Adaptive management is a method of resource management that relies on constant monitoring (feedback), analysis, and adaptation. The method has been broken down into an science-based, ongoing process that tries to account for the uncertainty in ecosystem modeling by consistent monitoring and appraisal of progress. Adaptive management is driven by desire for effective stewardship of an ecosystem service or function that is valuable to humans. Adaptive management aims to preserve functions and services on the basis of their value to stakeholders. Ecosystem based management (EBM) can inform adaptive management, but is more focused on sustaining the ecosystem as a whole.
Adaptive management has been used with mixed outcomes in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Program, charged with cleaning up the polluted Chesapeake bay in Maryland and Virginia, was created in 1983 after scientific research identified excess nutrient pollution as the cause for the Bay’s rapid loss of wildlife and aquatic life. The 1987 Chesapeake Bay agreement set forth numeric goals to reduce pollution, specifically, it set for the goal of reducing nitrogen and phosphorous entering the bay by 40% by the year 2000. When that lofty goal failed, the Program created another set of time-sensitive goals, many of which have already failed. The Chesapeake Bay Program is a prime example of adaptive management that failed due to lack of understanding of the interrelated nature of every ecosystem function and service (before 2000, they were trying to reduce nutrient pollution without involving farms located near the headwaters of many rivers that run into the Chesapeake Bay—oops). Recent news, however, suggests that the Chesapeake Bay Program has new goals in the works.
Sources:
Article on the current state of the CBP: http://www.bayjournal.com/article/adaptive_management_aims_to_take_ambiguity_out_of_cleanup_goals
CBP official website: http://www.chesapeakebay.net/about/how/history