Input- and output-oriented approaches to implementing ecosystem management

Input- and output-oriented approaches to landscape management have distinct roles for resource protection, environmental restoration, and sustainable land management. Implementing recent proposals for ecosystem management in the western United States involves a synthesis of input and output management. Within the broader context of ecosystem management, input management focuses on tailoring land use to the landscape, whereas output management employs assessments of resource condition to trigger modified management activity once resources are degraded to specified threshold conditions. Current approaches to landscape-scale management, however, tend to rely primarily on output-oriented strategies that are most effective for monitoring environmental conditions. Current uses of input management focus on environmental impact assessments, which generally are site- or project-specific analyses. The compeexity and dynamic nature of ecosystems, and the range of scales over which ecological processes operate, imply that development and incorporation of input-oriented approaches into landscape-scale management is necessary to implement ecosystem management as a strategy for sustainable land use.     

Defining Goals and Criteria for Ecosystem-Based Management

/ Identifying goals or targets for landscape and ecosystem management is now a widely recognized need that has received little systematic attention. At a micro-level most planners and managers of both ecosystems and economies continue to pursue traditional goals and targets that miss many desirable characteristics of ecosystem-based management goals. Desirable characteristics of ecosystem and landscape management goals and targets include: addressing complexity, transdisciplinarity, and the dynamic nature of natural systems; reflecting the wide range of interests and goals that exist; recognizing goals and values and limits; involving people and being explainable and implementable in a consistent way to different people and groups; and evolving adaptively as conditions and knowledge change. Substantive and procedural goals can be distinguished; the latter supporting the former. Substantive goals can be grouped according to their relationship to system structure, organization, and process/dynamics, and their disciplinary or subsystemic breadth. These discussions are illustrated by a review of the goals of biodiversity, sustainability, ecological health, and integrity. An example of a hierarchical framework of procedural goals and objectives that supports achievement of substantive goals is also provided. The conclusion is that a parallel, linked system of substantive and procedural goals at different levels of complexity and disciplinarity is needed to facilitate ecosystem-based management.KEY WORDS: Ecosystem management; Goals and objectives; Assessment criteria     

Measuring forest ecosystem sustainability: A resource accounting approach

A new environmental paradigm has emerged, reflecting a change in the public's understanding of resource sustainability. Forest policy makers need to be better informed about such changes to achieve economic, social, and environmental objectives in a manner that balances human needs and aspirations with ecosystem constraints. As an aid to this task, a forest resource accounting system based on the key concept of natural capital could help reshape forest policies to provide an even wider spectrum of benefits for both present and future generations by maintaining and enhancing the productive capacity of forest capital. Such a resource accounting system would provide a tool for integrating multidimensional information requirements in measuring the health of both forest ecosystems and economic systems. This paper outlines some of the features of this accounting system and proposes and framework that would integrate economic and ecological characteristics of natural resources. Forest resource accounting is urgently needed to achieve the sustainability goals of ecosystem management.     

Evaluating Ecosystem Management Capabilities at the Local Level in Florida: Identifying Policy Gaps Using Geographic Information Systems

Because ecosystem approaches to management adhere to ecological systems rather than human-defined boundaries, collaboration across jurisdiction, agencies, and land ownership is often necessary to achieve effective management of transboundary resources. Local natural resource and land use planners increasingly recognize that while ecosystem management requires looking beyond specific jurisdictions and focusing on broad spatial scales, the approach will partly be implemented at the local level with the coordination of local policies across larger landscapes. This article evaluates the collective capabilities of local jurisdictions to manage large transboundary ecological systems in Florida. Specifically, it combines plan evaluation with geographic information systems (GIS) techniques to map, measure, and analyze the existing mosaic of management across selected ecosystems in the southern portion of the State. Visual and statistical results indicate significant gaps in the management framework of southern Florida that, if filled, could achieve a greater level of consistency and more complete coverage of ecosystem management policies. Based on the spatial distribution of 58 ecosystem management indicators, notable gaps persist in the southwest coast, southeast coast, and central Everglades ecosystems, particularly for wildlife corridors and collaboration with neighboring jurisdictions. We also test for spatial autocorrelation of ecosystem planning scores and find that local jurisdictions with strong ecosystem management capabilities tend to cluster within specific ecosystems. Based on the findings, we make recommendations on how and where local plans can be strengthened to more effectively attain the objectives of ecosystem approaches to management.     

SOUND POLICY OR SMOKE AND MIRRORS: DOES ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT MAKE SENSE?1

ABSTRACT: Protection of ecosystems as entities on the landscape has attracted a wide range of support. Ecosystem-based public policies are claimed to be more effective, efficient, and scientifically sound than other approaches to environmental and natural resource policy. The ecosystem concept was never intended to serve as a public policy guide or to determine landscape units for land management purposes. This paper critically examines the use of the ecosystem concept in public policy and land use management and analyzes the proposed rule to manage the National Forest System according to ecosystem management principles. The concept is found to be unsuitable as a basis for guiding environmental and natural resource public policies in general while the proposed rule to manage the national forests according to ecosystem management principles is shown to be incoherent.     

Developing a spatial framework of common ecological regions for the conterminous United States

In 1996, nine federal agencies with mandates to inventory and manage the nation's land, water, and biological resources signed a memorandum of understanding entitled “Developing a Spatial Framework of Ecological Units of The United States.” This spatial framework is the basis for interagency coordination and collaboration in the development of ecosystem management strategies. One of the objectives in this memorandum is the development of a map of common ecological regions for the conterminous United States. The regions defined in the spatial framework will be areas within which biotic, abiotic, terrestrial, and aquatic capacities and potentials are similar. The agencies agreed to begin by exploring areas of agreement and disagreement in three federal natural-resource spatial frameworks—Major Land Resource Areas of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Hierarchy of Ecological Units of the USDA Forest Service, and Level III Ecoregions of the US Environmental Protection Agency. The explicit intention is that the framework will foster an ecological understanding of the landscape, rather than an understanding based on a single resource, single discipline, or single agency perspective. This paper describes the origin, capabilities, and limitations of three major federal agency frameworks and suggests why a common ecological framework is desirable. The scientific and programmatic benefits of common ecological regions are described, and a proposed process for development of the common framework is presented.     

An Ecological Basis for Managing Giant Sequoia Ecosystems

A strategy for management of giant sequoia groves is formulated using a conceptual framework for ecosystem management recently developed by Region Five of the USDA Forest Service. The framework includes physical, biological, and social dimensions. Environmental indicators and reference variability for key ecosystem elements are discussed in this paper. The selected ecosystem elements include: 1) attitudes, beliefs, and values; 2) economics and subsistence; 3) stream channel morphology; 4) sediment; 5) water; 6) fire; 7) organic debris; and 8) vegetation mosaic. Recommendations are made for the attributes of environmental indicators that characterize these elements. These elements and associated indicators will define and control management activities for the protection, preservation, and restoration of national forest giant sequoia ecosystems.     

Theory into Practice: Implementing Ecosystem Management Objectives in the USDA Forest Service

In the United States and around the world, scientists and practitioners have debated the definition and merits of ecosystem management as a new approach to natural resource management. While these debates continue, a growing number of organizations formally have adopted ecosystem management. However, adoption does not necessarily lead to successful implementation, and theories are not always put into practice. In this article, we examine how a leading natural resource agency, the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, has translated ecosystem management theory into concrete policy objectives and how successfully these objectives are perceived to be implemented throughout the national forest system. Through document analysis, interviews, and survey responses from 345 Forest Service managers (district rangers, forest supervisors, and regional foresters), we find that the agency has incorporated numerous ecosystem management components into its objectives. Agency managers perceive that the greatest attainment of such objectives is related to collaborative stewardship and integration of scientific information, areas in which the organization has considerable prior experience. The objectives perceived to be least attained are adaptive management and integration of social and economic information, areas requiring substantial new resources and a knowledge base not traditionally emphasized by natural resource managers. Overall, success in implementing ecosystem management objectives is linked to committed forest managers.     

Balancing Endangered Species and Ecosystems: A Case Study of Adaptive Management in Grand Canyon

/ Adaptive ecosystem management seeks to sustain ecosystems while extracting or using natural resources. The goal of endangered species management under the Endangered Species Act is limited to the protection and recovery of designated species, and the act takes precedence over other policies and regulations guiding ecosystem management. We present an example of conflict between endangered species and ecosystem management during the first planned flood on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon in 1996. We discuss the resolution of the conflict and the circumstances that allowed a solution to be reached. We recommend that adaptive management be implemented extensively and early in ecosystem management so that information and working relationships will be available to address conflicts as they arise. Though adaptive management is not a panacea, it offers the best opportunity for balanced solutions to competing management goals.     

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT AND THE CONSERVATION OF AQUATIC BIODWERSITY AND ECOLOGICAL INTEGRITY1

ABSTRACT: Ecologically effective ecosystem management will require the development of a robust logic, rationale, and framework for addressing the inherent limitations of scientific understanding. It must incorporate a strategy for avoiding irreversible or large-scale environmental mistakes that arise from social and political forces that tend to promote fragmented, uncritical, short-sighted, inflexible, and overly optimistic assessments of resource status, management capabilities, and the consequences of decisions and policies. Aquatic resources are vulnerable to the effects of human activities catchment-wide, and many of the landscape changes humans routinely induce cause irreversible damage (e.g., some species introductions, extinctions of ecotypes and species) or give rise to cumulative, long-term, large-scale biological and cultural consequences (e.g., accelerated erosion and sedimentation, deforestation, toxic contamination of sediments). In aquatic ecosystems, biotic impoverishment and environmental disruption caused by past management and natural events profoundly constrain the ability of future management to maintain biodiversity and restore historical ecosystem functions and values. To provide for rational, adaptive progress in ecosystem management and to reduce the risk of irreversible and unanticipated consequences, managers and scientists must identify catchments and aquatic networks where ecological integrity has been least damaged by prior management, and jointly develop means to ensure their protection as reservoirs of natural biodiversity, keystones for regional restoration, management models, monitoring benchmarks, and resources for ecological research.     

‘Learning by doing’: adaptive planning as a strategy to address uncertainty in planning

Adaptive management, an established method in natural resource and ecosystem management, has not been widely applied to landscape planning due to the lack of an operational method that addresses the role of uncertainty and standardized monitoring protocols and methods. A review of adaptive management literature and practices reveals several key concepts and principles for adaptive planning: (1) management actions are best understood and practiced as experiments; (2) several plans/experiments can be implemented simultaneously; (3) monitoring of management actions are key; and (4) adaptive management can be understood as ‘learning by doing’. The paper identifies various uncertainties in landscape planning as the major obstacles for the adoption of an adaptive approach. To address the uncertainty in landscape planning, an adaptive planning method is proposed where monitoring plays an integral role to reduce uncertainty. The proposed method is then applied to a conceptual test in water resource planning addressing abiotic-biotic-cultural resources. To operationalize adaptive planning, it is argued that professionals, stakeholders and researchers need to function in a genuinely transdisciplinary mode where all contribute to, and benefit from, decision making and the continuous generation of new knowledge.     

Across Space <Emphasis Type="Italic">and</Emphasis> Time: Social Responses to Large-Scale Biophysical Systems

The conceptual rubric of ecosystem management has been widely discussed and deliberated in conservation biology, environmental policy, and land/resource management. In this paper, I argue that two critical aspects of the ecosystem management concept require greater attention in policy and practice. First, although emphasis has been placed on the “space” of systems, the “time”—or rates of change—associated with biophysical and social systems has received much less consideration. Second, discussions of ecosystem management have often neglected the temporal disconnects between changes in biophysical systems and the response of social systems to management issues and challenges. The empirical basis of these points is a case study of the “Crown of the Continent Ecosystem,” an international transboundary area of the Rocky Mountains that surrounds Glacier National Park (USA) and Waterton Lakes National Park (Canada). This project assessed the experiences and perspectives of 1) middle- and upper-level government managers responsible for interjurisdictional cooperation, and 2) environmental nongovernment organizations with an international focus. I identify and describe 10 key challenges to increasing the extent and intensity of transboundary cooperation in land/resource management policy and practice. These issues are discussed in terms of their political, institutional, cultural, information-based, and perceptual elements. Analytic techniques include a combination of environmental history, semistructured interviews with 48 actors, and text analysis in a systematic qualitative framework. The central conclusion of this work is that the rates of response of human social systems must be better integrated with the rates of ecological change. This challenge is equal to or greater than the well-recognized need to adapt the spatial scale of human institutions to large-scale ecosystem processes and transboundary wildlife.     

Formulating an ecosystem approach to environmental protection

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has embraced a new strategy of environmental protection that is place-driven rather than program-driven. This new approach focuses on the protection of entire ecosystems. To develop an effective strategy of ecosystem protection, however, EPA will need to: (1) determine how to define and delineate ecosystems and (2) categorize threats to individual ecosystems and priority rank ecosystems at risk. Current definitions of ecosystem in use at EPA are inadequate for meaningful use in a management or regulatory context. A landscape-based definition that describes an ecosystem as a volumetric unit delineated by climatic and landscape features is suggested. Following this definition, ecosystems are organized hierarchically, from megaecosystems, which exist on a continental scale (e.g., Great Lakes), to small local ecosystems.Threats to ecosystems can generally be categorized as: (1) ecosystem degradation (occurs mainly through pollution) (2) ecosystem alteration (physical changes such as water diversion), and (3) ecosystem removal (e.g., conversion of wetlands or forest to urban or agricultural lands). Level of threat (i.e., how imminent), and distance from desired future condition are also important in evaluating threats to ecosystems. Category of threat, level of threat, and distance from desired future condition can be combined into a three-dimensional ranking system for ecosystems at risk. The purpose of the proposed ranking system is to suggest a preliminary framework for agencies such as EPA to prioritize responses to ecosystems at risk.     

Framework for Measuring Sustainable Development in Catchment Systems

Integrated catchment management represents an approach to managing the resources of a catchment by integrating environmental, economic, and social issues. It is aimed at deriving sustainable benefits for future generations, while protecting natural resources, particularly water, and minimizing possible adverse social, economic, and environmental consequences. Indicators of sustainable development, which summarize information for use in decision-making, are invaluable when trying to assess the diverse, interacting components of catchment processes and resource management actions. The Driving-Forces–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) indicator framework is useful for identifying and developing indicators of sustainable development for catchment management. Driving forces have been identified as the natural conditions occurring in a catchment and the level of development and economic activity. Pressures include the natural and anthropogenic supply of water, water demand, and water pollution. State indicators can be split into those of quantity and those of quality. Impacts include those that affect the ecosystems directly and those that impact the use value of the resource. It core indicators are identified within each of the categories given in the framework, most major catchment-based management issues can be evaluated. This framework is applied to identify key issues in catchment management in South Africa, and develop a set of indicators for evaluating catchments throughout the country.     

Adaptive management for sound ecosystem management

Sound ecosystem management meshes socioeconomic attitudes and values with sustainable natural resource practices. Adaptive management is a model for guiding natural resource managers in this process. Ecosystems and the societies that use them are continually evolving. Therefore, managers must be flexible and adaptable in the face of uncertainty and lack of knowledge. To couple good science to management, it is important to develop goals, models, and hypotheses that allow us to systematically learn as we manage. Goals and models guide the development and implementation of management practices. The need to evaluate models and test hypotheses mandates monitoring, which feeds into a continuous cycle of goal and model reformulation. This paper reviews the process of adaptive management and describes how it is being applied to oak/pine savanna restoration at Necedah National Wildlife Refuge as an illustration. Our aim is to help managers design their own adaptive management models for successful ecosystem management.     

Establishing a Regional Monitoring Strategy: The Pacific Northwest Forest Plan

adaptive monitoring design. Adaptive monitoring design is an iterative process that refines the specifications for monitoring over time as a result of experience in implementing a monitoring program, assessing results, and interacting with users. An adaptive design therefore facilitates ecosystem management. We also discuss lessons of temporal and spatial scales raised by the consideration of a design for ecosystem management. Three additional issues—integration of information from different sources, institutional infrastructure, and the roles of individuals working in an interagency setting—are also identified, but not developed in detail.     

Quantifying and Evaluating Ecosystem Health: A Case Study from Moreton Bay, Australia

As part of the program monitoring the ecosystem health of Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia, we developed a means for assessing ecosystem health that allows quantitative evaluation and spatial representations of the assessments. The management objectives for achieving ecosystem health were grouped into ecosystem objectives, water quality objectives, and human health objectives. For the first two groups, aspects of the ecosystem (e.g., trophic status) were identified, and an indicator was chosen for each aspect. Reference values for each indicator were derived from management objectives and compared with the mapped survey values. Subregions for which the indicator statistic was equal to or better than the assigned reference value are referred to as “compliant zones.” High-resolution surface maps were created from spatial predictions on a fine hexagonal grid for each of the indicators. Eight reporting subregions were established based on the depth and predicted residence times of the water. Within each reporting subregion, the proportion that was compliant was calculated. These results then were averaged to create an integrated ecosystem health index. The ratings by a team of ecosystem experts and the calculated ecosystem health indices had good correspondence, providing assurance that the approach was internally consistent, and that the management objectives covered the relevant biologic issues for the region. This method of calculating and mapping ecosystem health, relating it directly to management objectives, may have widespread applicability for ecosystem assessment.     

An Ecological and Economic Assessment Methodology for Coastal Ecosystem Management

An adaptation of the Drivers-Pressure-State-Impact-Response methodology is presented in this work. The differential DPSIR (ΔDPSIR) was developed to evaluate impacts on the coastal environment and as a tool for integrated ecosystem management. The aim of the ΔDPSIR is to provide scientifically-based information required by managers and decision-makers to evaluate previously adopted policies, as well as future response scenarios. The innovation of the present approach is to provide an explicit link between ecological and economic information related to the use and management of a coastal ecosystem within a specific timeframe. The application of ΔDPSIR is illustrated through an analysis of developments in a Southwest European coastal lagoon between 1985 and 1995. The value of economic activities dependent on the lagoon suffered a significant reduction (ca. −60%) over that period, mainly due to a decrease in bivalve production. During that decade the pressures from the catchment area were managed (ca. 176 million Euros), mainly through the building of waste water treatment plants. Notwithstanding this, the ecosystem state worsened with respect to abnormal clam mortalities due to a parasite infection and to benthic eutrophication symptoms in specific problematic areas. The negative economic impacts during the decade were estimated between −565 and −315 million Euros, of which 9–49% represent the cost of environmental externalities. Evaluation of these past events indicates that future management actions should focus on reducing the limitation on local clam seeds, which should result in positive impacts to both the local socio-economy and biodiversity.