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This is RAD! The Resist-Accept-Direct Framework

By Cooperative Research Units

RAD Framework

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As once familiar ecological conditions disappear, tra­ditional management approaches that assume the future will reflect the past are becoming increasingly untenable. The resist-accept-direct (RAD) framework encompasses the decision-space managers consider when addressing climate in local systems. 

To decide among strategies, managers must understand how specific systems are influenced by climate change. Several CRU scientists in Missouri (C. Paukert), New York (S. Sethi), and Wisconsin (D. Isermann and J. Homala) have been involved with development, delivery, and publica­tion (Bioscience and Fisheries Management and Ecology) of decision-support systems using the RAD framework in collaboration with Federal, Tribal Nations, State, universi­ties, NGO collaborators, as well as the USGS, CASCs, and multiple USGS science centers.

A salt marsh along the Herring River.
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A salt marsh along the Herring River at the National Park Service’s Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts. USGS scientists and partners are applying the mineral olivine to the marsh to study its role in capturing carbon dioxide in tidal wetlands. Credit: Kevin Kroeger, USGS.

The collective work was diverse and included placing adaptive management within the RAD framework to assist informed risk taking for transform­ing ecosystems, developing a decision-support tool for fishery management of walleye, presenting RAD strategies to address ecological goals for aquatic ecosystems and social goals for fisheries, and a case study of various inland fisheries to review management strategies for recreational and subsistence fisher­ies in response to climate change within the RAD framework.

A conceptual figure of the RAD decision framework in the shape of a triangle with "Resist", "Accept" and "Direct" as the three main points of the triangle.
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The RAD Framework lays out three approaches for making management decisions for systems undergoing ecosystem transformation: 1) Resist, where managers work to maintain or restore ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function on the basis of historical or acceptable current conditions, 2) Accept, where managers allow ecosystem composition, structure, process, or function to change autonomously, and 3) Direct, where managers actively shape change in ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function toward preferred new conditions.

The work delivered decision-making tools and procedures from moving past resist strategies toward direct strategies using the RAD framework combined with other familiar frameworks, such as adaptive management. Resist: Work to maintain or restore ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function on the basis of historical or acceptable current conditions. Direct: Actively shape change in ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function toward preferred new conditions Accept: To allow ecosystem composition, structure, processes, or function to change autonomously.