Methodologies
Adaptive Management
(Urbanwater.info)
Adaptive management involves analysing socio-economic ecological systems, drawing on current science, managerial experience, and stakeholder experience to test what policy directions are sound and unsound. In the process it brings into focus uncertainties that have clear managerial significance, so it is often used to define research agendas. Management itself is understood as a learning process, so 'management experiments' often flow from adaptive management projects.
Rapid Urban Environmental Assessment (UNEP)
This is a methodology developed by the United Nations to rapidly assess the amount and quality of environmental data for an urban catchment. One of the key outcomes is generating an understanding of the weaknesses in existing information on the area.
Research Agendas
Watershed Research in the U.S. Geological Survey (e-book)
"Conclusion. The ingredients of an effective watershed research effort within the USGS are (1) a data collection program for a hierarchy of basins of various sizes; (2) several intensively studied, small experimental watersheds that are run to support efforts in major program areas by providing quantitative information on processes; and (3) an active modeling program to bring process understanding to the interpretation of monitoring results and to allow extrapolation of small-watershed results to larger basins. To be effective, all of the ingredients must be integrated within a coordinated overall effort."
Confronting the Nation's Water Problems: The Role of Research (USA) (e-book)
Envisioning the Agenda for Water Resources Research in the Twenty-First Century (USA) (e-book)
Integrated catchment management rediscovered: an essential tool for a new millennium
Explores ICM as a framework for research (although also of course with an eye to management).
Partnerships between researchers and environmental managers
A good article reflecting on the need for partnerships between scientists and environmental managers and how to use such a relationship to pursue common goals while recognising that the motivations of each group are different (Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities - University of Sydney)
Pacific Northwest Ecosystem Research Consortium
A useful outline of a research agenda in ecosystem management.
Regional Vulnerability Assessment Program (US EPA)
A US EPA research agenda re assessing the ecological and socio-economic condition of places.
A Century of Ecosystem Science: Planning Long-Term Research in the Gulf of Alaska (e-book)
Grand Challenges in Environmental Sciences (e-book)
