Staving Ecological Regime Shift: Is the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program Working?

This study analyzes a pioneering program in river basin recovery at large sub-basin scale – the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program (UCREFRP). The program seeks to mitigate for and balance use on the river system with preservation of critically endangered fish species using adaptive management approaches. The study assesses the effectiveness of the program actions first and the adaptive management paradigm in this context second using mixed qualitative and quantitative approaches. Assessment of program effectiveness utilizes annual flow regime variability, and year-by-year summation of categories (hydrological, technological, ecological) of management interventions as predictive variables of abundance-based beta diversity indices of fish communities in six key Upper Basin sites. Assessment of the program actions against the adaptive management paradigm uses a Resistance-Resilience-Transformation (RRT) scale. Results show that fish community beta diversity metrics are most responsive to hydrological and technological interventions, though overall effectiveness is predicated on long-term ecological interventions designed to provide favorable biotic environments for endangered species. Assessment of the effectiveness of the adaptive management paradigm shows that program policies and actions need to account more for compounded effects of multiple environmental and anthropogenic stressors to maintain the ecological health of the river into the future.