Embracing thresholds for better environmental management Kelly, Ryan P.; Erickson, Ashley L.; Mease, Lindley A. ...
Philosophical transactions - Royal Society. Biological sciences,
01/2015, Volume:
370, Issue:
1659
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Three decades of study have revealed dozens of examples in which natural systems have crossed biophysical thresholds ('tipping points')—nonlinear changes in ecosystem structure and function—as a ...result of human-induced stressors, dramatically altering ecosystem function and services. Environmental management that avoids such thresholds could prevent severe social, economic and environmental impacts. Here, we review management measures implemented in ecological systems that have thresholds. Using Ostrom's social–ecological systems framework, we analysed key biophysical and institutional factors associated with 51 social–ecological systems and associated management regimes, and related these to management success defined by ecological outcomes. We categorized cases as instances of prospective or retrospective management, based upon whether management aimed to avoid a threshold or to restore systems that have crossed a threshold. We find that smaller systems are more amenable to threshold-based management, that routine monitoring is associated with successful avoidance of thresholds and recovery after thresholds have been crossed, and that success is associated with the explicit threshold-based management. These findings are powerful evidence for the policy relevance of information on ecological thresholds across a wide range of ecosystems.
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Parsing human and biophysical drivers of coral reef regimes Jouffray, Jean-Baptiste; Wedding, Lisa M; Norström, Albert V ...
Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological sciences/Proceedings - Royal Society. Biological Sciences,
02/2019, Volume:
286, Issue:
1896
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Coral reefs worldwide face unprecedented cumulative anthropogenic effects of interacting local human pressures, global climate change and distal social processes. Reefs are also bound by the natural ...biophysical environment within which they exist. In this context, a key challenge for effective management is understanding how anthropogenic and biophysical conditions interact to drive distinct coral reef configurations. Here, we use machine learning to conduct explanatory predictions on reef ecosystems defined by both fish and benthic communities. Drawing on the most spatially extensive dataset available across the Hawaiian archipelago-20 anthropogenic and biophysical predictors over 620 survey sites-we model the occurrence of four distinct reef regimes and provide a novel approach to quantify the relative influence of human and environmental variables in shaping reef ecosystems. Our findings highlight the nuances of what underpins different coral reef regimes, the overwhelming importance of biophysical predictors and how a reef's natural setting may either expand or narrow the opportunity space for management interventions. The methods developed through this study can help inform reef practitioners and hold promises for replication across a broad range of ecosystems.
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A major challenge for coral reef conservation and management is understanding how a wide range of interacting human and natural drivers cumulatively impact and shape these ecosystems. Despite the ...importance of understanding these interactions, a methodological framework to synthesize spatially explicit data of such drivers is lacking. To fill this gap, we established a transferable data synthesis methodology to integrate spatial data on environmental and anthropogenic drivers of coral reefs, and applied this methodology to a case study location-the Main Hawaiian Islands (MHI). Environmental drivers were derived from time series (2002-2013) of climatological ranges and anomalies of remotely sensed sea surface temperature, chlorophyll-a, irradiance, and wave power. Anthropogenic drivers were characterized using empirically derived and modeled datasets of spatial fisheries catch, sedimentation, nutrient input, new development, habitat modification, and invasive species. Within our case study system, resulting driver maps showed high spatial heterogeneity across the MHI, with anthropogenic drivers generally greatest and most widespread on O'ahu, where 70% of the state's population resides, while sedimentation and nutrients were dominant in less populated islands. Together, the spatial integration of environmental and anthropogenic driver data described here provides a first-ever synthetic approach to visualize how the drivers of coral reef state vary in space and demonstrates a methodological framework for implementation of this approach in other regions of the world. By quantifying and synthesizing spatial drivers of change on coral reefs, we provide an avenue for further research to understand how drivers determine reef diversity and resilience, which can ultimately inform policies to protect coral reefs.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
The US National Ocean Policy calls for ecosystem-based management (EBM) of the ocean to help realize the vision advanced in the 2010 Executive Order on the Stewardship of the Ocean, Our Coasts, and ...the Great Lakes. However, no specific approach for incorporating EBM into planning was provided. We explore how a set of ecological principles and ecosystem vulnerability concepts can be integrated into emerging comprehensive assessment frameworks, including Australia's National Marine Bioregional Assessments, California's Marine Life Protection Act Initiative's regional profiles, Canada's Eastern Scotian Shelf Integrated Management Initiative, and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA) program, to transition to ecosystem-based ocean planning. We examine NOAA's IEA framework to demonstrate how these concepts could be incorporated into existing frameworks. Although our discussion is focused on US ocean policy, comprehensive ecological assessments are applicable to a wide array of management strategies and planning processes.
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Coral reefs worldwide face an uncertain future with many reefs reported to transition from being dominated by corals to macroalgae. However, given the complexity and diversity of the ecosystem, ...research on how regimes vary spatially and temporally is needed. Reef regimes are most often characterised by their benthic components; however, complex dynamics are associated with losses and gains in both fish and benthic assemblages. To capture this complexity, we synthesised 3,345 surveys from Hawai'i to define reef regimes in terms of both fish and benthic assemblages. Model-based clustering revealed five distinct regimes that varied ecologically, and were spatially heterogeneous by island, depth and exposure. We identified a regime characteristic of a degraded state with low coral cover and fish biomass, one that had low coral but high fish biomass, as well as three other regimes that varied significantly in their ecology but were previously considered a single coral dominated regime. Analyses of time series data reflected complex system dynamics, with multiple transitions among regimes that were a function of both local and global stressors. Coupling fish and benthic communities into reef regimes to capture complex dynamics holds promise for monitoring reef change and guiding ecosystem-based management of coral reefs.
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As large-scale environmental disasters become increasingly frequent and more severe globally, people and organizations that prepare for and respond to these crises need efficient and effective ways ...to integrate sound science into their decision making. Experience has shown that integrating nongovernmental scientific expertise into disaster decision making can improve the quality of the response, and is most effective if the integration occurs before, during, and after a crisis, not just during a crisis. However, collaboration between academic, government, and industry scientists, decision makers, and responders is frequently difficult because of cultural differences, misaligned incentives, time pressures, and legal constraints. Our study addressed this challenge by using the Deep Change Method, a design methodology developed by Stanford ChangeLabs, which combines human-centered design, systems analysis, and behavioral psychology. We investigated underlying needs and motivations of government agency staff and academic scientists, mapped the root causes underlying the relationship failures between these two communities based on their experiences, and identified leverage points for shifting deeply rooted perceptions that impede collaboration. We found that building trust and creating mutual value between multiple stakeholders before crises occur is likely to increase the effectiveness of problem solving. We propose a solution, the Science Action Network, which is designed to address barriers to scientific collaboration by providing new mechanisms to build and improve trust and communication between government administrators and scientists, industry representatives, and academic scientists. The Science Action Network has the potential to ensure cross-disaster preparedness and science-based decision making through novel partnerships and scientific coordination.
As climatic changes and human uses intensify, resource managers and other decision makers are taking actions to either avoid or respond to ecosystem tipping points, or dramatic shifts in structure ...and function that are often costly and hard to reverse. Evidence indicates that explicitly addressing tipping points leads to improved management outcomes. Drawing on theory and examples from marine systems, we distill a set of seven principles to guide effective management in ecosystems with tipping points, derived from the best available science. These principles are based on observations that tipping points (1) are possible everywhere, (2) are associated with intense and/or multifaceted human use, (3) may be preceded by changes in early-warning indicators, (4) may redistribute benefits among stakeholders, (5) affect the relative costs of action and inaction, (6) suggest biologically informed management targets, and (7) often require an adaptive response to monitoring. We suggest that early action to preserve system resilience is likely more practical, affordable, and effective than late action to halt or reverse a tipping point. We articulate a conceptual approach to management focused on linking management targets to thresholds, tracking early-warning signals of ecosystem instability, and stepping up investment in monitoring and mitigation as the likelihood of dramatic ecosystem change increases. This approach can simplify and economize management by allowing decision makers to capitalize on the increasing value of precise information about threshold relationships when a system is closer to tipping or by ensuring that restoration effort is sufficient to tip a system into the desired regime.
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In the face of growing human impacts on ecosystems, scientists and managers recognize the need to better understand thresholds and nonlinear dynamics in ecological systems to help set management ...targets. However, our understanding of the factors that drive threshold dynamics, and when and how rapidly thresholds will be crossed is currently limited in many systems. In spite of these limitations, there are approaches available to practitioners today—including ecosystem monitoring, statistical methods to identify thresholds and indicators, and threshold-based adaptive management—that can be used to help avoid ecological thresholds or restore systems that have crossed them. We briefly review the current state of knowledge and then use real-world examples to demonstrate how resource managers can use available approaches to avoid crossing ecological thresholds. We also highlight new tools and indicators being developed that have the potential to enhance our ability to detect change, predict when a system is approaching an ecological threshold, or restore systems that have already crossed a tipping point.
Implementing fisheries management goals that simultaneously consider ecosystem effects of fishing and socioeconomic sustainability is challenging. In recent years, multiple market-based frameworks ...and guidelines that assess fishery sustainability have been developed, including sustainable seafood recommendation lists and certification schemes. These frameworks use suites of indicators to assess sustainability across fishery types to provide awareness to seafood suppliers, retailers, and consumers. We suggest that these indicators could also be useful to managers to track their own performance. Here we evaluate and compare four of the best-known frameworks available to assess fishery sustainability and consider their potential applicability to fisheries management in California: the Marine Stewardship Council’s 2013 certification requirements for fisheries, Friend of the Sea’s 2011 certification criteria for wild-caught fisheries, the Seafood Watch program’s current criteria for fisheries, and an FAO sustainability checklist combined with the FAO’s International Guidelines on Bycatch Management and Reduction of Discards. We assessed the alignment between the indicators used in these frameworks and the goals and requirements of the Marine Life Management Act (MLMA), the primary statute governing fisheries management in California’s coastal waters. In general, we found considerable overlap between the biophysical sustainability criteria assessed by these indicators and the requirements of the MLMA, revealing that these indicators align well with practical management needs. While the MLMA is a useful case study, these sustainability indicators could be applied more broadly by other states and federal fisheries managers to concretely evaluate progress towards ecosystem-based management goals. Ultimately, a refined suite of indicators could be operationalized, e.g., via decision trees or questionnaires for fishery managers to assess how well they are meeting ecosystem-based management objectives.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZRSKP
Three decades of study have revealed dozens of examples of natural systems crossing biophysical thresholds (or "tipping points") as a result of human-induced Stressors, dramatically altering ...ecosystem function and services. Environmental management that avoids or reverses such tipping points could prevent severe social, economic, and environmental impacts. Here, we attempt to demonstrate the desirability of and opportunities for, environmental management using thresholds under U.S. federal law. We find that conceptually, tipping points can and do guide some regulatory decisions. However, explicitly focusing a larger set of environmental rules on avoiding potential tipping points could yield greater policy efficiency and political benefits. We close by highlighting the value of cost-benefit analyses as a tool that may encourage threshold-based environmental management.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, PRFLJ, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
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