Tuesday, May 19, 2015
13:30 - 15:00

<< Back to Schedule

13:30 - 13:45: / 102E NOT ALL SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTIES ARE CREATED EQUAL FOR LANDSCAPE SCALE HEADWATER STREAM MANAGEMENT

5/19/2015  |   13:30 - 13:45   |  102E

NOT ALL SCIENTIFIC UNCERTAINTIES ARE CREATED EQUAL FOR LANDSCAPE SCALE HEADWATER STREAM MANAGEMENT Management decisions related to stream conservation are inevitably made under a range of scientific uncertainties. Reducing these uncertainties could influence management strategies, but there is a trade-off between devoting resources (time and money) to management actions and devoting resources to research to gain knowledge to improve management outcomes. Although the importance of reducing uncertainty depends on the decision context (e.g., management goals and threats), specific management uncertainties rarely motivate headwater stream research explicitly. We use value-of-information analysis to explore research-management trade-offs by quantifying how much headwater stream management outcomes could be improved if new information was gained (i.e., scientific uncertainties were reduced). We use the decision context and management framework from two northeastern US watersheds (Deerfield and Merrimack) to explore major uncertainties related to headwater stream management across several federal, state, local, and non-profit natural resource managers. We aim to identify optimal stream management decisions that are robust to a range of scientific uncertainty and describe how value-of-information tools can be used to quantify the relative importance of alternative research programs and projects for informing stream conservation.

Rachel Katz (Primary Presenter/Author), University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Massachusetts Fish and Wildlife Cooperative Research Unit, rakatz@umass.edu;


Evan Campbell-Grant (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), U.S. Geological Survey, ehgrant@usgs.gov;


Mike Runge (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), U.S. Geological Survey, mrunge@usgs.gov;


Daniel Hocking (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), U.S. Geological Survey, dhocking@usgs.gov;


Ben Letcher (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center; Silvio O. Conte Research Laboratory, bletcher@usgs.gov;


Allison Roy (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), U.S. Geological Survey, Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit, University of Massachusetts Amherst, aroy@eco.umass.edu;


13:45 - 14:00: / 102E OVERCOMING UNCERTAINTY WITH MODERN STATISTICAL TESTS: WHAT YOU LEARNED IN COLLEGE IS PROBABLY OBSOLETE

5/19/2015  |   13:45 - 14:00   |  102E

OVERCOMING UNCERTAINTY WITH MODERN STATISTICAL TESTS: WHAT YOU LEARNED IN COLLEGE IS PROBABLY OBSOLETE Environmental regulations usually employ traditional approaches such as t-intervals, t-tests, analysis of variance and regression. Perhaps a flowchart specifies to first test for a normal distribution, and if data can be shown to be non-normal, a nonparametric procedure is reluctantly allowed. This two-stage process can lead to errors in decision-making on a number of levels. Newer computer-intensive statistical methods incorporate uncertainty without assumptions about the distributional shape of data. Test results (p-values) are valid regardless of shape, producing confident decisions about contamination, change, trend, etc. Regulations and standard procedures should be updated to reflect these well-accepted methods.

Dennis Helsel (Primary Presenter/Author), Practical Stats, dhelsel@practicalstats.com;


14:00 - 14:15: / 102E SUSTAINABILITY: OXYMORON OR MEASURABLE METRIC?

5/19/2015  |   14:00 - 14:15   |  102E

SUSTAINABILITY: OXYMORON OR MEASURABLE METRIC? Sustainability is a vital component of “our freshwater futures”. The advancement of technology from scientific endeavors and technological assimilation into economies is the principal tool that compensates for poor sustainability practices that result in generational resource exploitation. As prime resources dwindle, technology has become the main societal ingredient that promotes more efficient use of previously compromised resources. This applies to both nonrenewable resources and renewable resources that have a deteriorative use rate greater than their renewable rate. In this representation, sustainability is a process that maximizes resource utility, within the confines of system efficiency and chaos restraints that reduces the rate of resource degradation. As a measurable practice, sustainability is applied to any localized growth system for determination of resource use matched to resource renewal rate.

Jerry Kaster (Primary Presenter/Author), University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences, jlk@uwm.edu;


14:15 - 14:30: / 102E FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR USING NATURAL VARIABILITY TO DEVELOP TRIGGERS FOR DESIGNING AND ADAPTING ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PROGRAMS

5/19/2015  |   14:15 - 14:30   |  102E

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR USING NATURAL VARIABILITY TO DEVELOP TRIGGERS FOR DESIGNING AND ADAPTING ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PROGRAMS A big challenge in biological monitoring is how to incorporate natural variability in biological endpoints into decision-making. As the temporal and spatial scales of monitoring increase in long term programs, available statistical power increases the potential for identifying very small changes. There are huge costs and risks to management decisions based on small biological changes which may be ecologically meaningless, or for which there is an insufficient historical baseline data to inform decision-making. We have identified a conceptual model for a scalable adaptive monitoring framework that defines changes using a normal or expected range for biological data, based on measures of natural variability at multiple spatial and temporal scales. The estimates of the normal range limits are dependent on the quantity of data, improve over time, and stabilize around 2 SD when adequate baseline data are available. This adaptive monitoring framework can be used to identify triggers to define when local change is of sufficient concern that it needs focused attention, and allows the prioritization of resources to areas with the most uncertainty or change.

K.R. Munkittrick (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, kelly.munkittrick@cosia.ca;


T.J. Arciszewski (Primary Presenter/Author,Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, tim.arciszewski@cosia.ca;


B.W. Kilgour (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Kilgour & Associates Ltd, bkilgour@kilgourassociates.com;


K. Somers (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Keith.Somers@ontario.ca;


T.J. Barrett (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Golder Associates, Tim_Barrett@golder.com;


14:30 - 14:45: / 102E FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR USING NATURAL VARIABILITY TO DEVELOP TRIGGERS FOR DESIGNING AND ADAPTING ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PROGRAMS

5/19/2015  |   14:30 - 14:45   |  102E

FUTURE DIRECTIONS FOR USING NATURAL VARIABILITY TO DEVELOP TRIGGERS FOR DESIGNING AND ADAPTING ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING PROGRAMS A big challenge in biological monitoring is how to incorporate natural variability in biological endpoints into decision-making. As the temporal and spatial scales of monitoring increase in long term programs, available statistical power increases the potential for identifying very small changes. There are huge costs and risks to management decisions based on small biological changes which may be ecologically meaningless, or for which there is an insufficient historical baseline data to inform decision-making. We have identified a conceptual model for a scalable adaptive monitoring framework that defines changes using a normal or expected range for biological data, based on measures of natural variability at multiple spatial and temporal scales. The estimates of the normal range limits are dependent on the quantity of data, improve over time, and stabilize around 2 SD when adequate baseline data are available. This adaptive monitoring framework can be used to identify triggers to define when local change is of sufficient concern that it needs focused attention, and allows the prioritization of resources to areas with the most uncertainty or change.

K.R. Munkittrick (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, kelly.munkittrick@cosia.ca;


T.J. Arciszewski (Primary Presenter/Author,Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance, tim.arciszewski@cosia.ca;


B.W. Kilgour (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Kilgour & Associates Ltd, bkilgour@kilgourassociates.com;


K. Somers (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Ontario Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Keith.Somers@ontario.ca;


T.J. Barrett (Co-Presenter/Co-Author), Golder Associates, Tim_Barrett@golder.com;