Michael J. Conroy & James T. Peterson 
Decision Making in Natural Resource Management 
A Structured, Adaptive Approach

This book is intended for use by natural resource managers and
scientists, and students in the fields of natural resource
management, ecology, and conservation biology, who are confronted
with complex and difficult decision making problems. The book takes
readers through the process of developing a structured approach to
decision making, by firstly deconstructing decisions into component
parts, which are each fully analyzed and then reassembled to form a
working decision model. The book integrates common-sense
ideas about problem definitions, such as the need for decisions to
be driven by explicit objectives, with sophisticated approaches for
modeling decision influence and incorporating feedback from
monitoring programs into decision making via adaptive management.
Numerous worked examples are provided for illustration, along with
detailed case studies illustrating the authors’ experience in
applying structured approaches. There is also a series of detailed
technical appendices. An accompanying website provides
computer code and data used in the worked examples.

Additional resources for this book can be found
at: href=’http://www.wiley.com/go/conroy/naturalresourcemanagement’>www.wiley.com/go/conroy/naturalresourcemanagement.

Table of Content

List of boxes xi

Preface xiii

Acknowledgements xiv

Guide to using this book xv

Companion website xvii

PART I. INTRODUCTION TO DECISION MAKING 1

1 Introduction: Why a Structured Approach in Natural Resources? 3

2 Elements of Structured Decision Making 13

3 Identifying and Quantifying Objectives in Natural Resource Management 24

4 Working with Stakeholders in Natural Resource Management 57

PART II. TOOLS FOR DECISION MAKING AND ANALYSIS 77

5 Statistics and Decision Making 79

6 Modeling the Infl uence of Decisions 147

7 Identifying and Reducing Uncertainty in Decision Making 192

8 Methods for Obtaining Optimal Decisions 232

PART III. APPLICATIONS 261

9 Case Studies 263

10 Summary, Lessons Learned, and Recommendations 294

PART IV. APPENDICES 307

Appendix A Probability and Distributional Relationships 309

Appendix B Common Statistical Distributions 317

Appendix C Methods for Statistical Estimation 339

Appendix D Parsimony, Prediction, and Multi-Model Inference 373

Appendix E Mathematical Approaches to Optimization 384

Appendix F Guide to Software 430

Appendix G Electronic Companion to Book 432

Glossary 433

Index 449

About the author

MICHAEL J. CONROY is a Senior Research Scientist for the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the University of Georgia. He is the author of three previous books and has over thirty years’ experience in the application of quantitative solutions to problems in natural resource management. He teaches workshops in modeling, statistical estimation, and structured decision making for students and professionals both in the US and internationally.

JAMES T. PETERSON is the Assistant Unit Leader and Associate Professor for the USGS Oregon Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Oregon State University. He has been developing and teaching courses in applied quantitative decision making to students and professionals working in natural resources and related disciplines for more than a decade.