Improving ecosystem health in highly altered river basins: a generalized framework and its application to the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin
Citation:
McLellan, E., K. Suttles, K. Bouska, J. Ellis, J. Flotemersch, M. Goff, H. Golden, R. Hill, T. Hohman, S. Keerthi, R. Keim, B. Kleiss, T. Lark, B. Piazza, A. Renfro, D. Robertson, K. Schilling, T. Schmidt, AND I. Waite. Improving ecosystem health in highly altered river basins: a generalized framework and its application to the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin. Frontiers in Environmental Science. Frontiers, Lausanne, Switzerland, 12:1332934, (2024). https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2024.1332934
Impact/Purpose:
We propose a generalized framework to improve ecosystem health in highly altered river basins by reducing ecosystem stressors, enhancing ecosystem processes and increasing ecosystem resilience. We illustrate the use of this framework in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB) of the central United States (U.S.), by (i) identifying key stressors and (ii) creating a conceptual ecosystem model relating those stressors to impacts on ecosystem structure and processes. We show how ecosystem managers could use this model to identify management actions that will improve ecosystem health. The model also informs a set of landscape-level indicators of ecosystem health, including indicators that stakeholders can use to assess the effectiveness of management actions. Although our model and indicators are specific to the MARB, we believe that the generalized framework and the process of model and indicator development will be valuable in an array of altered river basins.
Description:
Continued large-scale public investment in declining ecosystems depends on demonstrations of “success”. While the public conception of “success” often focuses on restoration to a pre-disturbance condition, the scientific community is more likely to measure success in terms of improved ecosystem health. We briefly review the development of the concept of ecosystem health and propose a generalized framework to improve ecosystem health in highly altered river basins by reducing ecosystem stressors, enhancing ecosystem processes and increasing ecosystem resilience. We illustrate the use of this framework in the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin (MARB) of the central United States (U.S.), by (i) identifying key stressors related to human activities, and (ii) creating a conceptual ecosystem model relating those stressors to effects on ecosystem structure and processes. The model also informs a set of landscape-level indicators of ecosystem health, emphasizing leading indicators of stressor removal (e.g., reduced anthropogenic nutrient inputs), increased ecosystem function (e.g., increased water storage in the landscape) and increased resilience (e.g., changes in the percentage of perennial vegetative cover). We suggest that by including these indicators, along with lagging indicators such as direct measurements of water quality, stakeholders will be better able to assess the effectiveness of management actions. For example, if both leading and lagging indicators show improvement over time, then management actions are on track to attain desired ecosystem condition. If, however, leading indicators are not improving or even declining, then fundamental challenges to ecosystem health remain to be addressed and failure to address these will ultimately lead to declines in lagging indicators such as water quality. Although our model and indicators are specific to the MARB, we believe that the generalized framework and the process of model and indicator development will be valuable in an array of altered river basins.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Improving ecosystem health in highly altered river basins: a generalized framework and its application to the Mississippi-Atchafalaya River Basin