Federation Leaders Offer Timely Input for Federal Research Priorities

Research Needs for Coastal Resource Management

Note: After the US Commission on Ocean Policy gave their report to President Bush in December 2004, he created the Commission on Ocean Policy to develop an action plan to bring their recommendations to fruition. To provide the perspective of estuarine and coastal researchers, the Federation's leaders recently created the following recommendations. Former governing board member Holly Greening (senior scientist, Tampa Bay Estuary Program and member, Ocean Studies Board) delivered these recommendations to the Subcommittee on Integrated Management and Ocean Resources' (SIMOR) Federal-State Task Team on Research Priorities. This task team, comprised of representative from various coastal State agencies and ocean and coastal related federal agencies, will provide input on high priority ocean and coastal research needs, specific problem areas, and immediate needs for addressing resource management challenges.

Overarching research needs involve resolving linkages among human activities, watersheds, coastal lands, estuaries, coasts, nearshore waters, continental shelves, and oceans. Specifically, we must be able to understand and forecast responses to change (e.g., climate, land use, resource harvesting) and disturbance (e.g., storms, spills). Responses depend upon both linkages among and conditions within individual systems. Understanding the sensitivity of responses in the context of system history and ecological functioning is of critical importance to the wise management of both individual systems and the whole. Integral to the successful management of coastal resources is the implementation of integrated and linked observing systems.

RESEARCH NEEDS:

Ecosystem function linkages:

  • Interrelationships among land use, climate change, freshwater flow, and nutrient and pollutant loading
  • Ecological and biogeochemical feedbacks that result from nutrient and other pollution
  • Impacts of harvesting multiple species and aquaculture on food webs and nutrient cycling

Habitat linkages:

  • Impacts of coastal development on nearshore habitats and their ecological functions
  • Interrelationship of habitat condition and species invasiveness
  • Predicting human response to global change, and understanding how this will affect coastal systems
  • Effectiveness of management actions (e.g., BMPs, TMDLs, MPAs, wetland restoration) on coastal environmental quality
  • Impacts of loss and alteration of wetlands on fish populations, water quality, and resistance of shorelines to the effects of storms

Infrastructure linkages of science, management and policy:

  • Capacity to detect, attribute, and predict change of all coastal systems (terrestrial, aquatic and wetland) to be integrated into observing systems
  • Methods for sustained, consistent, integrated monitoring data collection, information management and forecasting (i.e., predictive modeling)
  • Evaluation of past and present linkages using long-term monitoring data.
  • Research on effective translation of research results and education of public, environmental managers and policy makers

Variability and sensitivity of linkages:

  • Understanding the sensitivity to change and resilience of habitats, resources, and the linkages between them
  • Nature of sustainability in the context of anthropogenic impacts -- local, regional and global change
  • Understanding the inherent and background variability in assessing and forecasting change in coastal systems

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