A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
To fish or cut bait? A response to comments from Rosenfeld and Ptolemy
Hatfield and Paul (2015) compared predicted performance of six desktop hydrological methods for determining environmental flows and presented three main conclusions: (1) divergent performance among the desktop methods, (2) divergent performance among streams, and (3) a fundamental trade-off between instream and out-of-stream benefits. The results indicated that it is vital for users of these tools to be aware of performance differences when selecting one desktop method over another, but also to be transparent when making water use decisions by clearly stating the environmental and water use objectives and to measure performance against those objectives. Rosenfeld and Ptolemy (2016) provide a critique of the assessment and our response focuses on two key aspects of the critique, selection of performance measures (PMs) and consideration of value-based trade-offs. The PMs we used were developed to compare the desktop methods, not to undertake a stream-specific assessment and were adequate to expose trade-offs and prioritize information needs. We reiterate the need to consider the context of each water use decision and to adjust the PMs for any new context, where necessary; we also emphasize that more refined PMs may not be required to answer a specific resource management problem. With respect to evaluating trade-offs and making decisions, we insist that science cannot produce a 'right answer' to water use or any other resource management problem; decision-makers reviewing a water use application must make value-based judgments about how precautionary to be. Science provides relevant information to the resource management question being considered. A call for better predictive models needs to be carefully evaluated, since we are likely to learn more by monitoring biological outcomes of flow regime changes, and such monitoring work continues to be insufficiently supported in many jurisdictions.
To fish or cut bait? A response to comments from Rosenfeld and Ptolemy
Hatfield and Paul (2015) compared predicted performance of six desktop hydrological methods for determining environmental flows and presented three main conclusions: (1) divergent performance among the desktop methods, (2) divergent performance among streams, and (3) a fundamental trade-off between instream and out-of-stream benefits. The results indicated that it is vital for users of these tools to be aware of performance differences when selecting one desktop method over another, but also to be transparent when making water use decisions by clearly stating the environmental and water use objectives and to measure performance against those objectives. Rosenfeld and Ptolemy (2016) provide a critique of the assessment and our response focuses on two key aspects of the critique, selection of performance measures (PMs) and consideration of value-based trade-offs. The PMs we used were developed to compare the desktop methods, not to undertake a stream-specific assessment and were adequate to expose trade-offs and prioritize information needs. We reiterate the need to consider the context of each water use decision and to adjust the PMs for any new context, where necessary; we also emphasize that more refined PMs may not be required to answer a specific resource management problem. With respect to evaluating trade-offs and making decisions, we insist that science cannot produce a 'right answer' to water use or any other resource management problem; decision-makers reviewing a water use application must make value-based judgments about how precautionary to be. Science provides relevant information to the resource management question being considered. A call for better predictive models needs to be carefully evaluated, since we are likely to learn more by monitoring biological outcomes of flow regime changes, and such monitoring work continues to be insufficiently supported in many jurisdictions.
To fish or cut bait? A response to comments from Rosenfeld and Ptolemy
Hatfield, T (author) / Paul, A. J
2017
Article (Journal)
English
Local classification TIB:
385/6615
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