Fig. 4.

The type of monitoring required (step 5) can be decided by clarifying whether there are any specific management actions under consideration, the amount of time available for making decisions regarding actions (“time horizon”), the timing of planned actions, and the relative magnitude of uncertainty regarding how the system will respond to the action(s). When appropriate and feasible, focused research is likely to be faster and less costly than monitoring. Adaptive management is only possible when there are iterative decisions, e.g., repeated decisions of the same kind are made over time or across space (see text of “Step 5: decide on the approach” section for further details)