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Show For a given alternative development plan a set of research needs and priorities can be identified. The research needs and priorities are not necessarily the same for different alternative development plans. A plan to enhance the waterfowl use of the bay by controlling the water level would require research on the hydrologic system. Similarly, a plan to enhance recreational uses would require research in the water quality area. A management policy is imposed upon the physical system in order to produce a particular set of conditions. While such conditions might be desirable in terms of a particular social use, the same conditions might represent disadvantages to other social uses. The ability of a management plan to produce a given set of conditions and the ability to predict the impact these conditions will have on other social uses creates the need for research on both the physical and social use systems. For this reason, a predictive ability for the physical system must be developed so that future hydrologic, biotic, and water quality trends can be forecast under either present or altered physical conditions. Research on the social use systems at this stage would involve establishing how the use of the system would vary with changing system characteristics. An example would be developing the relationship between power boat use on the bay and the water depth, salinity, algae concentration, and level of noxious odors. The research needs and priorities at this stage are dependent on the alternative plans proposed and the methods suggested to achieve the goals of the alternative plans. All the plans require the development of a predictive ability to assess how proposed alterations of the system effect the physical system characteristics and thus impact on the social uses. Figure 7 illustrates how the development of the predictive ability draws on the baseline information while identifying additional research needs. As indicated in the figure, an alternative plan may create the need for additional basic research or specific research necessary in the development of a predictive ability for the physical system. The complexity of the predictive ability necessary to evaluate the impact of alternative plans depends on both the complexity of the plan and the potential impacts on the system. The final management plan is selected by means of some form of optimizing process which involves evaluating the trade offs between proposed uses under alternative development plans. The final plan is usually selected because it provides the optimal resource use from the system. For this reason, the decisionmaker should not be hasty in selecting an alternative plan just to identify research priorities and get the needed research underway. Rather, he should proceed' with a set of alternative plans with often varied research needs and priorities while initiating the necessary research so that the final plan represents a mix of feasible uses which maximize the use benefits to society. |
