Abstract Freshwater ecosystems provide a large number of benefits to society. However, extensive human activities threat the viability these ecosystems, their habitats, and dynamics interactions. One main risks facing systems is overexploitation groundwater resources that hinders survival several freshwater habitats. In this paper, we study optimal paths when considering ecosystems. We contribu...

Regime shifts have been observed in marine ecosystems around the globe. These phenomena can result in dramatic changes in the provision of ecosystem services to coastal communities. Accounting for regime shifts in management clearly requires integrative, ecosystem-based management (EBM) approaches. EBM has emerged as an accepted paradigm for ocean management worldwide, yet, despite the rapid an...

The Special Issue “Providing Ecosystem Services under Climate Change: Community of Practice of Forest Decision Support Systems” is based on the presentations given at the 24th World Congress of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations and provides an overview on Forest Management Decision Support Systems currently designed and applied for the sustained provision of ecosystem ser...

Modern-day discussions of fishery governance and management revolve around a number of key ingredients – the goals of sustainability and resilience, the widespread presence of uncertainty and complexity, the corresponding directions of a precautionary approach and an ecosystem approach, and implementation of these through avenues such as robust management. This paper explores the links among th...

Nitrogen remains a ubiquitous pollutant in surface and groundwater throughout the United States, despite 30 years of pollution control efforts. A detailed multicompartment N balance for the Central Arizona-Phoenix ecosystem is used to illustrate how an ecosystem-level approach can be used to develop improved N management strategies. The N balance is used to demonstrate how nitrate in pumped gro...

Coastal marine habitats at the interface of land and sea are subject to threats from human activities in both realms. Researchers have attempted to quantify how these various threats impact different coastal ecosystems, and more recently have focused on understanding the cumulative impact from multiple threats. Here, the top threats to coastal marine ecosystems and recent efforts to understand ...

The thesis provides a presentation of the two conceptual models of industrial system material and energy flows in terms of sustainability; the dominant and the unsustainable throughput flow model and the potential future sustainable roundput model. These two material and energy flow concepts serve to illustrate the main research agenda of the emerging research and practical field of industrial ...

NEED TO ASSESS THE SKILL OF ECOSYSTEM MODELS Accelerated changes to global ecosystems call for holistic and integrated analyses of past, present and future states under various pressures to adequately understand current and projected future system states. Ecosystem models can inform management of human activities in a complex and changing environment, but are these models reliable? Ensuring tha...