GOVERNANCE AND ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT FOR ESTUARINE ECOSYSTEMS - THE CASE OF CHESAPEAKE BAY

This article analyzes the governance system of the Chesapeake Bay Prog ram in order to examine the hypothesis that it operates according to a daptive management principles. After a discussion of adaptive manageme nt and implementation, we analyze the development of the program from its inception in 1976 until the present day. We argue that adaptive ma nagement in the program came about via a dynamic relationship between science and governance that evolved through three phases over 16 years . During this time, the Chesapeake Bay Program developed a learning, a daptive capacity whereby program elements and institutional structures underwent significant changes in light of new information. This appro ach encouraged the evolution of the program from one that initially ad dressed a limited number of issues using a rudimentary management stru cture to the current program, which uses a sophisticated set of baywid e indicators of ecosystem health and is governed by an institutional s tructure that coordinates management activities across federal, state, and local governments around the bay in order to implement 29 specifi c programs in six major policy areas. The article concludes with an ov erall assessment of the Chesapeake Program that identifies its major s trengths and weaknesses. Among the latter are the overall cost of the program, particularly initial investments in characterization and late r expenditures on a bay model, and the lateness of evaluative efforts. Finally, we note the difficulty of operationalizing the concept of ec osystem management and the necessity of relying on surrogates to evalu ate progress in ecosystem restoration and protection.