The Gulf of Mexico's Dead Zone: Mess, Problem, or Puzzle?
by Don Scavia
Issues affecting stakeholders tend to be messes, problems, or puzzles. Messes have both arguable issue definitions and arguable solutions. In problems, stakeholders agree on the issue definition, but disagree on the solution because multiple solutions exist. In puzzles, they agree both with the definition of the issue and its solution.
This is a useful framework for describing the evolution of a seemingly intractable environmental problem: the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, where on a seasonal basis, oxygen levels fall so low that most aquatic species cannot survive. Hypoxia is the scientific term for the 20,000 square kilometers of low-oxygen waters off the Louisiana coast, right in the middle of the most important commercial and recreational fisheries in the continental United States.
Whether this dead zone is natural or human-caused, whether the primary cause is organic carbon or fertilizer nutrients, and where those nutrients come from, were resolved in the 1990s through a series of consensus-forming technical studies and integrated assessments, that I was privileged to lead. So, we moved from mess to problem.
