Kootenai Tribe of Idaho: Kootenai Subbasin Adaptive Management Plan

KOOTENAI TRIBE OF IDAHO: KOOTENAI SUBBASIN ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PLAN
February 2012 Working Draft

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KOOTENAI TRIBE OF IDAHO: KOOTENAI SUBBASIN ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PLAN

Working Drafat - February 2012

Executive Summary

The purpose of this plan is to provide a framework to guide management of the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho’s (Tribe’s) Fish and Wildlife Program projects in a coordinated fashion as they converge on an integrated set of management actions that support several common ecosystem restoration goals for the Kootenai subbasin relating to food web, connectivity, habitat, biological populations, and physical and chemical processes.

During the last century, the Kootenai subbasin has been modified by agriculture, flood control and impoundment in the form of Lake Koocanusa formed by Libby Dam and the Cora Linn dam on Kootenay Lake in British Columbia. Changes in land use such as conversion of more than 50,000 acres of floodplain to agricultural fields has resulted in loss of riparian and wetland plant and animal species, and related functions that normally support a healthy ecosystem. Resource management, such as forestry practices, has additionally altered the landscape. Constructed levees were built on top of natural sand levees for flood control, limiting the hydrologic connection between the Kootenai River and its floodplain. Libby Dam became operational in 1972 effectively reducing annual peak flows by half and limiting the natural flood pulse disturbances that provided energy to drive ecosystem processes, and cutting off sediment and nutrient inputs from the upper watershed. Libby Dam operations have altered natural temperature regimes, although recent flow management activities have helped mitigate these impacts to some extent. In addition, operational changes in the last decade (e.g., winter peaking) have altered conditions for aquatic species by limiting available habitat in the varial zone, and may have limited the ability of native plants to recruit on floodplains.

Project Context

The Tribe has been implementing adaptive management in the Kootenai subbasin for several years through the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program. The Fish and Wildlife Program hosts several projects, each working to restore fish and wildlife populations and their habitats. Several of these projects have evolved over the past 22 years beginning with the Kootenai River Native Fish Conservation Aquaculture Program in 1989. The Tribe’s projects have been researching and gather data related to the state of the Kootenai River ecosystem in order to understand the system limitations and use the best science possible to implement habitat restoration actions.

This Adaptive Management Plan includes five overarching goals that encompass all of the Tribe’s projects and are consistent with broader-scale initiatives such as the Kootenai Subbasin Plan and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council Fish and Wildlife Program. The five goals are:

Protect, restore, and maintain:

• Food web – As an oligotrophic (low nutrient) and fragmented ecosystem, the Kootenai River and its higher order organisms are likely impacted by a lack of food web support.
• Ecological connectivity within Kootenai River system – This includes reconnecting tributaries to the mainstem Kootenai River as well as connecting the mainstem Kootenai River to riparian areas, floodplains, and terrestrial habitats. This connection is important for nutrient exchange and will increase available habitat diversity and quantity for fish and wildlife.
• Suitable, self-sustaining or mitigative aquatic and terrestrial habitat for fish and wildlife – Habitat is the ecosystem component that can be most directly affected by management actions such as active restoration projects.
• Biological populations ­- Some species in the Kootenai River are either functionally extinct or on the verge of functional extinction. Restoring these populations, and populations of other species they depend on, is important both ecologically and culturally.
• River physical and chemical processes, and their inherent natural range of variability – Anthropogenic activities have affected the physical and chemical processes in the ecosystem, and understanding these changes is necessary to support management actions that will address them.

Adaptive Management Framework

The framework developed to guide management of the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program projects is an adaptive management plan that systematically evaluates potential alternative actions and outcomes using current information and experience to select the most appropriate and effective response to a defined problem.

The five key attributes of adaptive management within this framework include:

• Defining the problem by incorporating information from existing reports and research and information from ongoing programs;
• Defining overarching goals and objectives that are emphasized and supported by existing documents and ongoing programs and projects;
• Identifying restoration and management actions embodied within ongoing programs and projects that address the overarching goals and objectives;
• Monitoring and evaluation of these actions to determine progress toward achieving goals and objectives and decrease uncertainty related to understanding the ecosystem; and
• Updating actions, goals and objectives, and the conceptual model of the ecosystem as appropriate based on feedback from monitoring and evaluation activities.

Additionally, the adaptive management plan is a framework that links goals, objectives, actions, and monitoring metrics so that feedback from results of particular actions can provide clear guidance on new or modified management direction. Each of the goals listed above is characterized and quantified by an objective that is more specifically defined by one or more metrics and their quantitative thresholds. To achieve the desired thresholds, restoration actions are implemented and monitored by one or more of the Tribe’s projects. The Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program projects include:

• Kootenai River Native Fish Conservation Aquaculture Program (BPA project 1988-064-00)
• Albeni Falls Wildlife Mitigation Project (BPA Project 1992-061-03)
• Kootenai River Ecosystem Restoration (BPA Project 1994-049-00)
• Lower Kootenai Model Watershed Restoration
• Kootenai River Floodplain Ecosystem Operational Loss Assessment, Protection, Mitigation and Rehabilitation Project (BPA Project 200201100)
• Reconnect Kootenai River with the Historical Floodplain Project (BPA Project 200200800)
• Kootenai River Habitat Restoration Project (BPA Project 2002-002-00)

Plan Location and Scope

The geographic scope of this adaptive management plan includes the entire Kootenai subbasin as measured from ridge top to ridge top. Nearly two-thirds of the Kootenai River’s 485-mile-long channel and almost 70 percent of its watershed area is located within the province of British Columbia. The Montana portion of the subbasin makes up approximately 23 percent of the watershed, while the Idaho portion is approximately 6.5 percent (KTOI and MFWP 2004).

Because this adaptive management plan is designed to support the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program projects, and because the Tribe has no authority to manage other agencies’ projects or programs, the administrative scope of this plan is limited to the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife program projects. However, in recognition of the size and geographic extent of the Kootenai subbasin, and cooperative efforts to manage fish and wildlife resources, data and analysis developed by other agencies will also be used to where possible provide critical supplementary information in support of this adaptive management plan.

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KOOTENAI TRIBE OF IDAHO: KOOTENAI SUBBASIN ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PLAN

Working Drafat - February 2012

Contents

1Introduction

1.1Document Organization

1.2Working Definition of Adaptive Management

1.3Adaptive Management Plan Scope and Context

2Kootenai Subbasin Problem Definition and the Tribe’s Response

2.1Kootenai Tribe of Idaho’s Fish and Wildlife Program and Projects

3Kootenai Subbasin Adaptive Management Goals

4Monitoring and Evaluation

5Updating based on Feedback

5.1Mechanics or Administration Structure

5.2Trends, Triggers, and Monitoring Data Interpretation

5.3Information Management and Data Analysis

6Conclusion and Next Steps

Bibliography

Appendix A. NPCC Fish and Wildlife Program and Kootenai River Subbasin Plan Objectives—Connection to the Five Adaptive Management Plan Goals

Appendix B. Kootenai River Subbasin Plan Objectives and Hypotheses

Appendix C. Summary of Ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation Efforts in Kootenai Subbasin

Appendix D. Adaptive Management—Situations to Avoid

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KOOTENAI TRIBE OF IDAHO: KOOTENAI SUBBASIN ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT PLAN

Working Drafat - February 2012

1Introduction

This document describes the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho’s (Tribe) Kootenai Subbasin Adaptive Management Plan (AMP). This AMP links each of the projects within the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program via a subbasin scale framework in order to better understand and adaptively manage how those projects collectively contribute to ecosystem restoration in the Kootenai subbasin. This document was developed by the Kootenai Tribe and is intended to be a living document that will be refined and updated overtime as new information becomes available, as results of previous restoration actions are realized, and as the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program continues to mature.

This AMP provides a framework to formally integrate the Tribe’s various programs and projects. It is not intended to replace or supersede the specific, detailed monitoring and evaluation or adaptive management componentsof the individual projects that make up the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program. While implementation of this AMP may yield information that results in recommendations to modify individual project goals, objectives, or actions, those specific decisions would ultimately be made at the project level. This AMP is designed to support efficient and effective investigation, integration, and coordination of the Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program so that over time the Fish and Wildlife Program’s component projectscan be refined or modified (changed, eliminated or new projects added)in support of the Tribe’s vision of:

The Kootenai River and its floodplain as a healthy ecosystem with clean, connected terrestrial and aquatic habitats, which fully support traditional Tribal uses and other important societal uses.

This AMP is also designed to be consistent with the core principles of the Kootenai Tribe’s Fish and Wildlife Program. Namely, that the approach to ecosystem restoration must be: 1) holistic, science-based, collaborative, consistent with tribal and cultural values;2) inclusive of social and economic values; and 3) adaptively managed.

Therefore, the purpose of this plan is to provide a framework to guide management of the Tribe's Fish and Wildlife Program in an increasingly coordinated fashion as they converge on an integrated set of management actions that support several common ecosystem restoration goals relating to food web, connectivity, habitat, biological populations, and physical and chemical processes. These goals, how they link to other Columbia Basin initiatives, and how they are supported by the Tribe’s current projects, are described in later sections of this document.

1.1Document Organization

This document is organized as follows:

• Section 1 states the purpose of the Adaptive Management Plan, describes the history, development, and purpose of the plan; describes the geographical and administrative scope of the plan; and provides an overview of the goals that guide the actions encompassed in the plan.
• Section 2reviews the history of the Kootenai subbasin ecosystem and the working hypothesis from the Kootenai River Subbasin Plan(KTOI and MFWP 2004) that encompass anthropogenic influences on the Kootenai subbasin,and the Kootenai Tribe’s projects that have years of data and experience describing the ecosystem problems within the Kootenai subbasin.
• Section 3 describes five goals common to all the Tribe’s programs and how the Tribe has been addressing these goals for several years, and will continue to address the goals in a more integrated mannerwith restoration and management actions.
• Section 4describes the metrics that will be used to determine whether the fiveAdaptive Management Plangoals are being achieved.
• Section 5 describes the updating or feedback and decision-making process framework based on collected data and new information.
• Section 6 summarizes the main elements of this Adaptive Management Plan and provides a foundation for future steps.
• Appendix Ais a table linking the Kootenai River Subbasin Plan Objectives and the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) Fish and Wildlife Program Basin-level Biological Objectives to the five AMP goals of this document.
• Appendix Bis a list of all the Kootenai River Subbasin Plan Objectives and Working Hypotheses.
• Appendix Cis the most recent summary of ongoing monitoring and evaluation efforts in the Kootenai subbasin.
• Appendix Ddescribes risks related to adaptive management, and identifies how the Tribe will address these risks.

1.2Working Definition of Adaptive Management

Adaptive management has been defined as: learning by doing (Walters and Holling 1990) or experimenting (Marmorek et al. 2006); considering and evaluating several alternative actions (Murray and Marmorek 2003); experimentation with a feedback loop (Aldridge et al. 2004; Atkinson et al. 2004); or a way of making decisions and moving forward when faced with uncertainties(Moir 2001). A more elaborate definition describes adaptive management as “managing according to a plan by which decisions are made and modified as a function of what is known and learned about the system, including information about the effect of previous management actions”(Parma 1998).

With such a wide assortment of adaptive management descriptions, some authors have pointed out that there is no one established definition (Bormann et al. 1999; Doremus 2001; Morghan et al. 2006). The definition varies depending on the context of its use and application, such as differences in management goals, available information, funding, and programmatic resources (Doremus 2001). Additionally, adaptive management is not only a management methodology, but it is also a way of thinking and an attitude. “[I]t is a bold approach to management, which requires creativity, curiosity and a long term commitment to structured learning” (Murray and Marmorek 2003). With the understanding of adaptive management as a way of thinking, it is important to recognize it is not one step in a multistep process, but rather, it is incorporated into almost every step and aspect of a project.

Adaptive management plans can be differentiated as either active or passive. Active adaptive management is an empirical approach which experimentally applies select management actions at a small-scale prior to applying an action at the project-scale in order to determine which actions best achieve the objective(s) of the project (PRRIP 2006; Walters and Holling 1990). Passive adaptive management involves the conscious and mindful application of one well-evaluated action at the project-scale with the flexibility for modifications (Doremus 2001). Passive adaptive management uses literature and experiences from previous studies within or near the general geographic extent of the project area to select a management action to apply at the project-scale.

Guiding documentsused to develop this AMP, listed below,describe adaptive management as it is being used in the context of the larger Columbia River Basin as well as for other projects within the Kootenai subbasin.

The Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NPCC) Fish and Wildlife Program defines adaptive management as “the use of management experiments to investigate biological problems and to test the efficacy of management programs” (NPCC 2009).

The Columbia River Basin Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Reporting (MERR) defines adaptive management as “a systematic process for continually improving management policies and practices by learning from the outcomes of operational programs. Its most effective form–"active" adaptive management–employs management programs that are designed to experimentally compare selected policies or practices, by evaluating alternative hypotheses about the system being managed” (NPCC Fish and Wildlife Division 2010).

The Kootenai RiverSubbasin Plan emphasizes the use of current information and experience to develop dynamic models predicting outcomes of alternative actions which make an effort to mitigate a defined problem. “This modeling step is intended to serve three functions: (1) problem clarification and enhanced communication among scientists, managers, and other stakeholders; (2) policy screening to eliminate options that are most likely incapable of doing much good, because of inadequate scale or type of impact; and (3) identification of key knowledge gaps that make model predictions suspect”(KTOI and MFWP 2004).

The above definitions and descriptions of adaptive management provide the foundation for the definition of adaptive management in the context of thisAMP: ‘A plan that systematically evaluates potential alternative actions and outcomes using current information and experience to select the most appropriate and effective restoration actionfor a defined problem’. Additionally, this planis a framework that links goals, objectives, actions, and monitoring metricsso that feedback from results of particular actions can provide clear guidance on new or modified management direction(s). Within this plan, hypotheses are described in terms of whether a restoration or management action at the program level can successfully address a particular problem identified within the ecosystem (Section 3, Table 2 lists these hypotheses). Specific hypotheses are developed and evaluated within each program.

As part of developing this AMP for the Kootenai subbasin, the Tribe reviewed other adaptive management case studies and literature. In addition, the Tribe also reviewed existing Tribal program adaptive management plans. Five key steps of adaptive management were identified as a result of these reviews (Figure 1) and include:

• Defining the problem by incorporating information from existing reports and research and information from ongoing programs;
• Defining overarching goals and objectives that are emphasized and supported by existing documents and ongoing programs and projects;
• Identifying restoration and management actions embodied within ongoing programs and projects that address the overarching goals and objectives;
• Monitoring and evaluation of these actions to determine progress toward achieving goals and objectives and decrease uncertainty related to understanding the ecosystem; and
• Updating actions, goals and objectives, and the conceptual model of the ecosystem as appropriate based on feedback from monitoring and evaluation activities.

These five steps are incorporated throughout this AMP, and the plan is generally organized by these steps. However, the third step of ‘identifying restoration and management actions’ is not addressed in great detail in this document because many of the restoration and management actions that will be evaluated by this AMP have been developed by ongoing individual projects and many have already been implemented or are in the process of implementation.