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Environment General Courses (ENVIRON)

graduate level, taught in Durham

298.26 Scientific Basis for Ecosystem Based Management.
  The scientific basis for environmental management in the context of arbitrary temporal and spatial boundaries, complexity, dynamic processes, uncertainty and varied and changing human values.   Case studies will cover terrestrial, aquatic and marine ecosystems. Required field trip.  1 credit. Instructor: Christensen

This course will cover the material that is currently covered in the first third of Ecosystem Management (ENV 320).  The course will be divided into five modules, each roughly corresponding to a week.

  1. Defining Ecosystem Management – What is meant by this phrase?  How does it relate to historical themes in environmental management.
  • Grumbine, R.E.  1994.  What is Ecosystem Management?  Conservation Biology 8:27-38
  • Grumbine, R.E.  1997.  Reflections on “What is Ecosystem Management?”  Conservation Biology 11:41-47
  • Lackey, R.T. 1998.  Seven Pillars of ecosystem management.  Landscape Urban Planning 40:21-30
  • Christensen, N.L., et al.  1996.  The scientific basis for ecosystem management.  Ecological Applications.  6:665-691.
  • Responses to Christensen et al. in Ecological Applications
  • Lubchenco, J.  1998.  Entering the century of the environment:  a new social contract for science.  Science 279:491-497

 

  1. Managing Boundaries and Across Spatial Scales:  Ecosystem management pays particular attention to the arbitrary nature of geographic, jurisdictional and disciplinary boundaries.  The spatial boundaries of management jurisdictions rarely, if ever, align perfectly with the scales over which critical ecosystem processes occur.  Effective management requires an understanding of cross-boundary movements of matter, energy and organisms, and collaboration among cross-boundary stakeholders. Likewise, management challenges rarely reside within the domain of a single agency, discipline or toolset; interdisciplinary approaches are mandatory.
  • Bissonette, J.A. and I. Storch.  2003.  Landscape Ecology and Resource Management: Linking Theory with Practice.  Island Press, Washington, DC.
  1. Managing Complexity—ecosystem management recognizes that complexity, including biological and landscape diversity, is necessary to sustain key ecosystem processes and services.  Management is often focused on particular elements of complexity (e.g., a threatened species or the conservation of a particular old-growth forest); such management becomes ecosystem management when it placed in the context of the entire ecosystem. 
  • Reid, J. M. et al. 2002. Emerging issues in population viability analysis. Conservation Biology 16:7-19
  • Lambeck, Robert, J. 1997. Focal Species: A Multispecies Umbrella for Nature Conservation. Conservation Biology. 11:849-856
  • Simberloff, D. 1998. Flagships, umbrellas and keystones: Is single-species management passe in the Landscape era? Biological Conservation 83:247-257

 

  1. Managing Change—Ecosystem change is inevitable and necessary for the sustainability of many key elements and processes, and ecosystem management often focuses on the management of change.  Nevertheless, ecosystem managers recognize that disturbances that occur at rates or severities outside the historic range of variation may have unsustainable consequences.
  •     Christensen, N.L.  1996.  Managing dynamic landscapes for heterogeneity and complexity.  In S.T.A. Pickett and R. Ostveld (eds.), Chapman-Hall, Inc., New York.
  • Christensen, N.L. 2005.  Fire in the parks: a case study for change management.  The George Wright Forum 22:12-31.
  • Scheffer, M. and S.R. Carpenter. 2003. Catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems: Linking theory to observation.  Trends in Ecology and Evolution 18:648-656.
  • Integrated Ecological Assessment-- Although management goals may be specific (e.g., protecting water quality in a particular stream or restoration of wetland habitat), ecosystem management pursues these goals and measures its success in the context a complex and sometimes competing array of  ecological and social variables across multiple scales of time and space. Integrated Ecological Assessment is a tool for meeting this challenge.
  • Jensen, M.E. and P.S. Bourgeron (eds.).  2001.  A Guidebook for Integrated Ecological Assessments.  Springer Verlag, New York
  • Bernabo, J.C.  1998.  Improving integrated assessments for applications to decision making.  Pp. 183-197 in Schneider (ed.), Air Pollution in the 21st Century: Priority Issues and Policy.  Elsevier, Amsterdam
  • Multiple case studies

 

Evaluation:  Course will be graded based on discussion participation and a paper (Integrated Ecological Assessment).

 
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