Understanding and Informing Permitting Decisions for Tidal Energy Development Using an Adaptive Management Framework

Marine hydrokinetic (MHK) energy offers a promising new source of renewable ocean energy. However, the young industry is faced with significant challenges. Most notable is the challenge of regulatory uncertainty that is thought to hamper the successful deployment of new tidal energy technologies. Adaptive management may be one approach to deal with uncertainty and inform permitting decisions for hydrokinetic projects. In this study, we apply the concept of adaptive management to the Cobscook Bay Tidal Energy Project in Maine to better understand and inform permitting decisions. Using a social science approach of observation, interviews, and document analysis, we examine (1) agency roles and authority, (2) agency interactions, (3) regulatory change, and (4) challenges faced in the regulatory and permitting process for MHK development at the federal and state level. We found four institutional factors favorable to an adaptive approach. These include experimentation and learning, institutionalized choice to correct avoidable error, a strong commitment to interagency coordination, and an emphasis on early proactive engagement with project developers. We also identified institutional challenges or vulnerabilities. These include conflicting agency cultures, high financial costs, and long timeframes associated with baseline data collection. Lessons learned from this study can assist regulators, policymakers, and project developers design and implement an actively adaptive management approach that can move new renewable ocean energy development forward in a way that is socially acceptable and environmentally responsible

Citizen science and natural resource governance: program design for vernal pool policy innovation

Effective natural resource policy depends on knowing what is needed to sustain a resource and building the capacity to identify, develop, and implement flexible policies. This retrospective case study applies resilience concepts to a 16-year citizen science program and vernal pool regulatory development process in Maine, USA. We describe how citizen science improved adaptive capacities for innovative and effective policies to regulate vernal pools. We identified two core program elements that allowed people to act within narrow windows of opportunity for policy transformation, including (1) the simultaneous generation of useful, credible scientific knowledge and construction of networks among diverse institutions, and (2) the formation of diverse leadership that promoted individual and collective abilities to identify problems and propose policy solutions. If citizen science program leaders want to promote social-ecological systems resilience and natural resource policies as outcomes, we recommend they create a system for internal project evaluation, publish scientific studies using citizen science data, pursue resources for program sustainability, and plan for leadership diversity and informal networks to foster adaptive governance. Effective natural resource policy depends on knowing what is needed to sustain a resource and building the capacity to identify, develop, and implement flexible policies. This retrospective case study applies resilience concepts to a 16-year citizen science program and vernal pool regulatory development process in Maine, USA. We describe how citizen science improved adaptive capacities for innovative and effective policies to regulate vernal pools. We identified two core program elements that allowed people to act within narrow windows of opportunity for policy transformation, including (1) the simultaneous generation of useful, credible scientific knowledge and construction of networks among diverse institutions, and (2) the formation of diverse leadership that promoted individual and collective abilities to identify problems and propose policy solutions. If citizen science program leaders want to promote social-ecological systems resilience and natural resource policies as outcomes, we recommend they create a system for internal project evaluation, publish scientific studies using citizen science data, pursue resources for program sustainability, and plan for leadership diversity and informal networks to foster adaptive governance

Community-based Strategies for Strengthening Science and Influencing Policy: Vernal Pool Initiatives in Maine

Scientific research is not having the impact it could and should have on natural resources conservation. Rather than conceptualize and conduct research in isolation, we need new approaches to identify and investigate problems in coordination with stakeholders, poli­cymakers, and others who would benefit from the research. By supporting partnerships between researchers and the public, citizen science creates new opportunities for stake­holders to interact with scientific experts. This process of public collaboration with scien­tists has far-reaching implications for science, management, and policy. Drawing on two decades of work on vernal pool management strategies in Maine, we illustrate how citi­zen science and engaged research helped bridge the science-policy gap. As scientists, we learned from diverse stakeholders at multiple levels of decision making, and this feedback led to improvements in our citizen science programs, gradual adaptations to our scientific research process, and locally based, innovative vernal pool policy initiatives

Tidal Power Development in Maine: Stakeholder Identification and Perceptions of Engagement

Development of renewable energy affects or is affected by numerous stakeholders. Understanding who the stakeholders are and how they are engaged in the process is necessary for improving the responsible development of renewable energy technologies. Using structured community interviews and in-depth ethnographic research (semi-structured interviews, informal interviews, observations, and document review), we identified and characterized the most salient stakeholders associated with tidal power development in Maine and documented stakeholder perceptions of developer engagement strategies. Stakeholder characterization was facilitated using a framework by Mitchell et al. (The Academy of Management Review 22:853–886, 1997) that characterizes salient stakeholders using attributes of power, urgency, and legitimacy. Key stakeholders identified include fishermen, community members, tribes, regulators, developers, and scientists. Fishermen and regulators are definitive stakeholders, with legitimacy, power, and urgency in the process. Tribes are considered dominant stakeholders; they have legitimacy and power, but their interests are, at this time, not viewed as urgent. Scientists are considered to have urgency and power. The developers viewed their stakeholder engagement strategy as open and transparent. Community stakeholders, regulators, and fishermen generally perceived the developer\u27s approach as effective; they noted the company\u27s accessibility and their efforts to engage stakeholders early and often. Given the dynamic nature of stakeholder salience, our findings highlight the importance of engaging dominant stakeholders so that future conflict can be more easily avoided as new information develops. Our approach can be used to inform stakeholder identification and engagement research in other renewable energy contexts

Balancing Researcher Roles: Lessons from the Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative

The increasingly complex and polarizing nature of ocean sustainability problems calls for stronger stakeholder participation in research and outreach. Science-industry collaborations have emerged in response, offering a potential solution to advance knowledge, navigate competing demands, and develop more effective management of shared ocean spaces. While promising, engaged participatory processes that emphasize co-development and co-learning among scientists and practitioners face significant challenges. In theory, the inclusion of stakeholders in the design and implementation of research and outreach serves to better incorporate different forms of knowledge, address diverse values, motivations, and interests, and fundamentally changes the way knowledge is produced, used, and shared in transformational sustainability science. In practice, however, participatory approaches transcend traditional research settings, demanding a transformation in the role of the research scientist. In meeting the demand for more inclusion and engagement, scientists are increasingly called upon to play multiple, and often conflicting roles ranging from scientific expert, change agent, knowledge broker, and process facilitator. This paper aims to understand the tensions, paradoxes, and dilemmas that arise in a collaborative research setting. Drawing on the National Sea Grant American Lobster Initiative’s (ALI’s) efforts to increase the industry’s resilience to the biological, economic, and social impacts of ecosystem change in the Gulf of Maine, Georges Bank, and southern New England, we explore the role(s) of scientists in research-industry collaborations and contribute to an enhanced understanding of the processes that hinder or facilitate the success of collaborative research initiatives applicable to a broad array of ocean sustainability contexts

Knowledge Co-Production to Improve Information Uptake: A Case Study in Downeast Maine

Scientific information is often not presented in a form that fits the specific needs and capacities of decision-makers. This mismatch results in the loading dock problem, where information remains unused or uptake is slow. Further exacerbating this gap is the challenge to integrate data from different disciplines. In response, we collaborated with stakeholders to co-produce knowledge in support of decision-making (e.g. related to siting, impacts on species, or local capacity) for sustainable tidal power development in Downeast Maine. Agency regulators, an industry developer, and a tribal environmental department were engaged in a series of workshops to discuss existing information, identify knowledge gaps, and co-produce data integration strategies. While this study was motivated by the need to make well-informed decisions related to tidal power development in Maine, the process is applicable to other coastal development contexts

The Maine Vernal Pool Mapping and Assessment Program: Engaging Municipal Officials and Private Landowners in Community-based Citizen Science

The Vernal Pool Mapping and Assessment Program (VPMAP) was initiated in 2007 to create a vernal pool database as a planning tool to foster local compliance with new state vernal pool regulations. In the northeastern United States, vernal pools are seasonal wetlands that provide critical breeding habitat for a number of amphibians and invertebrates and provide important resting and foraging habitat for some rare and endangered state-listed species. Using participant observation, interviews, and focus groups, we examined the engagement of municipal officials and private landowners in VPMAP. Important outcomes of municipal and landowner engagement included mobilization of town support for proactive planning, improved awareness and understanding of vernal pools, and increased interactions between program coordinators, municipal officials, and private landowners. Challenges to municipal and landowner engagement included an inconsistency in expectations between coordinators and municipal officials and a lack of time and sufficient information for follow-up with landowners participating in VPMAP. Our study highlights the importance of developing relationships among coordinators, municipal officials, and private landowners in facilitating positive outcomes for all stakeholders and for effective resource management. We suggest an expanded citizen science model that focuses on improving two-way communication among project coordinators, municipal officials, and local citizens and places communication with private landowners on par with volunteer citizen scientist recruitment and field training. Lessons learned from this research can inform the design and implementation of citizen science projects on private land

Using Mixed Methods to Develop a Frame-Based Private Landowner Typology

An important goal of community-based management is to engage a wider network of stakeholders in conservation and management decisions. Using mixed methods, we constructed a frame-based private landowner typology to identify landowner response patterns to vernal pool conservation and management in Maine. Drawing on data from interviews and focus groups, we identified two opposing frames that described landowner views on vernal pools (personal gain and personal loss). A mail survey identified three groups of private landowners (Supportive, Uncertain, and Opposing) with similar sociodemographic and property variables but different aesthetic preferences, economic concerns, and views on property rights and conservation. Our results suggest that frame-based typologies are useful for enhancing communications with different landowner groups and in identifying trusted information sources and communication preferences. Our approach represents a critical first step toward understanding and integrating a range of landowner perspectives into conservation practice and enhancing private landowner cooperation in proactive planning

Citizen Science and Natural Resource Governance: Applying a Resilience Framework to Vernal Pool Policy Innovation

Effective natural resource policy depends on knowing what is needed to sustain a resource and building the capacity to identify, develop, and implement flexible policies. This retrospective case study applies resilience concepts to a 16-year citizen science program and vernal pool regulatory development process in Maine, USA. We describe how citizen science improved adaptive capacities for innovative and effective policies to regulate vernal pools. We identified two core program elements that allowed people to act within narrow windows of opportunity for policy transformation, including (1) the simultaneous generation of useful, credible scientific knowledge and construction of networks among diverse institutions, and (2) the formation of diverse leadership that promoted individual and collective abilities to identify problems and propose policy solutions. If citizen science program leaders want to promote social-ecological systems resilience and natural resource policies as outcomes, we recommend they create a system for internal project evaluation, publish scientific studies using citizen science data, pursue resources for program sustainability, and plan for leadership diversity and informal networks to foster adaptive governance

Socialization to interdisciplinary: faculty and student perspectives

Interdisciplinary research and education are a growing emphasis in United States institutions of higher education but relatively little is known about the doctoral students engaged in these atypical programs. The purpose of this study was to understand the socialization process of 18 students involved in a large-scale, federally funded, interdisciplinary research project focused on sustainability at one university. Using Weidman, Twale, and Stein’s framework of graduate student socialization, themes emerged related to (a) their distinctive characteristics and cultures, (b) the learning process, (c) balance, (d) uncertainty, and (d) support. Recommendations for policy and practice are included