Habitat destruction and degradation are the most important threatening processes for the majority of species of conservation concern. As landscapes become more fragmented their spatial structure becomes increasingly important for the viability of wildlife populations. Therefore, understanding the dynamics of how populations interact with landscape structure is crucial for developing effective wildlife management and monitoring strategies. To achieve robust management, such an understanding should be incorporated into decision theory approaches for the design of management and monitoring strategies. Monitoring is a crucial component for assessing the outcome of management, because this can then be used to inform future management actions in an adaptive management framework. However, for many species, their spatial population dynamics are not well understood and objective management frameworks not well developed. In this thesis I use modelling approaches to develop the components of an adaptive management framework for species of conservation concern that occur in fragmented landscapes. I use the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) as a study organism and specifically address three key components that are important for adaptive management. These components are: (1) the development of novel approaches for modelling and understanding spatial population processes, (2) the application of modelling approaches to develop general principles and methods for managing wildlife populations in fragmented landscapes and (3) the application of modelling approaches to identify the best spatio-temporal sampling strategies for monitoring population trends in fragmented landscapes. This research advances our understanding of the dynamics of wildlife populations in fragmented landscapes, but importantly also develops tools and general principles for the adaptive management of these populations. To improve our understanding of the dynamics of populations in fragmented landscapes I develop several novel modelling approaches. Firstly, I develop an approach for disassociating the effect of natural habitat and anthropogenic influences on population distributions using static occupancy models. This approach allows inferences to be made about how important the distribution of habitat is compared to other human-related factors. Secondly, I develop modelling approaches for understanding habitat selection and dispersal processes. In particular, I address common problems for modelling complex habitat selection processes and parameterising dispersal simulation models. The habitat selection models are novel because they account for habitat preferences that depend upon the spatial location of habitat. The novel emphasis for the dispersal models, is showing that pattern-oriented approaches are useful for parameterising dispersal simulation models, even when we have little data. These models make an important contribution to our understanding of and methods for understanding spatial population processes. These and other modelling approaches are then applied to some key management questions, in order to develop general principles and methods for wildlife management decision-making. These studies relate to identifying the best spatial allocation of different management strategies, the planning of road networks to minimise impacts on wildlife and the impact of different mortality rates on the ranking of habitat protection strategies. First, I show that the relative spatial distribution of habitat and anthropogenic influences has important implications for the spatial allocation of management strategies. Second, I show that increasing traffic volume on existing roads is generally preferential to building new roads in terms of minimising the impact on wildlife mortality. Third, I use a multi-criteria decision analysis to show that the spatial arrangement of protected habitat is much less important for populations subject to high mortality rates than those subject to low mortality rates. Finally, spatially-explicit modelling approaches are applied to questions related to how sampling effort should best be allocated spatially and spatio-temporally to monitor population trends. These studies reveal that the best sampling strategy depends predictably upon the monitoring objectives and the dynamics of the species. Using the principles developed, improved monitoring strategies and ultimately improved management strategies will be possible. This thesis makes an important contribution to the development of adaptive management strategies for wildlife populations in fragmented landscapes. To implement an adaptive management approach, the modelling, management and monitoring components must be explicitly linked. By developing each of these components, this thesis provides a strong basis from which an adaptive management framework can be constructed. How this may be achieved and key areas for future research are discussed.

Thesis (M.S.)--Humboldt State University, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 32-35). Also available via Humboldt Digital Scholar.

This thesis explores landscape change in one of Africa’s biggest parks from the perspectives of its managers, the international conservation community, and media in South Africa and the United States. The surprising history of Kruger's elephant population reflects the complicated relationship between shifting wildlife management approaches, environmental ethics, and understandings of African nature, which continue to influence future conservation priorities. Elephants, because of their capacity to drive ecosystem change, expose a history of conflict over what nature means in the Kruger Park and how it should be managed. Current management philosophies in the park reflect the need to prepare for an uncertain future but also to confront an unsettled inheritance of the past. I delve into the 20th century chronicles of science, landscape aesthetics, wilderness ethics, and international politics that inform conservation in Kruger today.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / A gestÃo integrada dos recursos hÃdricos e a governanÃa adaptativa sÃo paradigmas institucionais e de gestÃo criados para solucionar as deficiÃncias do gerenciamento de recursos hÃdricos. Na gestÃo integrada, o desafio apresenta-se no estabelecimento de arranjos institucionais e instrumentos apropriados; na governanÃa adaptativa, o desafio se configura no gerenciamento sob condiÃÃes de incerteza. Recentemente, tem-se observado uma tendÃncia de fusÃo desses dois paradigmas para enfrentar a crescente complexidade dos fatores que moldam e estressam o gerenciamento dos recursos hÃdricos, sendo a mudanÃa climÃtica um desses fatores. No SemiÃrido Brasileiro, as incertezas associadas a mudanÃas no clima se somam Ãs variabilidades naturais tÃpicas da regiÃo, amplificando a complexidade da gestÃo dos seus sistemas hÃdricos, o que torna relevante a incorporaÃÃo desses conceitos. Sob essa perspectiva, o presente trabalho interpreta o sistema de gerenciamento de recursos hÃdricos do Estado do Cearà sob o ponto de vista da resiliÃncia ecolÃgica e propÃe um modelo de governanÃa adaptativa dos recursos hÃdricos, sob cenÃrios de mudanÃa climÃtica. Como estudo de caso, analisou-se o Sistema Jaguaribe-Metropolitanas, o qual evidenciou que a interligaÃÃo por meio do EixÃo das Ãguas e do Canal do Trabalhador, proporcionam uma alta conectividade do sistema, e um baixo potencial de mudanÃas do mesmo. Dessa forma, o sistema passa a ser muito dependente de uma Ãnica fonte hÃdrica - o CastanhÃo - o que o torna vulnerÃvel a qualquer falha que nele ocorra. De modo geral,verificou-se, ainda, que as possÃveis mudanÃas climÃticas trarÃo uma diminuiÃÃo da resiliÃncia do sistema, uma vez que se constatou maior necessidade de importaÃÃo de Ãgua da Bacia do Rio Jaguaribe para a RegiÃo Metropolitana de Fortaleza, quando comparados os cenÃrios de emissÃes (20C3M e A1B) do Painel Intergovernamental de MudanÃas ClimÃticas. Sugere-se, dessa forma, o gerenciamento da resiliÃncia por meio da governanÃa adaptativa. / The intergrated management of water resources and the adaptive government are institutional and management paradigms created to solve the deficiencies of the water resources management. On the integrated management, the challenge present itself on the establishment of institutional arrangements and appropriate instruments. On the adaptive governance, the challenge is configured to manage under conditions of uncertainty. Recently, itÂs been observed a tendency of fusion between these two paradigms to face the increasing complexity of factors that shape and stress the water resources management, the climate change being one of these factors. In the Brazilian semiarid, the uncertainties associated with climate change are added to natural variability typical of the region, amplifying the complexity of the management of its water systems, which makes relevant the incorporation of these concepts. From this perspective, this study interprets the management system of water resources of the State of CearÃ, under the point of view of ecological resilience and proposed a model of adaptive governance of water resources, under scenarios of climatic changes. As a case study, it was analyzed the Jaguaribe-Metropolitanas system, which showed that the interconnection through EixÃo Water and Canal Worker, provide high connectivity of the system, and a low potential for changes in the same.Thus, the system becomes too dependent on a single source of water - the CastanhÃo - which makes it vulnerable to any failure that occurs within it. In general, it was verified that the possible climate changes would bring a decrease in the resilience of the system, since it was found a greater need to import water from the River Basin Jaguaribe for the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza, when comparing the emissions scenarios (20C3M and A1B) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It is suggested, therefore, the management of resilience through adaptive governance.

<p> Direct policy search (DPS) has been shown to be an efficient method for identifying optimal rules (i.e., policies) for adapting a system in response to changing conditions. This dissertation describes three major advances in the usage of DPS for long-range infrastructure planning, using a specific application domain of flood risk management. We first introduce a new adaptive way to incorporate learning into DPS. The standard approach identifies policies by optimizing their average performance over a large ensemble of future states of the world (SOW). Our approach exploits information gained over time, regarding what kind of SOW is being experienced, to further improve performance via adaptive meta-policies defining how control of the system should switch between policies identified by a standard DPS approach (but trained on different SOWs). We outline the general method and illustrate it using a case study of optimal dike heightening extending the work of Garner and Keller (2018). The meta-policies identified by the adaptive algorithm show Pareto-dominance in two objectives over the standard DPS, with an overall 68% improvement in hypervolume. We also see the improved performance over three grouped SOWs based on future extreme water levels, with the hypervolume improvements of 90%, 46%, and 35% for low, medium, and high water level SOWs respectively. Additionally, we evaluate the degree of improvement achieved by different ways of implementing the algorithm (i.e., different hyperparameter values). This provides guidance for decision makers with different degrees of risk aversion, and computational budgets. </p> <p>Due to simplifying assumptions and limitations of the adaptive DPS model used in the chapter, such as uniform levee design heights, the Surge and Waves Model for Protection Systems (SWaMPS) is presented as a more realistic application of the DPS framework. SWaMPS is a process-based model of surge-based flood risk. This chapter marks the first implementation of DPS using a realistic process-based risk model. The physical process of storm surge and rainfall is simulated independently over multiple reaches, and different frequencies are explored to manage the production system in SWaMPS. The performance of the DPS algorithm is evaluated versus a static intertemporal optimization.</p> <p>The computational burden of evaluating the large ensemble of SOWs to include possible future events in DPS motivates us to apply scenario reduction methods to select representative scenarios that more efficiently span an uncertain parameter space. This allows us to reduce the runtime of the optimization process. We explore a range of data-mining tools, including principal component analysis (PCA) and clustering to reduce the scenarios. We compare the computational efficiency and quality of policies to this optimization problem with reduced ensembles of SOWs.</p>

My master's project is updating the Conservation Plan for the Bishop Peak Natural Reserve (BPNR) in San Luis Obispo, California. It is a professional project for the City of San Luis Obispo, supported by City policy that requires continued management of its open space network through management plans unique to each property. As one of the city's most visited open spaces and one of its most visible natural landmarks, the Bishop Peak Natural Reserve is in need of continued management and oversight. While much of the work in developing the plan focused on identifying issues and developing responsive policy, this background report takes a step back, focusing on the underlying principles and municipal policies which direct those efforts. This paper serves as a background report for the planning process including an overview of methodology and policy development. One of the primary goals set forth in the BPNR update process is to improve of management capacity and increase the potential for successful implementation. To accomplish this, the reports shows how aspects of an Adaptive Management approach can be integrated into plan review and development. This background report is intended to complement the plan itself and therefore issues not covered within this report are covered within the plan.

Adaptive management is an approach to problem solving that acknowledges uncertainty. Adaptive management involves a systematic and rigorous process of learning from the outcomes of management actions, accommodating change and improving management. Plans, policies or management strategies influenced by new information and learning, are modified. This study examines the implementation of adaptive management for endangered and threatened species covered in Habitat Conservation Plans (HCP). Introduced in 1982 as an amendment to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), Habitat Conservation Plans are negotiated agreements that mitigate the incidental "take" (killing, harming) of endangered and threatened species during a development or resource extraction project. However, scholars found the scientific basis of approved HCPs to be inadequate and the efficacy of prescribed mitigation measures untested implying the need for adaptive management during implementation. This case study evaluation investigates HCP landowner compliance and progress within the parameters of the federal 1994 "No Surprises" policy. That policy limits landowner liability and responsibility for additional conservation action due to failed mitigation measures during HCP implementation. "No Surprises" assumes we can predict all the consequences of implementing a HCP. The policy seems to work against the objectives of adaptive management to improve scientific knowledge and modify action. The cases include the Central Cascades HCP implemented in the Central Cascades of Washington and the Orange Central Coastal County HCP implemented within a nature reserve in Orange County, California. The study assesses the strengths and weaknesses of adaptive management implementation for protecting endangered species and their habitat, and 2) recommends mid-course corrections for improving adaptive management before HCP maturity. / Ph. D.

On se propose d'étudier l'hydrosystème Vaccarès, partie centrale du delta du Rhône, parfait exemple d'interrelations fortes entre l'homme et le milieu naturel. L'approche s'est déroulée en trois parties. L'acquisition et le traitement de données hydrologiques nous ont permis de caractériser la dynamique hydro-saline de ce système complexe. A partir d'une analyse plus approfondie nous avons établi les bilans hydro-salins et sédimentaires à l'échelle du complexe lagunaire. Grâce à un suivi de 18 années, les bilans sédimentaires dévoilent un déficit sédimentaire de 19 500 tonnes quand on ne prend pas en compte les apports exceptionnels des eaux d'inondation en 1993 et 1994. Un tel déficit, s'il perdure, ne fera qu'aggraver le différentiel d'altitude entre la mer et le delta, entrainant par la force des choses une salinisation du système non désirée par la plupart de ses acteurs. Dans un deuxième temps, nous avons procédé à l'implémentation et à la validation du modèle hydrodynamique du complexe lagunaire du Vaccarès. Son utilisation s'est tournée vers une complémentarité avec le modèle conceptuel de l'Hydrosystème Vaccarès. Ce dernier, baptisé Hydro-CAM, après avoir bénéficié d'une phase de calage et validation, a été exploité afin de tester la dynamique du système dans une démarche prospective. L'objectif ici, qui constitue le troisième temps de ces travaux de thèse, a été d'explorer par simulation les trajectoires possibles d'évolution de l'hydrosystème en termes de bilan d'eau et de sel, et ce d'après des scénarios construits sur les paramètres hydro-climatiques (changement climatique, augmentation du niveau marin) et anthropiques / The studied site is the Vaccarès hydrosystem, the central part of the Rhône delta and a good example of strong relationship between humans and a natural area. Through the data acquisition and data processing, we characterised the hydro-saline dynamic of this complex hydrosystem from 1993 to 2008. From a further analysis, we established first the hydro-saline and sedimentary balance across the lagoon complex. Through a monitoring of 16 years, the sedimentary balance revealed a sediment deficit of about 19'500 tons when we disregard the outstanding contributions of flooding waters in 1993 and 1994. If this deficit persists, the difference in altitude between the sea and the delta will tend to increase. This will result by a salinization of the system, unwanted by the most of his actors. To investigate these consequences, we conceived a hydrodynamic model of the Vaccarès lagoon complex, capable to simulate water levels and salinities. The model, named Hydro-CAM, was calibrated and validated in terms of water levels and salinities in three sub-units of the lagoon complex. It was then used to test the system dynamics in a prospective approach. The objective in this thesis work was to explore by simulation the possible trajectories of the evolution of the Hydrosystem in terms of water and salt balance. Simulations were based on scenarii constructed from climate parameters and anthropogenic parameters (water management, constructions, land use on drainage basins, etc.). The results revealed the vulnerability of this complex system to various risks which it is already facing and for which the intensification and/or increase can be expected in the future

O noroeste de São Paulo, transição entre a Floresta Atlântica e o Cerrado, é uma das regiões mais fragmentadas do estado. Investigando a regeneração natural de remanescentes florestais é possível compreender como a diversidade de espécies e os processos ecológicos são mantidos nessas paisagens agrícolas muito fragmentadas, gerando subsídios para ações de conservação e restauração. Nesse sentido, as perguntas norteadoras deste estudo foram: 1) o conhecimento do componente regenerante de remanescentes florestais inseridos em matrizes agrícolas muito fragmentadas permite avaliar a perpetuação dos mesmos ao longo do tempo? 2) quais fatores, de qualidade de hábitat ou de estrutura da paisagem, exercem maior influência sobre composição, densidade e riqueza de espécies no componente regenerante desses remanescentes florestais? Para isso, foi comparada a riqueza, diversidade e composição de espécies entre o componente regenerante (altura >1,0 m e DAS< 5 cm) e arbóreo (DAS> 5 cm) de 18 fragmentos de florestas nativas do noroeste de São Paulo. Em seguida, foi analisada a relação entre a qualidade do hábitat (soma de bases do solo, teor de argila do solo e frequência de incêndio) e estrutura da paisagem (conectividade, isolamento e tamanho total do fragmento) com os valores descritivos do componente regenerante. Foram registrados no componente regenerante 5.989 indivíduos e 207 espécies, o que equivale a uma média de 4968±3584 ind.ha-1 e 33±14 espécies por fragmento. As famílias mais ricas foram Fabaceae (28 espécies), Myrtaceae (25), Rubiaceae (21) e os gêneros foram Eugenia (12), Ocotea (6), Campomanesia (5) e Psychotria (5). Comparado ao componente arbóreo, o componente regenerante apresentou significativamente menor riqueza e diversidade &alpha;, pois 71% das espécies do componente arbóreo não foram registradas na regeneração natural. Porém, ambos componentes apresentaram composição florística significativamente correlacionada. Com relação à diversidade &beta;, em média, o componente regenerante apresentou valor significativamente maior entre os fragmentos. A qualidade de habitat foi mais importante para explicar a estrutura e riqueza da comunidade regenerante. Frequência de incêndio contribuiu negativamente para a densidade total comunidade e de indivíduos zoocóricos, clímaces de sub-bosque e de dossel, assim como para a riqueza de espécies zoocóricas, pioneiras e colonizadoras. A riqueza de especialistas de florestas apresentou relação positiva com a soma de bases enquanto para a riqueza e densidade de generalistas a relação foi negativa. Soma de bases e teor de argila no solo foram as variáveis mais relacionadas com a composição florística da comunidade regenerante. Dentre as variáveis de paisagem, conectividade relacionou-se negativamente com a densidade de espécies generalistas enquanto área do fragmento apresentou relação positiva com a densidade de zoocóricas com propágulos de tamanho médio. Portanto, a regeneração natural representou um subconjunto de espécies do componente arbóreo com menor diversidade, riqueza e número de espécies compartilhadas entre os fragmentos e por isso seriam necessárias ações de manejo adaptativo para garantir a perpetuação dos remanescentes florestais nessas paisagens muito fragmentadas. Frequência de incêndios foi o principal fator comprometedor da perpetuação da biodiversidade e a importância do gradiente edáfico para composição de espécies dos remanescentes florestais da região foi confirmada. / The northwestern São Paulo, a transition area between the Atlantic Forest and Cerrado, is one of the most fragmented region of the state. Investigating the sapling community of forest communities would be possible understanding how species diversity and ecological processes are maintained in this kind of landscape and therefore it would help creating subsides for forest restoration. For this reason, the questions of this research were: 1) Does the survey of sapling community of forest remnants in highly fragmented agricultural landscape allows assessing their self-perpetuating capacity? 2) Which factors of habitat quality or landscape structure exerts greater influence on the species composition, density and species-richness of the sapling community of these forest remnants? Thus, it was assessed the sapling community (height >one, 0 m and DSH< 5,0 cm) density and compared the observed and the relative species-richness of functional groups, &alpha; and &beta; diversity and species composition to the tree community (DSH> 5,0 cm) in the same forest remnant. After that, was assessed the influence of habitat quality (soil sum of bases, soil clay content, fire frequency) and landscape structure (functional connectivity, isolation and total size of these forest remnants) on the descriptive values of sapling communities. Overall, the sapling community showed 5.989 individuals and 207 species that represent on average 4968±3584 ind.ha-1 and 33±14 species for forest fragments. The botanic families with higher species-richness were Fabaceae (28 species), Myrtaceae (25), Rubiaceae (21) and genera were Eugenia (12), Ocotea (6), Campomanesia (5) e Psychotria (5).Compared to the tree community, the sapling community had significantly smaller species-richness (observed and estimated) and &alpha; diversity, because 71 % of species from the tree community did not occur in sapling community. However, both communities had species composition significantly correlated, the sapling communities showed significantly higher &beta; diversity than trees communities. The habitat quality were more important to explain the density, species-richness and species composition of the sapling communities. Fire frequency contributed negatively to species-richness of zoochorous species, pioneer species and colonizers group (species found only at sapling community) and to the sapling density of zoochorous species, shade-tolerant canopy species and shade-tolerant understory species. The species-richness of forest-specialist species was positively related to the soil sum of bases but to the sapling density and species-richness of generalist species was found the opposite relation. Similarly, sum of base and clay content were the variables most related to the species composition of sapling community. Functional connectivity and the total area of the forests fragments explained only the density of generalist and zoochorous medium-seeded species, but with relatively smaller importance than the habitat quality variables. Thus, the sapling community of these forest remnants represented a subset of the tree community but with significant smaller diversity, species richness and number of common species among fragments and then adaptive management efforts is needed to assist long-term biodiversity persistence in forests fragments in highly fragmented agricultural landscape. Frequent fires was the main factor affecting negatively the biodiversity perpetuation and the importance of an edaphic gradient to species composition of forests remnants in the region was validated.

Africa’s quest for economic development will require the increased availability and use of its abundant energy resources. Nevertheless, most of its rural population remains without access to modern energy services and urban residents typically only enjoy an intermittent supply of electricity. The dominant approach to energy planning in West Africa is top-down and centralized, emphasizing electricity generation from large dams or fossil-fueled plants and subsequent grid extension to reach more customers. However, an alternative and complementary paradigm is that of decentralized or Distributed Generation (DG), which stresses small-scale, on-site generation of power and offers a bottom-up approach to energy development. The goal of this dissertation project is to assess the various options for regional electrification and integration through a holistic analysis of the set of existing technologies and policies for deploying them. The main organ of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) for regional electricity planning is the West African Power Pool (WAPP) and its primary policy document, the “Master Plan”, addresses regional power supply shortage through centralized planning. Both the WAPP policy documents and the majority of the country-level planning documents are considered to be based on a traditional, empiricist, policy analysis that appears to provide value-neutral solutions and generalizations. In contrast, the analysis provided in this project situates itself within the post-positivistic, deliberative and more contextual approach to policy analysis in order to compare the centralized approach to generation with a distributed approach, which is currently marginal in the region. It uses the Adaptive Management (AM) framework for this analysis, particularly because of the way it deals with ecological resilience in the face of widespread uncertainty. The main policy issue that this project seeks to address is the need for an integrated energy-environment planning process, which is currently lacking in West Africa, so as to achieve long term sustainability. Adaptive management offers policy makers a holistic lens with which to view energy policy, but there are very few examples of institutions that have attempted to implement it in practice anywhere in the world. These instances, however, represent a valuable historical reference point for future policy research and management efforts that seek to explore this approach. In alignment with that objective, this dissertation first provides an overview of the concept of adaptive management in general, and its application to energy problems in particular. Secondly, the research project undertakes a policy analysis of the ECOWAS strategy for electrification, based on a stakeholder analysis, a review of life cycle assessments of existing energy technologies, the expected outcomes of the electricity sector, and a set of traditional criteria for evaluating public policies. In order to further examine the question of electricity access, it carries out a quantitative analysis of the electricity demand and supply in the region. It uses a modeling approach that is based on the logic of AM to determine whether or not the energy requirements for broad based electrification can be met through distributed renewable power, which is currently a negligible component of the generation resource portfolio in West Africa. The dissertation proceeds to carry out a retrospective analysis of three cases in the U.S. where elements of AM have already been applied to energy planning in order to investigate some of the critical determinants for its successful implementation to date. This assessment then informs a prospective analysis of three West African cases that have ideal characteristics for experimentation with AM to determine to what extent similar concepts have been used, or may be employed in the future. The AM framework also calls for the consideration of local values, which should be open to revision in the face of real situations. To this end, the prospective analysis includes three additional place-sensitive criteria, so as to ensure that the framework remains viable in a different socio-political context. The AM analyses are then extended to include a discussion of learning and innovation in clean energy technologies, drawing from the Chinese, Danish and South African experiences. The results suggest that a strong and consistent political will that is in alignment with an explicit social policy is needed to initiate and implement broad-based electrification plans, but that stakeholder participation is critical to their success. In addition, the adoption of multiple instruments and the selection of a diverse range of energy resources were found to be more effective than an overreliance on a single dominant scheme so as to allow room for policy learning. Furthermore, the results confirm that a holistic approach to managing ecosystems associated with electric power production is a fruitful way to integrate ecological considerations with social and economic factors throughout the development of a project. This type of systemic methodology should also include the building of technological capability and the development of innovation capacity in order to address the unique socio-economic context and the rapidly-changing climatic conditions in West Africa. Finally, the articulation of a planning philosophy that engages the values and sensibilities of the people in a particular place, and that is rooted in them, was found to be a critical factor for increasing the level of public participation in management activities in order to achieve more equitable and democratic outcomes.