Advancing the Guánica Bay (Puerto Rico) Watershed Management Plan

摘要

Consideration of stakeholder values in watershed planning and management is a necessity, but sufficiently eliciting, understanding, and organizing those values can be daunting. Many studies have demonstrated the usefulness of formal decision analysis to integrate expert knowledge with stakeholder values. Here, some decision analysis structuring tools were used to advance a proposed watershed management plan toward a broader recognition of values in the watershed and adjacent coastal and marine systems. The U.S. Interagency Coral Reef Task Force selected Guánica Bay, Puerto Rico as a site to explore watershed management for protection of coral reefs. A Watershed Management Plan (WMP) was introduced in 2008 that led to subsequent activities of several federal and commonwealth agencies and nongovernmental organizations. Using information from the WMP and these other organizations, qualitative decision analysis structuring methods were applied to gain insight into desired and undesired prospects. The steps included selection of a decision context and overall objective, identifying fundamental objectives, and exploring means to achieve them. This initial organization, to be better informed by stakeholder deliberation and review, provided an approach to consider watershed and marine coastal issues simultaneously.