Integrating disciplinary research into an interdisciplinary framework: A case study in sustainability research

The complexity of today’s research problems increasingly demands that scientists move beyond the confines of their own discipline. In this special issue, the basics of a transdisciplinary framework are established and problems analyzed in a specific discipline are successfully integrated in this transdisciplinary network. The intent has been to go beyond only statements about the importance of enabling early stage researchers to work across disciplinary boundaries, and to show that important discoveries are being made at the intersection of disciplines. Embedding various research projects in a more global framework can meet the demands of an interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary approach (especially for early stage researchers) and contribute significantly to sustainable research.     

绿色建筑经济学的蓝图

作为一种设计规则和建筑环境性能的衡量标准,绿色建筑的势头发展迅速.尽管几千年前就制定了可持续建筑的一些原则,但是这一概念直到1980年代末期才有了定义并进入全球建筑业中.     

Ten ways remote sensing can contribute to conservation

In an effort to increase conservation effectiveness through the use of Earth observation technologies, a group of remote sensing scientists affiliated with government and academic institutions and conservation organizations identified 10 questions in conservation for which the potential to be answered would be greatly increased by use of remotely sensed data and analyses of those data. Our goals were to increase conservation practitioners’ use of remote sensing to support their work, increase collaboration between the conservation science and remote sensing communities, identify and develop new and innovative uses of remote sensing for advancing conservation science, provide guidance to space agencies on how future satellite missions can support conservation science, and generate support from the public and private sector in the use of remote sensing data to address the 10 conservation questions. We identified a broad initial list of questions on the basis of an email chain‐referral survey. We then used a workshop‐based iterative and collaborative approach to whittle the list down to these final questions (which represent 10 major themes in conservation): How can global Earth observation data be used to model species distributions and abundances? How can remote sensing improve the understanding of animal movements? How can remotely sensed ecosystem variables be used to understand, monitor, and predict ecosystem response and resilience to multiple stressors? How can remote sensing be used to monitor the effects of climate on ecosystems? How can near real‐time ecosystem monitoring catalyze threat reduction, governance and regulation compliance, and resource management decisions? How can remote sensing inform configuration of protected area networks at spatial extents relevant to populations of target species and ecosystem services? How can remote sensing‐derived products be used to value and monitor changes in ecosystem services? How can remote sensing be used to monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of conservation efforts? How does the expansion and intensification of agriculture and aquaculture alter ecosystems and the services they provide? How can remote sensing be used to determine the degree to which ecosystems are being disturbed or degraded and the effects of these changes on species and ecosystem functions?     

An approach and preliminary model of integrating ecological and economic constraints of environmental quality in the Guayas River estuary, Ecuador

We describe conceptual and simulation models of land use within the intertidal zone of the Guayas River estuary to quantify the contribution of mangrove wetlands to maintaining environmental quality of a tropical estuary. The goal of this exercise is to demonstrate the important consideration of ecological constraints in determining economic and management decisions; and how modeling can be used to quantify impacts of land use such as loss of mangrove wetlands on environmental quality. Our conceptual model treats solar energy, river flow, and tides as forcing functions that control the properties of estuarine ecosystems, but also describes market forces and cultural policies as constraints on properties of socioeconomic systems. The controversy of coastal resource management in Ecuador centers around the relative impacts of shrimp pond construction and management as negative feedbacks to the environmental quality of the Guayas River estuary. Unique oceanographic processes and land use changes contribute to complex issues of water and habitat quality in this tropical estuary, the largest estuarine complex on the Pacific coast of South America. A dynamic box model was developed for the estuary and calibrated with data collected from a 14 month survey of water quality parameters throughout the estuary. Scenarios included conversion of mangroves to shrimp ponds in three regions of the estuary, and the construction of a dam by varying three different rates of river discharge at 100, 50 and 10% of 1989 base flow. Good water quality is maintained by the low residence time of water in the estuary (11 d) because of seasonally high river flow and tidal exchange. With a 90% reduction of mangrove forests in the estuary caused by shrimp pond construction, total nitrogen concentrations increased 5 fold. However, as river discharge decreased to 10%, the same construction caused a 60 fold increase in nitrogen concentrations to 250 μM. Increases in nitrogen concentrations were higher in the upper estuary region, with much less change in the lower estuary. Thus the sensitivity of environmental quality to changes in land use in the intertidal and upland zone are linked to the hydrography of the estuary and is site specific. In the future, the combinations of these ecological models together with economic analyses of the goods and services of mangroves may provide better techniques to evaluate the economic impacts of specific coastal zone management decisions.