Integrating scientific knowledge into large-scale restoration programs: the CALFED Bay-Delta Program experience

Environmental Science and Policy
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Abstract

Integrating science into resource management activities is a goal of the CALFED Bay-Delta Program, a multi-agency effort to address water supply reliability, ecological condition, drinking water quality, and levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta of northern California. Under CALFED, many different strategies were used to integrate science, including interaction between the research and management communities, public dialogues about scientific work, and peer review. This paper explores ways science was (and was not) integrated into CALFED's management actions and decision systems through three narratives describing different patterns of scientific integration and application in CALFED. Though a collaborative process and certain organizational conditions may be necessary for developing new understandings of the system of interest, we find that those factors are not sufficient for translating that knowledge into management actions and decision systems. We suggest that the application of knowledge may be facilitated or hindered by (1) differences in the objectives, approaches, and cultures of scientists operating in the research community and those operating in the management community and (2) other factors external to the collaborative process and organization.
Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title Integrating scientific knowledge into large-scale restoration programs: the CALFED Bay-Delta Program experience
Series title Environmental Science and Policy
DOI 10.1016/j.envsci.2009.07.001
Volume 12
Issue 6
Year Published 2009
Language English
Publisher Elsevier
Contributing office(s) California Water Science Center
Description 10 p.
First page 674
Last page 683
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