Integrating research results into decision making about natural resource management at a catchment scale

The operational reality behind the rhetoric of integrated natural resource management poses significant challenges for resource managers, resource use planners and researchers. A variety of frameworks for integrated resource planning and use have been espoused. These tend to reflect the bias of the discipline or stakeholder group fostering the approach and may therefore be unpalatable to, and ignored by other groups. In this paper, we are concerned with improving the integration of research outcomes into decision making. Rather than propose a framework, we take a pragmatic view of the roles of managers, planners and scientists. In doing so, we draw principally on practical experience derived from an initiative in a rural catchment in tropical Australia. On this basis, we propose a particular and emerging role in designing approaches to adaptive decision support that provide opportunities for integrating research outcomes into decision making.