Adaptive optimization of renewable natural resources: Solution algorithms and a computer program

Adaptive management of renewable biotic resources accounts for uncertainties in system responses to management, with a focus on the reduction of uncertainties as well as harvest and other management objectives. Adaptive resource management is described in terms of the harvest of populations subject to (i) uncontrollable environmental variation, (ii) uncertainties about the appropriate characterization of resource dynamics, (iii) limitations on the controllability of harvest rates, and (iv) uncertainties as to population status, expressed as sampling variation in the monitoring of populations and habitats. By an appropriate extension of the ‘system state’ to include model likelihoods, adaptive resource management can be defined in terms of Markov decision processes, with an objective of maximizing long-term harvest value. Recursive algorithms and a computer program are described for solution of the adaptive optimization problem.