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Ecosystem goods and services produce the many life-sustaining benefits we receive from nature: clean air and water, fertile soil for crop production, pollination, and flood control. These ecosystem services are important to environmental and human health and to well-being; yet th...

Stressors such as climate change, pollution, and development affect ecosystem condition and consequently they affect the goods and services that people use, appreciate, or enjoy that are produced by those ecosystems (i.e., ecosystem services, ES). Anticipating how ES are affected...

Recreational ecosystem services (RES), understood as the numerous benefits people obtain from landscapes and the natural environment, are a topical area of policy, research and society. This Editorial introduces the current state of RES research, provides an overview of the 21 co...

One recent research focus of EPA is quantifying a range of ecosystem services, the benefits that ecosystems provide to humans, in order to promote informed natural resource management decisions and to assess the effectiveness of existing environmental policies. A case study is u...

One recent research focus of EPA is quantifying a range of ecosystem services, the benefits that ecosystems provide to humans, in order to promote informed natural resource management decisions and to assess the effectiveness of existing environmental policies. A case study is u...

Our objective was to conduct a Health Impact Assessment (HIA) with state, city, and community stakeholders to provide information to decision-makers regarding the health consequences of a large-scale, urban aquatic habitat restoration project in a Great Lakes coastal community. T...

EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research Program in the Office of Research and Development is focused on the study of ecosystem services and the benefits to human well-being provided by ecological systems. As part of this research effort, the Willamette Ecosystems Services Project (WE...

Consideration of ecosystem services (ES) at restoration of cleanup sites may be a useful component of assessing risks, choosing remediation options,&nbsp;and improving site conditions for reuse. Given the wide diversity of conditions and size among cleanup sites, there is not a &...

While much ecosystem services research focuses on analysis such as mapping and/or valuation, fewer research efforts are directed toward in-depth understanding of the specific ecological quantities people value. Ecosystem service monitoring and analysis efforts and communications ...

There is an increasing understanding that top-down regulatory and technology driven responses are not sufficient to address current and emerging environmental challenges such as climate change, sustainable communities, and environmental justice. The vast majority of environmenta...

Land and resource use decisions are typically made by individuals, towns, counties, tribes, states and sometimes multiple states (regions) to increase economic viability of an area with little attention to the long term effects on human health and the environment. Individuals an...

Land and resource use decisions are typically made by individuals, towns, counties, tribes, states and sometimes multiple states (regions) to increase economic viability of an area with little attention to the long term effects on human health and the environment. Individuals an...

Current U.S. EPA ecological risk assessment (ERA) guidance defines an assessment endpoint (AE) as an explicit expression of the environmental value that is to be protected, and recommends that AEs are selected based on ecological relevance, susceptibility to known or potential st...

The dependence of society on the flows, valuation and provisioning of various capital driven services is key to understanding and developing linkages to human wellbeing. By extension, decision makers need knowledge and an array of products that allow them to think more broadly a...

Ecosystem services are required to sustain human life and enhance its quality. Hence, environmental security must come from protecting and managing those services. Ecological risk assessment can predict and estimate effects of proposed actions, but it is insufficient alone for tw...

Vector-borne diseases are increasing in geographic extent and incidence in the United States and worldwide. Municipalities allocate resources to control arthropod vectors to protect human health using the best available information. The combined impacts of human-mediated ecosyste...

The USEPA's Office of Research and Development has made ecosystem services the new strategic focus for its ecological research program (ERP). Recognizing that the protection and enhancement of ecosystem services can help maintain and improve human health, economic vitality and ov...

<p>If climate change leads to an extended growing season and somewhat wetter winters in the Front Range of Colorado, then a new time period of resource availability will be created. Non-native vegetation whose native lands possessed climates similar to the “new conditions” may be...

Researchers at US EPA&rsquo;s Office of Research and Development have been working on operationalizing ecosystem services concepts, approaches, and tools for a wide range of environmental decision-making contexts. This presentation provides an overview of some recent research in ...

Estuarine river watersheds provide valuable ecosystem services to their surrounding communities including drinking water and habitat for fish and wildlife; they also affect estuarine water quality. However, the provisioning of these services can be affected by changes in the qua...

In 2014 a new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement was adopted that included headwater states for the first time and outlined goals for implementation of several BMPs focused on restoration and conservation of vital habitats. At the watershed scale, however, implementation goals as...

Mapping ecosystem services is a high priority and an area of significant ORD expertise. Monitoring will be confined to designing a monitoring system for accounting for ecosystem service changes. This will move EMAP condition monitoring to ecosystem services monitoring, building...

Ecosystem services (ES) are defined as the outputs of ecological processes that contribute to human welfare or have the potential to do so in the future, and include the production of food and drinking water, purification of air and water, pollination, and nutrient cycling. The n...

Brownfields are increasingly called upon to be transformed from potentially contaminated, often vacant properties into community assets that provide multiple benefits. Decision-makers are using recent policy tools to encourage brownfields revitalization that helps to combat the c...

While discussions of global climate change tend to center on greenhouse gases and seal level rise, other factors, such as technological developments, land and energy use, economics, and population growth all play a critical role in understanding climate change. There is increasi...