an identification of 

key ecosystem services for a particular resource system and 

decision context, an understanding of how these services are 

produced by the resource system, and an accounting of the 

relative values of the services as guides to decision making. 

Identification, production, and valuation of ecosystem services 

are critical components in a goal-directed, experience-based 

framework for resource management, and all these components 

would benefit from further investigation and development.

The primary goal of adaptive management is 

to manage the system well, and learning is the 

means to that outcome. 

Learning can take several forms, including scientific 

learning about the natural system and social learning focused 

on the values provided by the system and the governance 

structure for decision making. However, the primary goal of 

adaptive management is to manage the system well, and 

learning is the means to that outcome. Likewise, the goal of 

adaptive management is not to eliminate system uncertainty 

but to reduce uncertainties to allow for better management 

choices. Indeed, adaptive management is only warranted if 

reducing uncertainty is likely to lead to changes in management 

that could substantially improve outcomes (that is, if there 

is a high value of the information that may be learned).
Adaptive management has been used in resource management 

since at least the 1950s. It was given formal expression by Holling (1978), 

Walters (1986), and Lee (1993), and the current literature is extensive. 

Various aspects of adaptive management are emphasized in the existing 

literature, including variation in the details of the decision-making and 

learning processes. Nonetheless, the crux of this approach is using the 

process of management to learn about the system being managed, and 

then using what is learned to adjust and improve management over 

time. While recognizing the variation in how adaptive management 

frameworks have been articulated in practice and in the literature, 

this report uses as a starting point the description detailed by the 

U.S. Department of the Interior in its technical and applications guides 

(Williams and others, 2009; Williams and Brown, 2012).

Adaptive management is an iterative process of decision making, 

implementation, monitoring, and learning that is incorporated into

future decision making. It generally follows a two-phase process. The

deliberative phase establishes a management framework that includes 

stakeholder engagement, identification of management objectives and

action alternatives, and development of predictive models about the

system and monitoring protocols for evaluating the effects of management 

actions. The second phase is an iterative phase that begins the sequence 

of feedback between learning and management actions (fig. 1). This 

technical learning phase often is referred to as “single-loop learning” 

(Pahl-Wostl, 2009). With some frequency, the process then needs to break 

out of the iterative technical learning phase to revisit the deliberative 

phase to adjust objectives, alternatives, and monitoring. This institutional 

learning about the framing of a management problem has been variously 

referred to as “evolutionary problem solving” (Shabman, 2005) and 

“double-loop learning” (Pahl-Wostl, 2009), and we use the latter term 

in this report.

Adaptive management approaches may be classified as active or 

passive, depending on the degree to which, when selecting management 

choices, the approach considers the benefits of what may be learned. 

Active adaptive management explicitly considers the value of reducing 

uncertainty when selecting management choices and often involves 

controlled experimentation. In contrast, passive adaptive management 

typically selects management choices on the basis of the best available 

information but nonetheless updates system understanding over time to 

improve subsequent management choices.

1

8 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Box 1: Adaptive Management
Stakeholder involvement

Objective(s)

Potential management alternatives

Predictive models

Monitoring protocols and plans

Initial decision making

Decision making (adjustment)

Monitoring

Evaluation

1

3

2

Deliberative phase

(management framing)

Iterative phase

(technical learning)

Single-loop

learning

Institutional learning

(double-loop learning)

Figure 1. Elements of adaptive management (modified from Williams and others, 2009).

In either case, adaptive management is only appropriate if it can 

improve managers’ abilities to achieve objectives. Thus there must be 

a means for updating decisions in response to what is learned, ways to 

reduce uncertainty through monitoring, and real value from reducing 

uncertainty by potentially altering the desired choice of management. 

“Value of information” is a measure of the degree to which objectives 

could be better met if uncertainties were reduced, and the “value of 

information” from adaptive management should be greater than its 

costs in order for adaptive management to be warranted.

Introduction 9
The concept of ecosystem services initially grew from a desire to 

show that ecosystems have value and should be protected (Millennium 

Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Indeed, the growth in attention given to 

ecosystem services analysis comes from a desire on the part of resource 

managers to provide an appreciation of management’s role in improving 

ecological, societal, and economic outcomes. However, ecosystem service 

characterization also is critical for assessing tradeoffs and informing 

decision making. Because ecosystem service analysis links ecological 

understanding with socioeconomic outcomes, it can help inform processes 

such as the following (Scarlett and Boyd, 2015):

•Natural resource planning and priority setting, including 

environmental impact assessment under the National Environmental 

Policy Act evaluations and land use planning by communities, 

governments, and conservancies

•Regulatory mitigation and compensation requirements associated 

with wetland loss, conservation banks, Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission mitigation measures, and natural resource damage 

assessment

•Conservation grant and loan programs, including farm bill land 

conservation payments and the disbursement of Safe Drinking 

Water Act (42 U.S.C. §300f) and Clean Water Act (33 U.S.C. §1251 

et seq.) Revolving Loan funds

As with adaptive management, the literature on ecosystem services 

is growing and varies in its characterization of ecosystem values. Some 

conceptual frameworks are useful for communicating the types of services 

provided by ecosystems (for example, provisioning, regulating, and cultural 

services, as described in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment). Some 

frameworks are more amenable than others to the measurement or 

quantification of ecosystem service values, which can facilitate decision 

making for ecosystem management. Here we describe a framework that 

facilitates valuation by framing ecosystem service production analogously 

to conventional economic production theory (Boyd and Krupnick, 2009; 

Boyd and Brookshire, 2011).

2

10 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Box 2: Ecosystem Services
Policy intervention

Land cover change

Biophysical production

Economic production Endpoint

Surface-water flow change

Change in value of

ecosystem services

Endpoint

Species

abundance change

Habitat change

An ecological production framework for ecosystem goods and services consists of four linked components 

(Boyd and Krupnick, 2009; Boyd and Brookshire, 2011) (fig. 2):

1. Actions or interventions are policy or management changes (for example, land cover conversion, 

restoration, protection, or resource management) that affect natural resources and trigger biophysical 

changes in the ecosystem.

2. Biophysical or ecological production functions are relationships that link management actions to 

changes in socially meaningful biophysical outcomes (Daily and Matson, 2008).

3. Ecological endpoints are measurable biophysical outcomes that have direct relevance to human 

welfare (for example, species abundance, water quality, storm surge protection). These endpoints are 

the bridge between the biophysical system and economic assessment because they are the aspect of the 

system that holds specific value.

4. Economic production functions are the processes or relationships that describe how inputs (for example,

biophysical and other inputs) combine to produce human well-being.

Figure 2 highlights how a policy change or management action can induce a change in human welfare based 

on changes in the underlying biophysical system (Boyd and Brookshire, 2011). A policy intervention that causes 

land cover change can lead to changes in two different ecological endpoints (that is, species abundance and 

surface-water flow): the land cover change affects surface-water flow and species habitat directly, and the habitat 

change affects species abundance. This framework identifies the key features of the biophysical system, including 

the set of ecological endpoints that represents the values produced by the system, that must be understood to 

assess changes in value of ecosystem services.

Introduction 11

Figure 2. A conceptual example of biophysical and economic production of ecosystem service values (modified from Boyd and 

Brookshire, 2011).
12 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

The biophysical endpoints (for example, species abundance change) 

combine with other inputs to produce benefits to human well-being that 

can be assessed using monetary or nonmonetary valuation approaches. 

For example, in valuing open space for recreation, not only does the 

quality and quantity of open space matter, but so do its scarcity, the 

availability of substitute open spaces, and its accessibility. Some basic 

rules of thumb suggest that, all else being equal,

•the scarcer an ecological feature, the greater its value;

•the scarcer the substitute for an ecological feature, the greater its 

value (substitutes are goods or services that at least partly satisfy 

similar wants or needs);

•the more abundant the complements to an ecological feature, 

the greater its value (complements are goods that go together or 

enhance each other);

•the larger the population benefiting from an ecological feature, 

the greater its value (usually); and

•the larger the economic value protected or enhanced by the feature, 

the greater its value (usually) (Boyd and Brookshire, 2011).

Economic valuation approaches to assigning monetary values to 

ecosystems services include revealed preference (for example, hedonic 

analysis, travel costs models), stated preference (for example, contingent 

valuation analysis), and benefit transfer analyses. These approaches are 

rapidly developing, increasingly applied, and critical for providing direct 

input into cost-benefit analyses or for efficiently pricing ecosystem service 

payment mechanisms. However, monetary valuations are costly and require

specific economic capacity, thus limiting their widespread application.

Ecosystem benefit indicators are a nonmonetary approach for 

describing changes in welfare that result from ecosystem changes. 

Ecosystem benefit indicators are “quantitative, countable features of 

the physical and social landscape that depict the ways in which ecological

endpoint changes produce changes in human welfare” (Boyd and 

Brookshire, 2011). They help describe the biophysical and other inputs 

that affect the value of ecosystem services, including the scale of 

demand for a given biophysical endpoint and the distribution of those 

endpoints relative to populations that may value them. In addition, 

ecosystem benefit indicators can describe other economically relevant 

factors, such as the scarcity of the biophysical endpoint and the 

availability of substitutes or complements. This approach can provide 

quantitative descriptions that are useful in ranking the benefits of 

alternative management options.

2
Adaptive decision processes and ecosystem service analysis are complementary and in concert may improve management 

outcomes. An adaptive decision process allows learning about ecosystem services, ecosystem values, and the effects of management

in order to improve management. Similarly, ecosystem service analysis can facilitate establishing objectives within an adaptive 

management process and identifying metrics that can be measured to evaluate management outcomes. Both approaches assume 

a context of dynamic and complex ecosystems that are influenced by human interventions with uncertain outcomes. Thus, it 

seems fitting and intuitive to consider the integration of adaptive management and ecosystem services into a unified framework 

for ecosystem management.

Resource management increasingly focuses on large landscapes with multiple managers, owners, and stakeholders, with 

multiple objectives, and over long time frames, which necessitates consideration of multiple ecosystem services, including those 

(such as clean water or air) that may benefit communities distant from the focal management areas. An ecosystem service lens 

facilitates a focus on the sustainable human well-being provided by natural capital. It highlights values that may be missing and 

helps to incorporate them explicitly into an adaptive management process to prevent unintended consequences.

Federal agencies have emphasized ecological outcomes (for example, in the National Environmental Policy Act [NEPA] 

process) often without consideration of socioeconomic dimensions and often with a focus on ecosystem components rather than 

system functions. An ecosystem services lens can broaden the focus of management to consider how ecosystem management 

induces changes in underlying ecological processes and subsequently a range of ecological outcomes. In addition, applying an 

ecosystem services lens links those processes to the socioeconomic dimensions of resource management and implications for 

communities. Although a number of adaptive management efforts focus on increasing the likelihood of meeting a predefined 

management target (for example, a water-quality standard or probability of species survival), these targets often represent only 

a narrow set of ecosystem service values. These efforts could benefit from reframing the decision process to consider how 

alternative strategies for meeting the target would affect broader suites of ecosystem service values or how the target might be 

adjusted to account for a diversity of values.

Applying an ecosystem service lens within an adaptive management framework could engage stakeholders by providing 

metrics that are meaningful to people, ensuring that diverse values are represented, promoting transparency, and improving 

communication of management objectives. Sometimes an ecosystem service lens can provide procedural benefits by reframing 

a problem in a way that invites new options for addressing the problem or that minimizes conflict. Also, clearly articulating 

objectives can make weighing tradeoffs easier.

An adaptive management process can likewise facilitate the evaluation and management of ecosystem services. Ecosystem 

service analysis adds complexity and new dimensions of uncertainty to resource models and generally requires management across 

long time horizons and large landscapes, which increases analytical uncertainties. Adaptive management is a response to increased 

levels of uncertainty and seeks to improve management outcomes in the face of that uncertainty. As such, the uncertainty and 

dynamism in managing ecological processes and their social dimensions suggests an important role for adaptive management.

Anticipated Benefits of Integration
14 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

The process of stakeholder engagement in adaptive 

management can help to identify the range of ecosystem 

services at play and those most valuable to communities and 

other stakeholders. Double-loop learning within adaptive 

management can help refine this set of relevant ecosystem 

services over time. Understanding of the biophysical production 

and the valuation of ecosystem services may be improved 

through the processes of technical learning and updating 

management. Because uncertainties surrounding the production 

and valuation of ecosystem services are sometimes large, 

adaptive management can ultimately improve the outcomes 

of managing for ecosystem service values.

Although in some cases transparency can be seen as 

inviting litigation, in litigious environments transparent 

explanation of how decisions were made is critical. One 

could ideally show that, conditional on the objectives that 

were identified and science available, the best decision was 

made. Clear articulation and transparency can help a process 

withstand litigation, and an approach that employs adaptive 

management and applies an ecosystem service lens can 

facilitate this transparency.

In many contexts of natural resource management, progress 

can be hindered by seemingly irresolvable conflict, as tradeoffs 

generally must be made when managing for multiple objectives. 

An adaptive management process facilitates decision making 

in these contexts. For example, incorporating multiple hypotheses

about system processes into an adaptive management process 

can help demonstrate respect for alternative views and 

understanding while also facilitating systematic learning. It 

also may be possible to implement and compare multiple 

strategies in a way that helps to prevent confrontation and 

encourage cooperation during the learning process.

Similarly, in cases of conflicting values, producing an 

inventory of ecosystem services can facilitate progress by 

providing a means for channeling tensions to allow engagement 

by conflicted groups that need to work together. An example 

where this might be applicable is in defining protected areas 

for biodiversity, such as locally managed marine areas in the 

Pacific Northwest, where the location of the protected areas 

has been defined but the definition of “protected” remains 

elusive. Articulation of ecosystem services associated with 

protection options may make salient variables that are already 

the subject of conflict and thereby bring them into a negotiating 

context where they can be traded off against other variables.

The uncertainty and dynamism in managing 

ecological processes and their social dimensions

suggests an important role for adaptive 

management. The process of stakeholder 

engagement in adaptive management can help 

to identify the range of ecosystem services at 

play and those most valuable to communities 

and other stakeholders. 

When considering implementation of adaptive management 

or application of an ecosystem service lens on public lands 

or by Federal agencies in the United States, the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a key policy affecting 

the process. Managers may be concerned that uncertainties 

associated with ecosystem services analysis could hinder 

implementation because of the substantial documentation 

required to describe the uncertainties under NEPA. Similarly, 

some managers have expressed that adaptive management may 

be difficult to implement within the NEPA process because it 

requires clearly identifying the thresholds that will trigger a 

management change and the subsequent management actions. 

However, building adaptive management into the NEPA 

process up front can enable management to be updated in 

response to learning without requiring new NEPA documents. 

Also, application of an adaptive management framework may 

facilitate ecosystem service implementation by acknowledging 

the uncertainties and developing a plan to effectively manage 

ecosystem services in the presence of uncertainties. This may 

reduce the burdens of documentation while also improving 

outcomes. Adaptive management can also lead to more 

defensible and transparent decisions, which may reduce the 

likelihood of costly litigation or extended conflict.

16 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

3

Adaptive management and ecosystem services analysis can 

contribute to the planning and management of dynamic landscapes with 

the potential for improved management through improved understanding. 

In addition, there are clear synergies between these frameworks. A key 

feature of all management and policy decisions that affect natural 

resources is that they also affect the provisioning of ecosystem services. 

Thus, failure to explicitly consider the effects of management or policy 

decisions on a system’s suite of relevant ecosystem services can lead to 

unintended consequences, collateral damage, and missed opportunities, 

and these ramifications highlight the importance of expanding potentially 

narrow management objectives to consider the range of ecosystem services

that may be affected. The production and valuation of ecosystem services 

are evolving areas of knowledge, and ecosystem service analysis adds 

complexity and new dimensions of uncertainty to previous resource models. 

Given that adaptive management is a response to uncertainty and seeks 

to improve management outcomes in the face of that uncertainty, applying 

an adaptive decision process to managing ecosystem services is likely to 

enhance management outcomes.

Box 3: Complementarity of Ecosystem Services and 

Adaptive Management
The relevance of adaptive management, ecosystem services, or their integration can be considered in numerous decision 

contexts. Importantly, adaptive management is relevant only in contexts where reducing uncertainty can provide real gains in terms 

of improved management outcomes (that is, contexts where information has a high value). Such contexts require that management 

can be updated and that reductions in uncertainty could alter management performance. For ecosystem service analysis to be 

applicable, management must have the potential to alter ecosystem outcomes and the values they provide to stakeholders.

For example, within the context of broad policy decisions that translate into law, broadening the focal value set by applying 

an ecosystem services lens may be relevant; however, adaptive management is unlikely to be applicable unless there would be 

opportunity to revisit and update the policy decision. In the context of development of regulatory or statutory structure, depending 

on the statutory context and the specificity of the regulatory goal, applying an ecosystem services lens again may be relevant 

to help incorporate a wider value set and prevent unintended consequences. Adaptive management, in turn, may be relevant for 

contexts that involve repeated regulatory decisions or periodic regulations, but it is less relevant for static regulatory contexts. 

In the context of resource management planning, which can unfold at many scales, applying an ecosystem services lens to more 

explicitly consider multiple values is relevant so that management options can address those values more explicitly. In addition, 

because of the uncertainty in systems management, adaptive management may be particularly relevant if there are opportunities 

for management to be updated over time in response to learning in ways that would improve management, or if learning can be 

applied to subsequent decisions.

Policy and management implementation can unfold through centralized or decentralized means. For example, public land 

managers can make specific decisions and implement them directly with little uncertainty about what specific actions will be 

taken after their decisions. In contrast, policies that indirectly affect private managers’ decisions, such as through incentives 

or markets, induce decentralized, uncertain management actions. In this context, adaptive management may be as useful for 

improving understanding of the human system and behavioral responses as for reducing uncertainties in the ecological system 

and associated values. Coordinated management efforts represent mixtures of centralized and decentralized management, and 

these efforts are relevant governance structures for adaptive management and ecosystem services implementation.

Relevant Contexts for Application of an 

Integrated Approach
18 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

In any context that may be relevant for adaptive management

or applying an ecosystem services lens, one needs to decide 

whether adding the additional complexity is worthwhile. The 

consideration of ecosystem services may depend on to what 

extent the range of objectives can be expanded to consider a 

broader set of goals. Also, although implicitly managing for 

ecosystem services may work in some cases, in cases in which 

the production of multiple services is not aligned, explicit

consideration may be critical. Adaptive management is most 

useful where there is system uncertainty (for example, uncertainty 

or disagreement about underlying system dynamics or the 

expected effects of management) and where management actions 

are taken through time such that they can be influenced by 

learning. In situations where management is too rigid to 

respond to learning or where learning is unlikely to influence

management choices, adaptive management provides little benefit.

The following provides some guidance for balancing 

the potential benefits and costs attendant to the use of an 

ecosystem services approach alone, an adaptive management 

approach alone, or an integrated framework that includes both:

• If decision making is recurrent in the face of substantive 

uncertainty that hinders management, but decision 

making legally guided by only one or a few ecologically

based objectives, adaptive management might prove 

useful without explicitly considering ecosystem services.

• If ecosystem management involves decision making at 

a single point in time with only limited uncertainty or 

uncertainty that does not hinder management choices, 

but a large number of ecosystem services need to be 

accounted for in the decision-making process, an 

ecosystem services framework might usefully be 

applied without considering adaptive management.

• If decisions are recurrent, uncertainty is substantial, 

the value of information is high, and it is important to 

account for a wide range of ecosystem services in 

decision making, an integrated framework that 

includes both adaptive management and ecosystem 

services may be appropriate.

That said, an integrated frame of reference that includes both 

adaptive management and ecosystem services can usefully 

serve as an aid in determining which context is likely to be the 

most appropriate in a particular instance.

Adaptive management may be as useful for 

improving understanding of the human system 

and behavioral responses as for reducing 

uncertainties in the ecological system and 

associated values.
A conceptual integration of ecosystem services and adaptive management links all elements of adaptive management with 

the identification, production, and valuation of ecosystem services (fig. 3). While integration of ecosystem services into adaptive 

management may immediately reflect an expansion of the resource management objectives, it has implications for all parts of 

the adaptive process, including which stakeholders are at the table, what is monitored, the models that are used, and ultimately 

the management actions that are selected. An ecosystem services lens can help identify whether adaptive management is looking 

at the most relevant possible actions with respect to policy and decision making. It also can help identify what outcome measures 

are societally relevant to facilitate social interpretation and aid social scientists and decision makers. For example, applying 

an ecosystem services lens may suggest measuring a different set of outcomes or translating outcomes into endpoints that are 

socially meaningful, such as translating a measure of land cover change into species abundance change.

Ecosystem services can be integrated into adaptive management to different degrees. For example, an ecosystem service 

lens could simply be applied to identify and measure ecological endpoints that have social meaning. Alternatively, an expansive 

vision could entail treating human well-being as the outcome that is adaptively managed. A middle ground might entail adding 

social measures to the biophysical outcomes that are being measured (for example, we gained 100 acres of wetlands and improved 

groundwater quality for 75 households).

Conceptual Framework for Integration
Ecosystem

services

1. Identification

2. Production

3. Valuation

Assess

problem

Design

Implement

Monitor

Evaluate

Adjust

Deliberative phase

(management framing)

Management framing, including 

stakeholder engagement, objective

identification, model development, 

initial decision-making, and 

monitoring plan development.

Iterative phase

(technical

learning)

Technical learning 

about the resources, 

and adjusting 

decisions on the 

basis of what is 

learned.

Institutional learning 

Learning about decision 

architecture, and reformulating 

the problem on the basis of 

what is learned.

2

3

1

20 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

The form and process of ecosystem service and adaptive management integration may vary across policy contexts. For 

example, an ecosystem services approach could facilitate specification of an objective function in situations where systems

management already is employed (for example, within national forests). In this case, integration simply provides a method for

evaluating outcomes. In more narrow decision contexts, such as implementation of adaptive species recovery under the 

Endangered Species Act (Public Law 93–205), integration can seek to account for effects of management on ecosystem service 

values while making primary decisions for the well-being of the species. In this way, ecosystem services can broaden the 

objectives while managing in the presence of a constraint (for example, maintaining a minimum level of species abundance).

Figure 3. Conceptual framework for integration of ecosystems services and adaptive management. Each component of adaptive 

management (the outer ring of actions) feeds into understanding the identification, production, and valuation of ecosystem services 

(inner circle) to improve management outcomes. Simultaneously, consideration of ecosystem services affects each element of 

the adaptive management decision process. See boxes 1 and 2 for descriptions of adaptive management and ecosystem service 

approaches, respectively.
Processes and changes are uncertain

Updates policy

intervention 

based on 

learning

Reduces key 

uncertainties of direct 

management effect

Reduces key 

uncertainties of 

biophysical 

production process

Reduces key 

uncertainties of 

economic 

production process

Reduces key 

uncertainties of 

biophysical

changes

Reduces key 

uncertainties of 

biophysical

endpoints

Identifies

most relevant 

set of ecosystem 

services and their

values

Policy

intervention

Direct management 

effect

Biophysical 

production process

Economic 

production process

Biophysical

changes

Changes in

biophysical

endpoints

Changes in 

value of

ecosystem

services

Adaptive management reduces uncertainty

Conceptual Framework for Integration 21

Figure 4. A conceptual diagram of how adaptive management can improve resource management by 

reducing key uncertainties in the production of ecosystem service values. Top: Each of the underlying 

ecosystem service production processes (arrows) and biophysical and social changes (blue and green 

diamonds) are uncertain. Bottom: Adaptive management can facilitate effective management of 

ecosystem services by enabling updating of management (yellow diamond) as targeted learning 

reduces the key uncertainties that limit effective management, which may include uncertainties about 

underlying social and biophysical processes as well as the state of the system. Adaptive management 

also can help identify the set of ecosystem services values (green diamond) and policy options 

(yellow diamond) that are most relevant.

Although ecosystems services exist whether or not they are considered in management decisions, they are the explicit 

focus of management in a variety of contexts, including some market-based programs for ecosystem service provision, various 

regulatory contexts (for example, compliance under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, through creation of mitigation banks), 

and managing for human welfare within a region (for example, management in the San Pedro watershed). In these cases, 

implementing programs adaptively, with monitoring, learning, and updating, may lead to better outcomes than designing a static 

management or payment strategy based on current knowledge. Adaptive management can facilitate identification of the relevant 

ecosystem services, the associated ecological endpoints that people care about, and the relevant policy interventions. Furthermore, 

adaptive management can employ monitoring and learning to reduce the uncertainty in the biophysical and social production 

processes to improve management (fig. 4).

Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation 23

During the second workshop, we examined three natural resource management contexts in which, to varying extents, 

ecosystem services concepts have been integrated into adaptive decision processes. The set of case studies, which span 

geographic and temporal scales, regions, and management contexts, includes 

1. Evaluation of best management practices for suburban development in Clarksburg, Md.; 

2. BLM resource planning across scales with a focus on solar development; 

and adaptive waterfowl management in North America, including 

3. Adaptive harvest management, and 

4. The North American Waterfowl Management Plan. 

We describe these cases studies next, with particular focus on the key components of an integrated ecosystem services-adaptive 

management approach and lessons learned. The following descriptions represent the “state of the world” as of April 2013 when 

the workshop was held, as well as the discussions about the examples.

Four Example Case Studies:

 An Empirical Evaluation

1

2

3

4
24 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Clarksburg, Md., is at the outer, northwestern fringes of 

the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and is under intense 

development pressure. The region has high-quality streams 

whose quality and preservation would be threatened by 

urbanization in the absence of special water-quality protection 

measures and appropriate land use controls (Montgomery 

County Code, Section 19–61[h]). In recognition of at-risk 

water resources, the 1994 Clarksburg Master Plan established 

a long-range vision that staged development of different 

sections of the Clarksburg area over time to allow for learning 

about the effectiveness of water-quality protection measures 

and land use controls with the goal of protecting area water 

resources during and after development.

Special water-quality protection measures (termed 

“best management practices” or BMPs) are used to mitigate 

development effects on stream water services (including 

quality, quantity, timing, availability, and flood control) and 

physical and chemical habitat services. However, considerable 

uncertainty exists about the ability of BMPs (sometimes termed 

“green infrastructure”) to maintain service provisioning during 

and after development. The adaptive management approach 

enabled by the staged development allows for monitoring and 

assessment of the effectiveness of the BMPs. This learning is 

being used to inform continued development of the region and 

support a limited amendment to the 1994 Clarksburg Master 

Plan, with current focus on development being considered in 

the Tenmile Creek watershed.

The adaptive management approach is being implemented 

by Montgomery County. The primary decision makers are the 

Montgomery County Planning Board, whose decisions strive 

to incorporate stakeholder feedback. The stakeholders primarily 

are the county residents. However, the community is growing, 

its values are changing over time, and the development decisions

will affect the composition of future stakeholders and the value 

sets at stake.

Stakeholder feedback to the planning board has largely 

been intermediated by county planners who have organized 

meetings and workshops with the community to solicit 

community input on the importance of different goals, 

particularly goals focused on outcomes related to community 

building, transportation, environment, and the economy. 

Stakeholders also can leave comments on the county’s website. 

Although most comments on the website have been against 

development, alternative views have been voiced during the 

stakeholder meetings.

The Montgomery County Council, which has final decision

power, has the goal of achieving community building goals 

while protecting the Tenmile Creek watershed. This broad goal 

is specified by the 1994 Clarksburg Master Plan, but determining 

what constitutes “protection” of the watershed is at the discretion

of the council, and how tradeoffs should be weighed has not 

been fully articulated. The primary concerns factoring into the 

council’s objective appear to be water-quality impacts, housing 

availability, and job availability.

Case 1: Evaluation of Best Management Practices for 1 Suburban Development in Clarksburg, Maryland
When describing the environmental concerns from 

development to the planning board, the county planners initially 

referred to the affected ecosystem services as “environmental 

impacts.” They described impacts affecting carbon sequestration,

return of water to the air by evapotranspiration, release of 

oxygen to the air, stream and upland habitats, terrestrial and 

aquatic plant and animal communities, natural soil structure 

and biology, infiltration of rainwater, surface-water and 

groundwater flows, moderation of air and water temperature, 

minimal pollution inputs, and water-quality treatment. This 

initial list of impacts did not come from stakeholders.

Lists of values and their importance to stakeholders have

since been developed. Water quality, amenity values, and recreation 

are probably the ecosystem services most at stake, as a drinkingwater reservoir is downstream of the current proposed development.

The decision makers perceive that stakeholders want the 

development to occur—particularly a new road, a transit center, 

and retail area that were planned before many current residents 

moved into the community. As a result, it appears that the decision 

makers would like to allow some development while protecting 

the watershed. Thus, protecting ecosystem services appears to 

be a constraint on the goal of allowing development.

It is arguable how the welfare of current as opposed to future 

residents should be weighed in current development decisions. 

Development will likely cause a shift in benefits from current 

county residents to those who move in, through reduced 

environmental benefits for current residents and provisioning 

of housing for future residents. A shift in policy or constituents 

can alter attitudes, baselines, and values in a region. For example, 

when there is a change in land use or other policy, benefits are 

likely to shift from those who already are present and predicated 

their choices on the previous set of circumstances to new

stakeholders who may move into the area in response to changes. 

Also, the uncertainty in development trajectories that result from 

adaptively managing development plans generally imposes a cost 

to developers but provides an option value to the community.

Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation 25
26 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

The action under consideration is altering the location or 

intensity of development from what is currently proposed in the 

1994 Clarksburg Master Plan for the Tenmile Creek watershed. 

Tenmile Creek currently is classified as a reference stream 

because it has a high concentration of interior forest and wetlands,

stable stream channels, and a connected flood plain. These 

qualities would be affected by development. The Maryland 

Stormwater Management Act of 2007 (§4–201 et seq.) requires 

new development to use environmentally sensitive design, 

which is similar but more intensive than the BMPs previously 

used in Clarksburg watersheds. Environmentally sensitive 

design would be included in any development actions.

Modeling and data assessment are being used to analyze 

environmental, economic, and transportation impacts from 

development scenarios. The environmental impact analysis is 

focused on analyzing existing water-quality and natural resource 

conditions, as well as the potential impacts of development, 

and on developing recommendations for protective measures, 

guidance for development, and recommendations for potential 

mitigation and enhancement projects. The economic analyses 

are focused on potential market and economic impacts of 

development. The assessment of environmental impacts is 

based in part on extensive monitoring of current water quality 

in the focal watershed and analyses of water-quality impacts 

from prior development in other watersheds. Specifically, 

six watersheds were analyzed: a forested watershed on parkland, 

a built watershed with pre-2000 design, and four developing 

watersheds. The environmental models predict impacts of 

development on hydrology, geomorphology, water quality, 

habitat, and biology, and show that there will be a probable 

loss of Tenmile Creek’s reference condition.

Whereas stakeholders appear to at least implicitly 

understand ecosystem services and have been making their 

living choices on the basis of these values, communicating 

these values to decision makers has been more challenging. 

The development decisions under consideration represent, in 

part, a choice about whether to allow water quality to move 

from excellent condition to good or to fair condition. Perhaps 

this choice would be easier if the effects of these ratings on 

associated values were explained. Similarly, the ecosystem 

service impacts presented to the Montgomery County Planning 

Board were largely intermediate processes without a clear 

connection to outputs that people directly value. A more explicit 

ecosystem services lens might help elucidate values that have 

clearer meaning to people and can be more easily traded off.

Single-loop learning in this application has focused on 

monitoring of water-quality impacts from past development in 

Clarksburg watersheds to inform development in the current 

watershed. Double-loop learning also may be occurring and 

contributing to the time required for decision making. In

particular, changing decision sets (for example, new BMPs) 

and background conditions (that is, changes in stakeholders 

or values over time) may be causing decision makers to revisit 

the decision context, weighting of objectives, and management 

options. The current approach to decision making on 

development in Clarksburg, Md., appears to have the key 

components of adaptive management and ecosystem services, 

but the council seems to still be in search of an articulated 

objective that allows tradeoffs to be evaluated. While this case 

study is small in scale, it is nonetheless complex.

Clarksburg, Md., is a wealthy and educated area and 

thus represents a fairly distinct context. Its citizens are well 

connected, with access to resources and technical capacity, 

as evidenced by the numerous agencies and players involved 

in the process. While the approach employed by Clarksburg, 

Md., may not be exactly replicable elsewhere due to the 

distinctiveness of the area, the concept of an adaptive 

management zoning plan could be transferrable elsewhere, as 

could the specific information learned about the effectiveness 

of BMPs. Furthermore, innovation often happens in contexts 

of high capacity and resources, and then the innovation can be 

adopted elsewhere. As such, if this effort is successful, it may 

serve as an example for other regions going forward.
Whereas stakeholders appear to at 

least implicitly understand ecosystem 

services and have been making their 

living choices on the basis of these 

values, communicating these values to 

decision makers has been more challenging. 
28 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Adaptive management and ecosystem services are being 

planned and piloted to improve multiscale management 

decisions on Federal land. In many large-scale projects within 

BLM and elsewhere, decision making occurs at two scales, 

namely a larger regional level in which infrastructure is sited 

and developed and a more local scale in which a facility or 

site is managed on an ongoing basis. For example, renewable 

energy facilities are located and developed within a region 

over time, and each is operated on a local continuing basis 

thereafter. Decision options at the larger scale can include the 

nature and size of an installation, its location on the landscape, 

and the design of the infrastructure for its development and 

operation. In contrast, decisions by land management agencies 

at a local scale may include specifying operating conditions 

and constraints for site management.

Multiscale decision making can give rise to multiscale 

adaptive learning. Learning accumulated over time as sites 

are developed can be applied to new development decisions. 

Similarly, learning at the site or facility level can inform site 

operations locally and at other sites. This form of multiscale 

learning is applicable across diverse management contexts.

Through this case study, workshop participants explored 

a combination of multiscale learning and ecosystem service 

management in the context of solar energy development in 

the Intermountain West. As described in April 2013, the 

BLM is working to design solar installation development and 

management strategies that promote multiscale learning and 

adaptation, encouraging lessons learned at both large and 

small scales to be applied across time and locations.

Case 2: BLM Resource Planning Across Scales— 2 Solar Development In The West
Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation 29

Learning accumulated over time as 

sites are developed can be applied to 

new development decisions. Similarly, 

learning at the site or facility level can 

inform site operations locally and at 

other sites.
30 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

The BLM is mandated to protect and sustain ecological 

values and accommodate multiple uses. To meet this mandate 

while accommodating energy generation, decisions generally 

follow a two-phase process. First, the BLM’s resource 

management plans (RMPs), which often cover hundreds of 

thousands of acres, identify at a coarse scale where a spectrum 

of land uses are allowed. RMP development includes an 

environmental impact statement (EIS) and a public comment 

period for consideration of the environmental, societal, and 

economic benefits and costs of alternative plans. The second 

phase of the process is triggered by either an application for 

the use of public lands or an agency action to offer public 

lands for leasing, usually in an area no larger than 3 or 4 square 

miles. If the action is deemed to have substantial impact, a 

site-specific EIS is required and a BLM-authorized officer 

weighs public comments and the environmental and 

socioeconomic benefits and costs and then authorizes or rejects 

the application. An authorized application is usually accompanied 

by a set of stipulations designed to prevent or minimize impacts 

at the site level, often addressing project construction, operation, 

maintenance, and decommissioning phases.

To increase management effectiveness, the BLM identified 

several opportunities to improve this process through more 

comprehensive consideration of ecosystem processes and 

services and by engaging in an adaptive decision process. 

Specifically, the BLM seeks to incorporate an assessment of 

impacts to ecological systems and services (for example, water 

dynamics and nutrient cycling) into impact assessments and to 

provide guidance for decision makers on how to reconcile 

conflicting demands across stakeholders, impacts of disturbance 

on flora and fauna, and disruption of ecosystem processes. In 

terms of program evaluation and adaptation, the BLM also 

would like to use information gained from its Assessment, 

Inventory, and Monitoring System to validate or revise how 

it estimates potential environmental, societal, and economic 

impacts and to assess the relative effectiveness of resource 

allocation strategies, project siting criteria, and stipulations. 

This learning would be used to update and adapt decisions 

and management as appropriate.

Many stakeholders could be affected by solar development, 

including recreationists, ranchers, energy developers, Tribes, 

and NGOs. Different stakeholders are likely to experience 

different benefits and costs as land uses change. Stakeholders 

are engaged in the planning process but are not decision 

makers. They contribute information to identify concerns and 

aid in the development and refinement of management questions. 

Some stakeholder values have been more fully addressed 

than others thus far. For example, renewable energy projects 

strictly conflict with values of some Tribes in the Southwest. 

While there have been numerous negotiations with Tribal 

governments at the consultant or project level, in some cases 

conflict has not been resolved. This has suggested to the 

BLM that there is a need for improved strategies of Tribal 

engagement, more thorough problem documentation, and 

potentially an expansion of the decision space to consider 

new approaches. In contrast, incentives to ranchers for 

participation generally have been sufficient.

The BLM’s objectives for solar development focus on 

regulatory requirements and program needs, including land 

health fundamentals and standards. The solar programmatic 

environmental impact statement (PEIS; Bureau of Land 

Management, 2012) evaluates direct, indirect, and cumulative 

impacts to a wide range of resources, including lands and 

realty, rangeland, recreation, soil, water, ecological resources 

(including plants, wildlife, aquatic biota, and special status 

species), air quality and climate, visual resources, and cultural 

and socioeconomic resources. Although not ecosystem services 

as such, these resources cover many of the values likely to be 

affected by solar development.
Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation 31

The actions under consideration involve where and how 

to develop solar and other uses on BLM land. The guiding 

principle is to develop in a way that prevents impacts if possible, 

adapts management to minimize impacts, and mitigates 

unavoidable impacts. For example, implementing an invasive 

species management plan can minimize environmental impacts, 

whereas irreversible damage must be mitigated offsite. Solar 

installations generally result in “scorched earth,” removing all 

natural landscape features, including topography. To compensate, 

solar developers often are assessed mitigation fees to cover the 

costs to restore and protect another area. In addition, compliance 

monitoring is used to facilitate adaptation and ensure compliance 

on site.

A framework for developing a monitoring and adaptive 

management plan was built into the Final Solar PEIS (Bureau 

of Land Management, 2012, appendix A.2.4). The aim of the 

framework is for learning to be accumulated through time as 

RMPs are implemented and specific projects are authorized, 

constructed, operated, and monitored. The lessons learned can 

then be applied as new resource allocation and project decisions 

are being made regarding siting, design, construction, operation, 

and dismantling of projects and facilities.

As of the workshop in 2013, the major intended focus of 

the BLM’s monitoring plan is environmental processes, including 

soil and site stability, hydrologic function, and habitat dispersion.

Collecting data on these factors will help assess whether 

processes, rather than just specific species, are being maintained, 

further shifting management to an ecosystem focus. Monitoring 

results will be interpreted against defined monitoring objectives, 

ecological potential, land health standards, and management 

thresholds. Annual reports summarizing the condition and trend 

of each area will be developed and fed back into the monitoring 

planning process and solar program planning more generally. 

Management changes will be required if certain established 

objectives or thresholds are not met or are exceeded. The 

learning can contribute to updating models, monitoring plans, 

assessing if objectives are being met, evaluating the need to 

change actions, establishing compliance specifications for 

future projects, and siting decisions.

The BLM is engaging in a form of double-loop learning, 

or multi-iterative adaptation, by initially piloting the adaptive 

management process with a single solar energy zone. The pilot 

is meant to be used to help determine the appropriate level of 

stakeholder engagement, determine the key participants, and 

work with stakeholders to identify key management questions, 

objectives, and indicators. Other aspects of the process, including 

enhancing efficiency, also will be evaluated during the pilot 

process. What is learned during the pilot application will 

cultivate subsequent dual-level adaptive decision making at 

other sites.

The conceptual models also contribute 

to many aspects of the adaptive decision 

process, including identifying data needs, 

improving stakeholder engagement, and 

making causal relationships explicit, 

which can facilitate both the learning 

process and decision making.

The BLM is developing ecoregional and project-specific 

conceptual models of ecological functioning that represent 

ecological components, processes, interactions, and drivers. 

These models are developed from existing literature and 

models and integrate expert opinion and local and traditional 

knowledge. The focus on ecological components, processes, 

and services facilitates management, impact assessment, and 

application of the adaptive decision process. Some BLM 

managers have found that applying an ecosystem services lens 

to decision-making processes benefits stakeholder engagement 

by more effectively communicating the values and goals of 

management. The conceptual models also contribute to many 

aspects of the adaptive decision process, including identifying 

data needs, improving stakeholder engagement, and making 

causal relationships explicit, which can facilitate both the 

learning process and decision making.
32 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Each year, a federally mandated Migratory Bird Regulations 

Committee develops recommendations for regulating the sport 

hunting of waterfowl in North America. The committee includes 

representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the 

waterfowl flyway councils and receives input from NGOs 

and the public. The framework used by the committee is built 

on an adaptive approach to harvest management that accounts 

for possible realizations of breeding population size and 

environmental conditions, as well as the current understanding 

of population dynamics and responses to harvest. Each year, 

personnel in the migratory bird office analyze the data and 

develop a decision matrix. Input from States is solicited during 

a number of flyway meetings. Then representatives from the 

migratory bird office meet with representatives from each 

flyway to discuss the findings and needs. Ultimately, the 

personnel in the migratory bird office recommend a set of 

harvest regulations for the year, and the Assistant Secretary of 

the Interior for Fish, Wildlife, and Parks makes a final decision 

based on the recommendations of the committee. The regulatory 

choices are season length (the States choose when the season 

opens) and bag limit, which can vary among flyways. Bird 

and pond numbers are subsequently monitored each year, and 

these postdecision monitoring data are used to update biological 

understanding for the next year. In this way, harvest policy 

evolves adaptively over time, as new knowledge is incorporated. 

Case 3: Adaptive Waterfowl Harvest Management 3

The objective employed in decision making seeks to 

maximize sustainable harvest and prevent populations from 

dropping too far below a threshold. Formally, this objective 

involves maximizing long-term, nondiscounted harvest 

minus a penalty that depends on how far below a threshold 

the population declines. This penalty term implicitly values 

the on-the-ground population and can be seen as accounting 

for some forms of ecosystem services beyond harvest. 

However, this objective does not account explicitly for values 

of nonhunter stakeholders such as birders, to the extent that 

these values are not satisfied by populations exceeding the 

specified threshold.

The decision framework employs a dynamic optimization 

approach that can account for the dynamic nature of populations, 

the uncertainty in resource status, environmental conditions, 

imprecise control, and uncertainty about biological processes—

factors that make harvest regulation difficult. Four competing 

models are embedded in the dynamic optimization program: 

two models of survival responses to harvest and two models 

of reproduction responses. In addition, bird population 

predictions depend on the number of available ponds on the 

landscape. Each summer the optimization program is used to 

identify the optimal set of harvest regulations for the coming 

season. The regulations are implemented, and subsequent 

waterfowl population size is estimated from monitoring data 

collected in the following spring. This estimate of population 

size is compared with predictions of each of the four models, 

leading to increased confidence in the model(s) that predict 

well and decreased confidence in those that predict poorly. 

The program is then used to identify the optimal regulations 

or the current year based on the updated degrees of confidence 

in the models and the new estimate of waterfowl abundance 

from monitoring. The level of confidence in each model 

determines its weight or influence in the derivation of the 

optimal management policy. The models focus on single 

species and do not address species interactions. The timescales 

for monitoring, learning, and updating decisions have been 

matched to the (annual) timescale of the process being 

monitored (for example, duck population changes).
The importance of monitoring data to harvest decisions 

was recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service well 

before the formal implementation of the model-based adaptive 

harvest management system. Thus, monitoring was already in 

place at the start of the adaptive harvest management program, 

and implementing adaptive management did not incur additional 

monitoring costs. However, the same model-based adaptive 

decision process can be applied regardless of the amount of 

information available at the start of the program, and a lack of 

information should not preclude attempting this approach. The 

approach has been used at the scale of single refuges, in addition 

to this nationwide context.

Through its adoption in 1995, this decision-making approach,

which allows for learning and incorporates information from 

multiple competing models, helped to resolve conflict and 

prevent litigation. It allowed political conflict to be diverted 

into a conflict over ecological models of waterfowl population 

dynamics, and conflict was resolved by allowing the models to 

compete on the basis of their predictive abilities. This worked 

because the conflict was targeted at the science rather than the 

objectives. In contrast, fisheries management does not widely 

use modeling approaches that embed learning and competing 

models. Learning tends to be more informal, which may 

contribute to litigation being common in fisheries management 

but rare for waterfowl management. Other differences are that 

fisheries management is less transparent, catch allocations vary 

across individuals, and commercial interests abound.

Adaptive waterfowl harvest management represents the 

state of the art in adaptive management. Single-loop (technical) 

learning is fully integrated into the models and decision making 

underlying adaptive harvest management. In addition, doubleloop learning is now underway as increasing focus is placed 

on updating the objective function to account for a wider range 

of values (see the discussion of case 4). The current objective 

does not explicitly account for a broad range of ecosystem 

services values beyond harvest, though some are represented 

implicitly in the goal of sustaining duck populations above a 

certain threshold. It could be that a set of values that includes 

more than sustainable waterfowl harvest was always affected 

by regulatory choices in this context but that these values 

previously were well aligned with the explicit objectives. 

However, as the hunters’ objective function ceases to represent 

the broadening set of stakeholder values (for example, as a 

result of changing demographics), the objective may be revisited 

and additional societal values made explicit as part of the 

ongoing adaptive decision process. As such, double-loop 

learning would be at play.

Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation 33
34 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

In recent years, waterfowl management has begun to 

focus on the link between harvest regulations and hunter 

engagement and satisfaction, thus increasingly focusing on 

recreation values. In addition, waterfowl have become flagship 

species for a large suite of ecosystem services that wetlands 

provide, including nonconsumptive recreation values, flood 

control, biodiversity, and sustainability. Building from these 

expanded stakeholder concerns, an adaptive approach is being 

developed to address and inform management of the broad 

suite of ecosystem services provided by wetlands by expanding 

waterfowl management strategies to include habitat management

as well as harvest. This approach would entail not only an 

expansion of management objectives and strategies but also 

an expansion of stakeholder and jurisdictional scope, thereby 

increasing management complexity.

The 2012 North American Waterfowl Management Plan 

(NAWMP) considers that losses of waterfowl habitat are 

increasing and revenues from hunters to maintain waterfowl 

management programs are declining. The plan thus moves from 

a single goal of maintaining waterfowl populations to an 

integration of three goals that target (1) waterfowl populations, 

(2) habitat conservation, and (3) societal needs and desires, 

including hunter satisfaction, recreational opportunities, 

ecological service provision, and growing the number of 

stakeholders that enjoy and support waterfowl and wetlands 

conservation. Much of the motivation for broadening the 

objectives and stakeholder engagement stemmed from 

recognition that the various goals related to waterfowl 

management and the likely actions to achieve them are highly 

interconnected. Thus, bringing them together in a single 

plan could enhance effectiveness and efficiency and prevent 

conflicting management actions—or at least acknowledge the 

inherent tradeoffs. For example, in 2005, a joint task group 

was appointed by the NAWMP Committee and the International 

Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies’ Adaptive Harvest 

Management Task Force to explore options for reconciling the 

use of NAWMP population objectives for harvest and habitat 

management. The group concluded that the separate objectives 

for waterfowl populations and their habitats should be “formally 

integrated to ensure that they support rather than act against 

each other” (Anderson and others, 2007; NAWMP Committee, 

2012, p. iv). 

A comprehensive assessment of the NAWMP from 2005 

through 2007 highlighted the need to evaluate and learn from 

the outcomes of plan-directed conservation actions. Subsequently, 

in 2008, it was recommended that the next update of the 

NAWMP further the formal integration of harvest and habitat 

management and seek ways to incorporate “society’s desires 

for users and supporters of waterfowl and wetlands habitat” 

(Anderson and others, 2007; NAWMP Committee, 2012, 

p. iv), thus leading to the thoroughly revised goals in 2012. 

The plan was developed by the NAWMP Committee, and the 

signatories include the U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Canada’s 

Minister of the Environment, and Mexico’s Secretary of the 

Environment and Natural Resources.

Updated goals were developed through extensive 

consultation, including 13 stakeholder workshops, which 

included Federal, Provincial/Territorial, State, and NGO 

representatives from the continental waterfowl management 

community. Part of the motivation for updating the plan’s 

goals was concern about changes in stakeholder demographics 

and values, with decreasing numbers of hunters and increasing 

disconnectedness of people from the environment. The 

broadening of objectives of this plan required that a broader 

group of organizations and interests work together.

The updated plan moves from a single goal focused on 

maintaining waterfowl populations to integrating three goals, 

targeting waterfowl populations, habitat conservation, and 

societal needs and desires:

• “Goal 1: Abundant and resilient waterfowl populations 

to support hunting and other uses without imperiling 

habitat.

• Goal 2: Wetlands and related habitats sufficient to 

sustain waterfowl populations at desired levels, while 

providing places to recreate and ecological services 

that benefit society.

• Goal 3: Growing numbers of waterfowl hunters, 

other conservationists, and citizens who enjoy and 

actively support waterfowl and wetlands conservation” 

(NAWMP Committee, 2012, p. 2).

Inherent in the third goal is a desire to maintain environmental 

values, a cultural value (hunting), and a revenue source and 

support for maintaining waterfowl and habitat more generally.

Case 4: The North American Waterfowl Management Plan 4
Four Example Case Studies: An Empirical Evaluation 35

Applying an ecosystem service lens and 

broadening the set of objectives highlights 

the need to expand the management vision 

beyond the breeding grounds to include 

wintering grounds and migratory routes. 
36 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Although adaptive management with the expanded set 

of objectives and potential actions had not yet been formally 

implemented as of our 2013 workshop, the NAWMP specifies 

that formal adaptive management approaches should be used 

to evaluate how well objectives are being met and to update 

understanding of the focal system. The NAWMP recognizes 

the need for a “[coherent management system . . .] focused on 

social as well as ecological matters . . . that would feature the 

familiar elements of an informed decision process—explicit 

objectives, coherent system models, targeted and focused 

monitoring programs, and institutional processes to adapt to 

new information” (NAWMP Committee, 2012, p. 24). The 

plan recognizes that adaptive management can be applied at 

a large scale so that learning can happen rapidly over space, 

rather than just over time.

While adaptive management in this context remains in 

the deliberative phase, the 2012 revision of the NAWMP itself 

represents a form of double-loop learning, as the plan developers

stepped back to reexamine and redefine their stakeholders, 

goals, and management actions. They also identified that the 

governance supporting the enterprise should be assessed and 

potentially restructured to bring diverse communities together 

(for example, harvesters, birders, and habitat focused 

stakeholders). This need is amplified by waterfowl population 

management and waterfowl habitat conservation having evolved 

within distinct institutions that lack coherent, interrelated 

objectives. Furthermore, neither institution has formulated 

explicit and shared objectives for people or developed a level 

of adaptability that matches the pace of current environmental 

and societal change. 

Applying an ecosystem service lens and broadening the 

set of objectives highlights the need to expand the management 

vision beyond the breeding grounds to include wintering 

grounds and migratory routes. Adding relevance to waterfowl 

conservation, a key part of the plan is recognition of the links 

between people and habitat, species, harvest, clean water, and 

so forth. By considering habitat conservation as a potential 

management action, multiple interacting values come to the 

forefront and spatial issues become important. The plan also 

recognizes that values vary by location. 

The plan recommends strategic investments that provide 

people an opportunity to reconnect with nature through 

waterfowl. It also recommends dedicated efforts to quantify 

and communicate to the public the numerous environmental 

benefits associated with waterfowl habitat conservation. 

These include attenuation of floods, enhanced water quality, 

groundwater recharge, and numerous other ecological goods 

and services (Anderson and others, 2007; NAWMP 

Committee, 2012).
Reflections on Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration: Case Study Evaluation 37

Reflections on Adaptive ManagementEcosystem Services Integration:

Case Study Evaluation

Although each of these case studies is useful for better understanding and exploring the challenges, benefits, and 

implementation of an integrated adaptive management-ecosystem services approach, none provides an ideal or complete 

example for replication elsewhere.

Nonetheless, discussions of four case studies during the workshop identified some lessons learned and challenges related 

to each component of an integrated adaptive management-ecosystem services application, as we describe next.
38 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Stakeholders

An adaptive decision process enables dynamic engagement 

of stakeholders, allowing the scope and composition of 

stakeholder engagement to change over time. An ecosystems 

services lens can help identify who needs to be engaged, just 

as the stakeholders are critical for identifying the relevant 

ecosystem services to be managed.

A key challenge is deciding who should be engaged as 

stakeholders and how they should be engaged. The extent 

and type of stakeholder engagement may vary on the basis of 

the complexity and scale of the problem and the cost of such 

engagement. Also, it is important to determine how to account 

for the values of people far away from the management context 

(in time or space) and the values derived from ecological 

processes that sustain services over the long term. The values 

of individuals with little time or money for participation may 

be underrepresented. In some cases, defining stakeholders 

also can be challenging because of changing demographics or 

values over time. For example, in the case of Clarksburg, Md., 

how the values of potential future residents should be weighed 

relative to those of current residents has not been articulated. 

There is a large empirical literature that addresses at 

stakeholder engagement processes, including the sequencing 

and scale of participation and its relationship with learning and 

the effectiveness of management. This literature may be useful 

for informing stakeholder engagement across contexts. 

Transforming social conflict into a technical debate can 

sometimes help resolve conflict. However, stakeholders 

nonetheless need to remain engaged, because the technical 

debate can become irrelevant and conflict can re-erupt if the 

debate becomes divorced from the stakeholder concerns.

Objectives

Objectives need to be clearly defined. Without clear 

specification of competing values or services, discussing how 

to adaptively manage for one over another is challenging at 

best. A variety of values can feed into objectives, including 

ecosystem service values, spiritual values, and economic 

considerations, among others. Integration of adaptive 

management and ecosystem service approaches can help 

illuminate and refine objectives. An ecosystem service lens 

can help identify and articulate ecosystem-based objectives, 

and focal objectives can be refined over time through an 

adaptive process that involves learning what people care 

about and which socially relevant outcomes are most likely 

to be affected by management. 

There is a continuum in how much quantification of 

ecosystem services can be incorporated into decision making. 

Quantification is not needed in every instance, and 

quantification can be done with or without monetization 

(for example, see box 2 in the “Ecosystem Services” section 

of the introduction). Monetary valuation can facilitate 

evaluation of tradeoffs by putting everything in common 

and easily understood units, but societal outcomes also can 

be quantified on the basis of the measures such as the number 

of beneficiaries affected and the magnitude of the socially 

relevant biophysical change. Identifying when quantification 

is critical, as opposed to when it is sufficient to simply show 

across a set of alternatives how key ecosystem services 

increase or decrease according to management decisions, 

is a key area for continued discussion.

The case studies varied in the degree to which they 

articulated management objectives and accounted for ecosystem 

services and in terms of how objectives were measured. 

For example, the adaptive harvest management program is 

considering an expansion of objectives to explicitly consider a 

broader range of ecosystem services, but currently the program 

explicitly considers only sustainable waterfowl harvest, whereas 

it implicitly considers services represented by waterfowl 

populations on the ground. The North American Waterfowl 

Management Plan more explicitly considers ecosystem services 

in its three goals. Aspects of these goals (for example, 

“ecological services that benefit society”) nonetheless remain 

vague, likely because of the early stages of plan implementation 

and the plan being a high-level document rather than 

on-the-ground management guidance.
Focal objectives can be refined over 

time through an adaptive process that 

involves learning what people care 

about and which socially relevant 

outcomes are most likely to be affected 

by management.
40 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Clarksburg, Md., has brought ecosystem service 

consideration into its decision-making process in several ways, 

though some measures fall short of representing direct human 

values. For example, the planners described a variety of 

ecosystem components and processes that would be affected 

by development, including carbon sequestration, stream and 

upland habitats, terrestrial and aquatic plant and animal 

communities, natural soil structure and biology, infiltration of 

rainwater, surface-water and groundwater flows, water quality, 

and so forth. These represent intermediate outputs and 

processes rather than measures that are directly valued by 

people. Similarly, decisions are being made about whether to 

allow water quality to move from excellent condition to good 

or to fair condition, rather than defining what these conditions 

mean for specific ecosystem service values. Decisions in 

Clarksburg, Md., might be facilitated by a more explicit 

ecosystem service lens that links ecosystem changes to output 

that people value and that can be more easily traded off.

Similar issues could arise in the context of solar planning 

by the BLM. Conceptual diagrams and monitoring appear 

to primarily focus on ecosystem components and processes 

rather than the specific values that people care about. However, 

the BLM’s solar programmatic environmental impact statement 

evaluated direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts to a wide 

range of resources, including lands and realty, rangeland, 

recreation, soil, water, ecological resources, air quality and 

climate, visual resources, and cultural and socioeconomic 

resources. While not ecosystem services as such, these cover 

many of the values likely to be affected by solar development. 

It seems that the approach described in the case study aims 

to manage for competing values by maintaining underlying 

ecosystem processes and improving management as 

understanding of the effect of management on those 

processes improves.
Reflections on Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration: Case Study Evaluation 41
42 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Many examples of ecosystem service management 

focus primarily on a single service (for example, nitrogen in 

the Chesapeake Bay, water quality and quantity for Water 

Fund projects, and waterfowl harvest for the adaptive harvest 

management program). When managing for a single service 

also protects other services that stakeholders care about, then 

the narrow focus may work well. However, conflicts can arise 

in other cases. For example, in some cases in the Chesapeake 

Bay, where nitrogen management has received primary focus, 

streams were filled in to install water-treatment strategies, and 

the water-treatment strategies were considered self-mitigation 

for the stream filling. In the context of adaptive waterfowl 

harvest management, managing for maximal long-term harvest 

has served as an adequate objective, but there is increasing 

desire to incorporate other values explicitly into the decisionmaking process. When accounting for multiple ecosystem 

services simultaneously, it is necessary to consider the linkages 

within and between natural and human systems.

Consideration of a broader set of ecosystem service 

values can increase the challenge of evaluating and managing 

tradeoffs. There can be multiple ways to define objective 

functions that represent multiple types of values. Weighting 

of different objectives often is contentious and difficult to 

support. A threshold approach can be useful in some contexts 

in which thresholds are defined for certain types of values, 

and the other values are then maximized to the extent possible 

while meeting the thresholds. Sometimes agreement on goals 

cannot be achieved because value conflicts are irreconcilable. 

Nonetheless, decisions still need to be made. In these cases it 

may be possible, on a temporary basis, to gain agreement on a 

boundary-spanning objective or on a set of actions to try.

Models

Models can range from conceptual to quantitative and can 

be useful for fully developing hypotheses, determining what to 

monitor, and evaluating management strategies. Conceptual 

models can help managers and stakeholders understand how 

actions, processes, and outcomes are linked and identify the 

values associated with a system. In this way, models can 

facilitate stakeholder engagement, as has been the case for 

BLM solar development planning. An ecosystem service lens 

can help guide the types of models needed to inform adaptive 

decision making by highlighting the biophysical processes 

likely to be affected by management and how those processes 

feed into the values and objectives that are being managed for. 

Adaptive decision making, in turn, is critical for refining the 

models and hence for an understanding of ecosystem service 

production and valuation.

In contrast to conceptual models, the adaptive harvest 

management program employs a quantitative model that 

incorporates learning and can identify management strategies 

that best meet the defined objectives. However, its dynamic 

optimization approach can be less tractable in contexts with 

more complexity, management choices, or types of uncertainty. 

Indeed, while ecosystem service identification can directly 

feed back into explicit identification of relevant models and 

the outcomes and processes that should be monitored (see 

the following section), a key challenge is that consideration 

of a broader set of ecosystem service endpoints requires 

consideration of more models, adding complexity to the process.
Monitoring

Monitoring is a key part of any adaptive decision 

process, as it enables learning about underlying system 

dynamics and the effects of management. This learning enables 

objectives to be evaluated and management to be updated. 

Indeed, an ecosystem service lens can help to highlight the 

socially relevant outcomes that should be monitored to enable

evaluation of how well objectives are being met, and competing 

models of ecosystem service production can help to identify 

variables whose monitoring would help resolve key uncertainties. 

As such, monitoring can enable updating of models to improve 

our understanding of the production and valuation of 

ecosystem services. Availability of baseline data can speed 

this learning process.

Focusing only on final outcomes (for example, species 

abundance), without consideration of the underlying processes, 

can make updating models and management challenging. For 

example, if species populations do not respond as desired to 

management actions (for example, restoration) and underlying 

processes such as habitat changes have not been measured, then 

management implications may be unclear. Thus, a clear focus 

on ecosystem processes, in addition to the endpoints that people 

care about, is important for effective adaptive management.

Updating Decisions

Adaptive management will fall short if there is no 

mechanism for updating management on the basis of what is 

learned from monitoring. In such a case, when an iterative 

learning process suggests an alternative course of action, there 

may be no path for the new knowledge to be translated into a 

new course of action, and this absence causes adaptive 

management to fail. The adaptive management applications 

that have tended to fail have lacked institutional mechanisms 

for updating decisions on the basis of the learning, despite 

effective science being done.

Spatial-Temporal Learning

Although typically conceived of in terms of updating 

management decisions at a single location over time, learning 

and adaptive management can be applied at multiple spatial 

and temporal scales. For example, learning from one-off 

decision contexts (for example, a siting or infrastructure 

decision) can be used to inform other, similar one-off decisions. 

Likewise, ongoing learning within a given management location 

can inform management at other locations (for example, 

operations across multiple dams). Although this type of learning 

can be informal, explicit spatial-temporal adaptive learning 

may improve outcomes by formalizing monitoring, information 

sharing, and processes for integrating new information into 

decisions. The workshops explored this type of multiscale 

learning in the context of solar siting for the BLM, but it is 

likely applicable across diverse contexts, including dam 

relicensing and management. In addition, an ecosystem services 

lens may facilitate the transfer of knowledge across time and 

space by providing a conceptual framework for organizing 

information for transfer across contexts. Spatial-temporal 

learning also is likely to speed up learning about identification 

of relevant ecosystem services and their production and 

valuation by providing more replicates of the adaptive decision 

process and feedback between them.

Reflections on Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration: Case Study Evaluation 43

Adaptive decision making, in turn, is 

critical for refining the models and hence 

for an understanding of ecosystem service 

production and valuation.
44 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management
Challenges to Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration 45

Although ecosystem services and adaptive management frameworks seem to be a natural fit for integration that could 

improve management outcomes, the integration will be challenging, as evidenced by our case studies and discussed in both 

workshops. In most cases, integration will face not only challenges specific to the integration, but also the institutional, cultural, 

and technical challenges faced by the frameworks independently. As such, few, if any, of the case studies implemented a fully 

developed adaptive management framework and an explicit analysis of multiple ecosystem services that includes endpoints with 

direct human value.

Adaptive management implementation is constrained by a variety of factors. For example, large resources generally are 

needed up front to initiate and design an adaptive management program, and support for long-term management and monitoring 

is often limited. Short-term or politically constrained budgets further limit long-term planning. Managers may hesitate in taking 

an adaptive management approach because of the ways in which it can increase the scope of management by moving from an 

agency to a collaborative context, which can increase the complexity of management and planning, exacerbate funding difficulties, 

and necessitate cross-jurisdictional sharing of funds. It also can be difficult to decide which stakeholders should be engaged. In 

the United States, Federal managers also can perceive constraints when complying with the National Environmental Policy Act 

(NEPA), which requires specifying, documenting, and evaluating management alternatives up front. Changes to the plan can 

require initiation of a new NEPA process. However, building adaptive management into the NEPA process up front can enable 

management to be updated in response to learning without requiring new NEPA documents. Finally, a history of projects claiming 

an adaptive management approach, but which fall short of applying a deliberate and structured approach to learning or are simply 

paying lip service to the concept, can hinder acceptance of adaptive management approaches.

Challenges to Adaptive ManagementEcosystem Services Integration
46 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Ecosystem services approaches also face a variety of 

constraints. One of the greatest is identification of which 

ecosystem services are most relevant in a particular context. 

In addition, incorporating ecosystem services concepts into 

management is challenged by incomplete understanding of the 

underlying biophysical production functions that link policy or 

management actions to outcomes that people care about. Both 

the economic production functions that help to value ecosystem 

service outcomes and the analytic frameworks for estimating 

these functions are evolving with new insights, research, and 

data. These gaps in information about relevant services and 

underlying production functions hinder choosing appropriate 

management to maximize ecosystem service benefits and 

again highlight the potential gains from managing for ecosystem 

services within an adaptive management framework. Concern 

also exists that ecosystem resilience and intergenerational 

equity may not be properly accounted for in an ecosystem 

services framework, particularly if values are monetized and 

standard discounting is employed to compare values over 

time. Although economic valuation is just one analytic tool for 

providing commensurability when considering multiple value 

sets, there is widespread concern that an ecosystem services 

approach implies commodification of ecosystem components 

and requires monetization of values. Finally, a management 

approach that seeks to maximize human well-being may not 

recognize the limited decision space in which managers work, 

in which only certain options are available.

Some challenges are common to both frameworks. For 

example, there is a tendency to get stuck in the deliberative 

phase rather than moving forward with management. Also, 

both frameworks promote transparency, which commonly 

is viewed as a strength, but transparency may be resisted by 

stakeholders who perceive a shift in decision-making power 

or by lawyers concerned with vulnerability to litigation. 

Implementation of these approaches also necessitates demand 

and willing managers. In both decision-making contexts, 

researchers and resource managers need to work together to be 

most effective, but researchers can be too far separated from 

managers to effectively integrate science and management, in 

part because of cultures that identify researchers as thinkers 

and managers as doers. This challenge is reinforced by budget 

allocations that distinguish between research and management. 

Limitations in human resources capacity can challenge 

implementation of both frameworks, though boundary 

organizations can facilitate the integration of managerial, 

experiential, and scientific knowledge. Institutional or policy 

constraints can also constrain management and limit 

experimentation, and processes can be challenged by seeking 

stakeholder agreement.

Because integration of ecosystem services and adaptive 

management faces the same challenges as the approaches 

independently, integration may more than double the challenges. 

There is concern that their integration may make management 

too costly and complicated. The integration also requires 

institutional and personnel capacity and support. Governance 

may become more complicated with integration. For example, 

inclusion of ecosystem services may entail an expansion of the 

objectives and decision context (for example, moving beyond 

recovery of a species to consider management of an entire 

water system, such as on the Platte River). This complexity 

entailed by integration has implications for who is at the decision 

table and the scope of stakeholder involvement, which in 

turn affect decision processes and invite demand for more 

collaborative decision making. These factors can present 

challenges for effective management.

Integration can also involve technical challenges. As the 

diversity of objectives and processes considered expands, the 

numbers and types of uncertainties also are likely to expand. 

Developing models, identifying key uncertainties and features 

for monitoring, evaluating tradeoffs, and selecting management 

actions can become complex conceptually and technically as 

objectives broaden. Figuring out how to combine qualitative 

and quantitative aspects of adaptive management and ecosystem 

services will be an important area of future development.

Finally, new concepts often meet institutional resistance, 

which also can hinder adoption.

Inclusion of ecosystem services may 

entail an expansion of the objectives and 

decision context (for example, moving 

beyond recovery of a species to consider 

management of an entire water system, 

such as on the Platte River). 
Challenges to Adaptive Management-Ecosystem Services Integration 47
48 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management
Future Directions and Needs 49

Although challenges face both independent and integrative application of adaptive management and ecosystem services 

concepts, integration has the potential to substantially improve outcomes. Progress in uniting these approaches will require that 

the joint framework that links the two concepts be as sleek and simple as possible, without losing account of socioecological 

processes and uncertainties. Neither ecological complexity nor societal values can be neglected. Thus integrating the approaches 

is a difficult balance of simplicity and complexity.

A reviewer of this report (Michael Runge, USGS) noted that multicriteria decision analysis (MCDA) could provide a useful 

link between ecosystem services and adaptive management for facilitating their integration. MCDA is a formal structure 

for decision making and analysis that can be used to address problems involving multiple criteria, or objectives, as they arise 

when considering ecosystem services, and, similar to adaptive management, MCDA would bring a disciplined decision analysis 

structure to ecosystem service analysis. In addition, the key terms within adaptive management and ecosystem services map 

well into MCDA framing concepts. Future work could explore the usefulness of MCDA as a means for helping to integrate 

adaptive management and ecosystem service approaches. 

Replicable examples of where adaptive management-ecosystem services integration has been done well are needed. As 

examples of successful adaptive management have become more prevalent (though still uncommon), it has been considered and 

applied in more contexts. A key example is the adaptive harvest management approach that has been applied repeatedly, across 

scales and species. If an approach can be seen working in one context, then strategies, lessons learned, and general principles 

can be drawn upon to scale up its application or apply it elsewhere. 

Future Directions and Needs
50 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Although the case studies explored in the second workshop 

were useful for exploring the benefits and challenges of 

integrating adaptive management and ecosystem services 

approaches, it is not clear that any replicable example of an 

approach to integrated adaptive management-ecosystem services 

yet exists that considers a diverse array of ecosystem service 

outcomes. The adaptive harvest management case study 

provides an important example of a well-designed and wellimplemented application that manages explicitly for harvest 

and implicitly for those ecosystem services represented by 

maintenance of waterfowl populations on the ground. However, 

to date, the application considers a narrower range of services 

than may be desired in other decision contexts and thus does 

not yet incorporate the complexity of processes and tradeoffs 

that might ultimately be managed in this type of framework. 

Other management applications that may ultimately serve as 

examples of adaptively managing a broader suite of ecosystem 

services include the solar siting by the BLM, but most 

applications are too early in their implementation to evaluate.

 Although not available at the time of the focal workshops 

for this report, another example may be the Glen Canyon Dam 

Long-Term Experimental and Management Plan, which also 

considers the integration of ecosystem services and adaptive 

management. In particular, plan development included an 

extensive and detailed decision analysis (including MCDA 

and the expected value of information) that considered a 

broad array of ecosystem services and other objectives and 

considered the utility of adaptive management for resolving 

uncertainties (Runge and others, 2015). The continued 

development of example applications likely will depend on 

decision makers being convinced that the integration will solve 

a real problem that they are facing. However, once managers 

consciously work to integrate the two concepts, they may find 

that integration makes both processes easier, because individually 

the approaches frequently leave out key components.

Applying an ecosystem services-adaptive 

management approach in a context 

gridlocked by conflict would target 

challenges most likely to be helped by the 

approach and could turn management in a 

more productive direction.
One approach for enhancing application could be to 

identify a set of demonstrations within the Department of 

Interior. These could be selected by identifying situations 

where inaction is resulting from conflict and where an integrated 

approach could help resolve the conflict. Applying an ecosystem 

services-adaptive management approach in a context gridlocked 

by conflict would target challenges most likely to be helped by 

the approach and could turn management in a more productive 

direction. In conjunction with a Secretarial directive to apply 

the approach more widely, this approach could initiate a 

diffusion strategy. Those who benefit from the process would 

likely become champions of the approach.

Two additional features that could facilitate wider 

application of an integrated adaptive management-ecosystem 

services approach are (1) showing people that their values are 

represented in the process and that those values alter decisions, 

and (2) ensuring the decisions that managers have to make and 

the constraints that they face are central when developing the 

model. These features can help bring relevance to the people 

involved, making the approach accessible.

Continued development of practical guidance for applying 

an ecosystem services approach may provide an important 

foundation for integrating ecosystem services evaluation into 

an adaptive management framework. This includes developing 

accepted measures for different ecosystem service values (for 

example, human well-being) to overcome the pigeonholing of 

ecosystem services as an approach that requires monetization; 

this would require combined efforts of ecologists, economists, 

and stakeholders. 

Future Directions and Needs 51
52 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Political and institutional contexts need to be considered 

when implementing and designing an integrated adaptive 

management-ecosystem services approach, including 

recognition of the political constraints, financial and talent 

capacity constraints, information or incentives to get approaches 

implemented, cultural context and values, hurdles of 

administrative law, and relevant governance structure. The 

choices of framing, scale, and context determine capacity 

needs, and it may be necessary to adjust scale on the basis of 

capacity. Applying an integrated adaptive managementecosystem services approach places a premium on being able 

to explain its importance simply and on the approach making 

the process easier or providing substantial net benefits.

Adaptive management and ecosystem services are evolving 

areas of both knowledge and application. This, in itself, makes 

their integration challenging. For example, methods for 

measuring and valuing ecosystem services lack accepted 

guidance and application. Integration with adaptive management 

thus requires both learning about the integration and reaching 

into the frontiers of ecosystem service analysis and evaluation. 

Nonetheless, adaptive management is a response to uncertainty 

that seeks to improve management outcomes through learning. 

Thus, the uncertainty and dynamism in managing ecological 

processes and their societal dimensions suggests an important 

role for adaptive management. Greater interaction among 

expertise, methods, models, and data would benefit both 

communities of practice. 

Application of an ecosystem service lens implies an 

expansion of the objectives, and such an expansion has 

implications for which stakeholders to engage, the choice of 

management actions, the models that are developed, and what 

should be monitored. However, a potentially useful approach 

for expanding the integration of adaptive management and 

ecosystem services may be to look to examples where 

successful adaptive management is underway or is beginning 

and to apply an ecosystem service lens in those contexts, either 

in the initial deliberative phase or in the context of double-loop 

learning when objectives and models are being revisited.

Alternatively, an adaptive management approach could 

be brought formally into a context where ecosystem services 

already are being managed explicitly. A key example might be 

application of spatial-temporal learning in the context of The 

Nature Conservancy’s Water Fund projects or in payment for 

ecosystem service programs.

Development of a boundary organization that brings 

together expertise in both ecosystem services management and 

adaptive management may be a fruitful means for providing 

capacity and guidance for forging this integration on the ground.

Indeed, although this report explores the benefits and 

challenges of integrating adaptive management and ecosystem 

services approaches to natural resource management, in 

addition to examining how they conceptually link together, 

further research is needed to move implementation forward. 

In particular, research is needed on how to reduce costs of 

implementation and to better understand how the benefits of 

integration relate to costs. In addition, we need to better 

understand the management contexts for which the benefits of 

this type of integration are most likely to outweigh the capacity, 

time, and resource costs.

Furthering this integrative approach depends on continued 

interaction and collaboration between researchers and 

practitioners. Application of the approach is needed to further 

develop conceptual understanding, and we hope that the 

conceptual framework explored here will help to move the 

integration forward in practice and research. The feedback 

between concept and application is integral to the development 

of a usable framework and for enhancing adoption of this approach.

The feedback between concept and 

application is integral to the development 

of a usable framework and for enhancing 

adoption of this approach.
Future Directions and Needs 53
54 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management
Conclusion 55

In summary, careful and deliberate integration of adaptive management and ecosystem services approaches has the potential 

to substantially improve management outcomes in a variety of contexts. Workshop discussion identified substantial costs and 

obstacles that need to be addressed to facilitate this integration. Indeed, fully applying the conceptual approach laid out (fig. 3) 

is not practically feasible, but the conceptual approach highlights ways for reorienting management to better incorporate both 

ecosystem service concepts and adaptive decision processes and provides a conceptual foundation for moving the integration 

forward. Jointly pursuing concept development and application would further this integration: continued conceptual development 

of the framework would help to inform application, and application in practice is needed to push and refine the framework. This 

report is the first to explore the explicit integration of ecosystem services and adaptive management, and it is intended as the 

start of a long but valuable process of learning and application development.

Conclusion
56 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Anderson, M.G., Caswell, Dale, Eadie, J.M., Herbert, J.T., 

Huang, Min, Humburg, D.D., Johnson, F.A., Koneff, M.D., 

Mott, S.E., Nudds, T.D., and others, 2007, Report from the 

Joint Task Group for clarifying North American Waterfowl 

Management Plan population objectives and their use in 

harvest management: Washington, D.C., Department of the 

Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological 

Survey, 57 p.

Boyd, James, and Brookshire, D.S., 2011, Ecosystem good 

and service co-effects of terrestrial carbon sequestration—

Implications for the U.S. Geological Survey’s LandCarbon 

methodology: Resources for the Future Discussion Paper 

11–22, 59 p.

Boyd, James, and Krupnick, Alan, 2009, The definition and 

choice of environmental commodities for nonmarket valuation: 

Resources for the Future Discussion Paper 09–35, September, 

57 p.

Bureau of Land Management, 2012, Final programmatic 

environmental impact statement (PEIS) for solar energy 

development in six southwestern States: U.S. Department 

of Energy, Bureau of Land Management, FES 12–24, DOE/

EIS–0403, 7 v., accessed July 18, 2013, at http://solareis.anl.gov/

documents/fpeis/index.cfm.

Daily, G.C., and Matson, P.A., 2008, Ecosystem services–

From theory to implementation: Proceedings of the National 

Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 

v. 105, no. 28, p. 9455–9456.

Gregory, Robin, Failing, Lee, Harstone, Michael, Long, Graham,

McDaniels, Tim, and Ohlson, Dan, 2012, Structured decision 

making—A practical guide to environmental management 

choices: Chichester, U.K., Wiley-Blackwell, 312 p.

Holling, C.S., ed., 1978, Adaptive environmental assessment 

and management: New York, John Wiley and Sons, 377 p.

Lee, K.N., 1993, Compass and gyroscope—Integrating science 

and politics for the environment: Washington, D.C., Island 

Press, 243 p.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005, Ecosystems and 

human well-being—Synthesis: Washington, D.C., Island 

Press, 160 p.

North American Waterfowl Management Plan [NAWMP] 

Committee, 2012, North American Waterfowl Management 

Plan 2012—People conserving waterfowl and wetlands: 

North American Waterfowl Management Plan, 48 p., 

accessed May 2, 2013, at https://www.fws.gov/birds/

management/bird-management-plans/north-american-waterfowl-management-plan/plan-documents.php.

Pahl-Wostl, Claudia, 2009, A conceptual framework for analysing

adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in 

resource governance regimes: Global Environmental Change, 

v. 19, no. 3, p 354–365.

Runge, M.C., LaGory, K.E., Russell, Kendra, Balsom, J.R., 

Butler, R.A., Coggins, L.G., Jr., Grantz, K.A., Hayse, John, 

Hlohowskyj, Ihor, Korman, Josh, May, J.E., O’Rourke, D.J., 

Poch, L.A., Prairie, J.R., VanKuiken, J.C., Van Lonkhuyzen, R.A.,

Varyu, D.R., Verhaaren, B.T., Vesekla, T.D., Williams, N.T., 

Wuthrich, K.K., Yackulic, C.B., Billerbeck, R.P., and 

Knowles, G.W., 2015, Decision analysis to support development

of the Glen Canyon Dam Long-Term Experimental and 

Management Plan: U.S. Geological Survey Scientific 

Investigations Report 2015–5176, 64 p., accessed December 1, 

2016, at http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/sir20155176.

Scarlett, Lynn, and Boyd, James, 2015, Ecosystem services 

and resource management—Institutional issues, challenges, 

and opportunities in the public sector: Ecological Economics, 

v. 115, p. 3–10. 

Shabman, L.A., 2005, Decision-making and uncertainty 

in ambient water quality management, in Bruins, R.J.F., 

and Heberling, M.T., eds., Economics and ecological risk 

assessment—Applications to watershed management: 

Boca Raton, Fla., CRC Press, p. 143–164.

Walters, C.J., 1986, Adaptive management of renewable 

resources: Caldwell, N.J., Blackburn Press, 374 p. 

Williams, B.K., and Brown, E.D., 2012, Adaptive management—

The U.S. Department of the Interior applications guide: 

Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of the Interior, Adaptive 

Management Working Group, 120 p.

Williams, B.K., and Brown, E.D., 2014, Adaptive management—

From more talk to real action: Environmental Management, 

v. 53, no. 2, p. 465–479.

Williams, B.K., Szaro, R.C., and Shapiro, C.D., 2009, Adaptive 

management—The U.S. Department of the Interior Technical

 Guide: Washington, D.C., U.S. Department of the Interior, 

Adaptive Management Working Group, 72 p.

References Cited
References Cited 57
58 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Workshop 1. Integrating Ecosystem Services and Adaptive 

Management— Developing a Framework, Resources for the Future,

Washington, D.C., June 14–15, 2012

Facilitator: Steven Courtney, Director of Science, RESOLVE

Bernard Bormann, Research Forest Ecologist, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, and Professor of Forest Ecology, 

College of Forestry, Oregon State University

Jim Boyd, Senior Fellow and Director, Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth, 

Resources for the Future

David Cleaves, Climate Change Advisor to the Chief, USDA Forest Service

Robert Costanza, Professor and Director, Institute for Sustainable Solutions, 

Portland State University

Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, Fellow, Resources for the Future

Anne Guerry, Lead Scientist, Natural Capital Project

Lance H. Gunderson, Professor of Environmental Studies, Department of Environmental 

Studies, Emory University

Kai Lee, Program Officer, Conservation & Science, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

James D. Nichols, Senior Scientist, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Bryan G. Norton, Professor of Philosophy, Science and Technology, Georgia 

Institute of Technology

Paul A. Sandifer, Senior Science Advisor, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Lynn Scarlett, Visiting Scholar and Codirector, Center for the Management of Ecological 

Wealth, Resources for the Future

Carl Shapiro, Codirector, Science and Decisions Center, and Senior Economist, Energy, Minerals, 

and Environmental Health, USGS

Beatrice Van Horne, Program Manager, Ecological Process and Function, U.S. Forest Service, 

Pacific Northwest Research Station

Byron Kenneth Williams, Codirector, Science and Decisions Center, and Chief, Cooperative 

Research Units, USGS 

Appendix 1. 

List of Workshop Participants
Appendix 1. List of Workshop Participants 59

Workshop 2. Integrating Ecosystem Services and Adaptive 

Management—Case Study Evaluation, Resources for the Future, 

Washington D.C., April 25–26, 2013

Facilitator: Olivia Barton Ferriter, Deputy Director, Office of Policy 

Analysis, U.S. Department of the Interior

Jim Boyd, Senior Fellow and Codirector, Center for the Management of Ecological Wealth, 

Resources for the Future

Charles Curtin, Core Faculty, Antioch College

Michael Dwyer, Project Manager, U.S. Department of Interior, Bureau of Land Management

Rebecca Epanchin-Niell, Fellow, Resources for the Future

Dianna Hogan, Research Physical Scientists, U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)

Dale Humburg, Chief Scientist, Ducks Unlimited

Kai Lee, Program Officer, Conservation & Science, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Molly Macauley, Vice President for Research and Senior Fellow, Resources for the Future

James D. Nichols, Senior Scientist, USGS

Stephen Polasky, Fesler-Lampert Chair in Ecological/Environmental Economics, 

University of Minnesota

Lynn Scarlett, Visiting Scholar and Codirector, Center for the Management of 

Ecological Wealth, Resources for the Future

Carl Shapiro, Director, Science and Decisions Center, and Senior Economist, Energy, Minerals, 

and Environmental Health, USGS 

Jeremy Sokulsky, Chief Executive Officer, Environmental Incentives

Gordon Toevs, National Program Lead, Bureau of Land Management, Assessment, Inventory, 

and Monitoring program (AIM)

Byron Kenneth Williams, Executive Director, The Wildlife Society

Robert Winthrop, Senior Social Scientist, Department of the Interior’s Bureau of 

Land Management
60 Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management

Photograph Credits

Cover Canadian goose—Pixabay, SnottyBoggins, Creative Commons CC0

Antelope—Pixabay, mdimock, Creative Commons CC0

Garlic rows in Polk County, Oregon—© Gary Weathers/Getty Images

Community in Clarksburg, Maryland—Dianna M. Hogan, Ph.D., 

U.S. Geological Survey

Wind turbine—Photograph by Eyematrix— Fotolia, purchased licence

Page

i Desert storm—Photograph by Paul Moore—Fotolia, purchased licence

1 Canadian goose—Pixabay, SnottyBoggins, Creative Commons CC0

2–3 Wetland habitat at Horicon National Wildlife Refuge—Ryan Hagerty, 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

4–5 Reflection of man in canoe near trees in the river—© WHL/Blend Images/Getty Images

6–7 Biologist examining a plant in the hills the Southeast—© Jack Goldfarb/Design Pics/

Getty Images

13 Maryland green infrastructure (GI) storm water management study—

Dianna M. Hogan, Ph.D., U.S. Geological Survey

15 Solar panels in Grand Canyon Cottonwood Campground in Arizona—

© Milehightravel/E+/Getty Images

16 Gilded flicker—Photograph by Cullen Photos—Fotolia, purchased licence

17 Cactus landscape—Photograph by Galyna Andrushko—Fotolia, purchased licence

18–19 Wetland with autumn trees in background and ducks floating in water—

Steve Hillebrand, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

22 Wooded stream—Wikimedia, Moreau1, released to public domain

Tilted solar panels near the mountains of the Mojave Desert—

© andreiorlov/iStock/Getty Images Plus

Black-bellied whistling ducks—© Kryssia Campos/Moment/Getty Images photos

Two bird hunters with shotguns and dog—© Mint Images/Mint Images RF/Getty Images

24 Glass and waterfall—© Erik Isakson/Tetra images/Getty Images
Photograph Credits 61

Page 

25 Community playground in Clarksburg, Maryland—Dianna M. Hogan, Ph.D., 

U.S. Geological Survey

26–27 Wooded stream—Wikimedia, Moreau1, released to public domain

28–29 Tilted solar panels near the mountains of the Mojave Desert—

© andreiorlov/iStock/Getty Images Plus

30–31 Cattle on range—Pixabay, WildOne, Creative Commons CC0

32–33 Black-bellied whistling ducks—© Kryssia Campos/Moment/Getty Images photos

35 Two bird hunters with shotguns and dog—© Mint Images/Mint Images RF/Getty Images

36–37 Northern pintail—Wikimedia, Kaushik mailbox, Creative Commons 4.0

38–39 Hunter observing the green field through binoculars—© Visual Space/E+/Getty Images

40–41 Bighorn sheep walking up rocks at Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada—

© Stevemendenhall/RooM/Getty Images

42–43 Remote ranch in the foothills of New Mexico—Marcia Straub/Moment/Getty Images

44–45 Garlic rows in Polk County, Oregon—© Gary Weathers/Getty Images

46–47 Antelope—Pixabay, mdimock, Creative Commons CC0

48–49 Flying geese—Pixabay, hansbenn, Creative Commons CC0

50–51 Glen Canyon Dam—Wikimedia, Christian Mehlführer, Creative Commons 2.5

53 Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona—© westend61/Getty Images

54–55 Wind turbines—Pixabay, Pexels, Creative Commons CC0

57 Old road—Photograph by Deztroyd—Fotolia, purchased licence

60–61 Men rowing canoes on river—© Marc Romanelli/Blend Images/Getty Images 

62–63 River—Photograph by B Jefferson Bolender—Flickr, Creative Commons, 

Share Alike, 2.0

Figure 2

11 Timber—Pixabay, bernswaelz, Creative Commons CC0

Lake—Pixabay, LubosHouska, Creative Commons CC0

Flooded trees—Pixabay, JooJoo41, Creative Commons CC0

Bass—Pixabay, WikiImages, Creative Commons CC0

Man fishing from his kayak—© Andrew Komylak/Aurora Opens/Getty Images
For more information concerning this publication, contact

Director, Science and Decisions Center

U.S. Geological Survey

913 National Center

12201 Sunrise Valley Drive

Reston, VA 20192

Or visit the Science and Decisions Center website at

https://www.usgs.gov/sdc/

Prepared by the USGS Science Publishing Network,

Reston, Pembroke, and Denver Publishing Service Centers

Editing by Jonas Casey-Williams

Design and layout by Carol Quesenberry

Web support by Angela E. Timms and Mari Kauffmann

Printing support by Cathy Y. Knutson

ISSN 1067-084X (print)

ISSN 2330-5703 (online)

https://doi.org/10.3133/cir1439

Epanchin-Niell and others—Integrating Adaptive Management and Ecosystem Services Concepts To Improve Natural Resource Management—Circular 1439