WCS 3-Sentence Science

Planning for Coastal Run-Off

July 11, 2019

Credit: Wade Fairley

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Stacy Jupiter on identifying and responding to the flow of polluted terrestrial run-off into freshwater and marine ecosystems.

1. Planning for linkages among terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems can help managers mitigate the impacts of pollution from land-based run-off on water quality and coastal ecosystem services, which affect the livelihoods of millions people on the world’s coasts.
2. A team of researchers examined the approaches used for land-sea planning, with particular focus on the models currently used to estimate the impacts of land-use change on water quality and fisheries.
3. They found a disconnect between the dynamical models that can be used to link land to sea processes and the simple tools that are typically used to inform planning, and proposed some guiding principles for where and how dynamic land-sea connections can most effectively be built into planning tools.

Study and Journal: “A guide to modelling priorities for managing land-based impacts on coastal ecosystems “ from Journal of Applied Ecology
WCS Co-Author(s): Stacy Jupiter, WCS Melanesia Program ; Sangeeta Mangubhai, WCS Melanesia Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.