Management Need 3

Management Need 3: Expand multi-benefit approaches to managing the Delta as a social-ecological system.

Science Actions

  1. Conduct studies to inform restoration and approaches to protecting human communities that are resilient to interannual hydrologic variation and climate change impacts.
  2. Develop integrated frameworks, data visualization tools, and models of the Delta social-ecological system that evaluate the distribution of environmental benefits and burdens of management actions alongside anticipated climate change impacts.
  3. Identify how ecosystem restoration projects, in comparison to existing water management strategies, benefit and burden human communities, with an emphasis on environmental justice.
  4. Test and monitor the ability of tidal, nontidal, and managed wetlands and inundated floodplains to achieve multiple benefits over a range of spatial scales, including potential management costs, tradeoffs, and unintended consequences.
  5. Synthesize existing knowledge and conduct applied, interdisciplinary research to evaluate the costs and benefits of different strategies for minimizing the introduction and spread of invasive species, and to inform early detection and rapid response strategies.