About

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About

Fish and wildlife management involves making difficult decisions concerning natural resource problems. Familiar natural resource problems may include decisions on how many acres of land must be protected, how an endangered species should be reintroduced, whether an agency should conduct more monitoring of an invasive species, etc. The field of decision analysis offers tools such as Structured Decision Making (SDM) to help frame, structure, and identify solutions for such problems. Various Federal and State fish and wildlife agencies are increasingly using SDM to ensure a streamlined, fair, unbiased, and organized decision-making process.

This workshop will provide an introduction to SDM and its key components (PrOACT): Problem framing- describing the natural resource management problem; articulating Objectives; developing management Alternatives; using forecasting tools to evaluate the Consequences, or outcomes, of alternatives, and using Tradeoff methods to identify management alternatives when decisions involve multiple competing objectives.

Throughout the workshop the instructors will provide real world case study examples and offer opportunities for participatory discussion. The workshop will involve a hands-on protype experience of a SDM process.

Modules

There will be 7 modules in the workshop following the PrOACT process

  1. Introduction: Motivation for Structured Decision Making -pdf file
  2. Problem Framing -pdf file
  3. Objectives -pdf file
  4. Alternatives -pdf file
  5. Consequences -pdf file
  6. Tradeoffs -pdf file
  7. Conclusion -pdf file

Case study

In each module, we will practice the PrOACT process of Structured Decision Making by following a real life case study Runge et al. 2011

The real life example follows a SDM process to manage nonnative trout below the Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona.

Here is a brief description of the case study.

Resources

References

The material for this workshop has been modified from: - Runge MC, Cochrane JF, Converse SJ, Szymanski JA, Smith DR, Lyons JE, Eaton MJ, Matz A, Barrett P, Nichols JD, Parkin MJ. 2015. An overview of structured decision making, revised edition. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Conservation Training Center, Shepherdstown, West Virginia, USA. - Runge MC, Converse SJ, Sells SN, Thompson BK, and Isham AF. 2023. Workshop: Fundamentals of Structured Decision Making. The Wildlife Society Annual Conference, November 5, 2023. Louisville, Kentucky. - An Overview of Structured Decision-Making for Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife 2022 & 2023