ISRP/ISAB Subbasin Plan Review Guide

Updated June 1, 2004

Summary

The 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program calls for independent scientific review of proposed subbasin plans to help ensure that subbasin plans direct successful fish and wildlife and habitat actions. The combined Independent Scientific Review Panel (ISRP), Independent Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB), and Scientific Peer Review Groups (PRGs) will conduct the independent scientific review. The ISRP will chair the review.

Subbasin plan review questions are provided in the 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program and the Council's August 2002 Notice of Request for Recommendations (for subbasin plans). Specifically, the ISRP/ISAB is asked to evaluate whether subbasin plans are consistent with the Fish and Wildlife Program and its Scientific Principles.

The Council identified a list of seven issues that it seeks advice to assist it in determining the scientific soundness of recommendations proposed for adoption into the program:

Do the assessments appear to be thorough and substantially complete?
Are the subbasin goals, objectives, and strategies scientifically appropriate in light of the assessment and inventory of existing activities?
Does the plan demonstrate a linkage between the strategies, the biological objectives, the subbasin vision and the assessment?
Are the goals, objectives, and strategies consistent with those adopted in the program for the province and/or basin levels?
Do the plans demonstrate that alternate management responses have been adequately considered?
Does the proposed subbasin plan include a procedure for assessing how well subbasin objectives are being met over time?
Does the plan provide a scientifically supportable procedure for refining the biological objectives as new information becomes available about how fish, wildlife and the environment interact, and in relationship to how the plans are implemented over time?

These questions require reviewers to take a two-pronged review approach. Reviewers must evaluate:

whether the subbasin plans are complete and internally consistent following a transparent and defensible logic path; and
whether the subbasin plans are externally consistent with the vision, principles, objectives, and strategies contained in the Council's 2000 Fish and Wildlife Program and Mainstem Amendments.

To conduct this evaluation, a review checklist and comment template is provided in the guide. The list is derived directly from the Council's Subbasin Planning Technical Guide and includes the Council's review questions. The checklist asks reviewers to evaluate whether the plan satisfactorily provides the assessment, inventory, and management elements requested by the Council and, as necessary, to recommend the level of need to further treat a specific element of the subbasin plan before it meets the criteria of completeness, scientific soundness, and transparency. A report outline is provided below to illustrate the structure of final ISRP/ISAB/PRG reports. The checklists will be integrated in the final reports.

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