Ecosystem Management: Federal Agency Activities

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NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
----Ecosystem Management Activities
----Cooperation and Coordination
----Tools of Ecosystem Management
----Funding Ecosystem Management
----Ecosystem Management Limits and Opportunities

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
----Ecosystem Management Activities
----Cooperation and Coordination
----Tools of Ecosystem Management
----Funding Ecosystem Management
----Ecosystem Management Limits and Opportunities

NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) does not engage in ecosystem management in the strictest sense. NASA does manage the lands incorporated within the 9 NASA Centers throughout the U.S. There is no broad policy or mission statement concerning ecosystem management. Programs and policies, for the most part, are developed by the individual field centers. NASA also conducts both basic and applied research relevant to ecosystem management. This research is directed toward understanding ecosystem processes, monitoring land cover, and understanding the impacts of NASA land usage (e.g., launches and testing of aerospace equipment) on their surrounding ecosystems.

NASA is committed to managing the ecosystems within its NASA field center properties in a responsible and sustainable fashion. While all field centers are concerned with the impacts of their activities on the environment, the greatest opportunities for ecosystem management lie at Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Stennis Space Center (SSC), and Wallops Flight Facility (WFF). Within the boundaries of KSC are the greatest number of different threatened and endangered species located on any Federal property. The undeveloped portions of KSC are managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) as the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. KSC supports the FWS efforts through field sampling and other data collected by NASA environmental contractors. NASA also ensures that KSC's activities are coordinated with the Canaveral National Seashore that is administered by the National Park Service (NPS). SSC has undertaken an important program attempting to upgrade the quality of certain of its wetland areas. WFF has been working with FWS and NPS to preserve habitat for endangered species and restrict access and activities during sensitive periods of the year.

In its Mission to Planet Earth (MTPE) research program, satellite-based observations of Earth surface ecosystems are used to study the areal extent and condition of ecosystems as well as to estimate land cover change over the time period of the historical satellite data record. These spatially extensive observations of what is actually there and of how it has changed over recent times can be enormously helpful to resource managers who may otherwise have difficulty in obtaining such extensive, internally consistent, repeatable data for their ecosystems. Process studies also are conducted under the MTPE program to understand the environmental controls on ecosystem function, both in relatively undisturbed ecosystems and in those impacted by human activities. This process understanding is then available to land managers and decision makers as a basis for formulating ecosystem management strategies. This process understanding and the satellite-derived information on surface ecosystems also can be used by modelers to predict how ecosystems might respond to change. NASA and other agencies are supporting such modeling studies now, but predictive modeling of ecosystem function and change is challenging, and progress will depend on the depth of our understanding of key ecological processes and other modeling refinements.

The MTPE program is developing a series of satellites to carry Earth remote sensing instruments that will not only advance the U.S. Global Change Research Program's goals and objectives centered around developing a predictive understanding of how the Earth functions as a system, but also provide the next generation of satellite observations for resource and ecosystem managers. They will provide continuity with past satellite data sets while improving data quality and calibration and will also offer completely new types of observations.

The Earth Observing System (EOS), a series of Earth Probe missions, and many partnerships with foreign satellite programs (in particular those of Europe, Japan, Canada, and Russia) are part of the overall MTPE observational strategy. The EOS Data and Information System (EOSDIS) will manage the data resulting from these Earth science research satellites, field measurement programs, and other data essential for the interpretation of their measurements. EOSDIS is NASA's contribution to an international global change information system. Its focus will be on acquiring and archiving data, distributing it to users, producing user-defined data products, achieving connectivity with other global change data systems and archives, and encouraging interdisciplinary research. EOSDIS data and analysis tools and capabilities will be of value for ecosystem management, and support for a broad base of such external users is part of the core plan for EOSDIS.

COOPERATION AND COORDINATION

NASA cooperates with Federal, State, and local agencies in managing its NASA field center properties. At KSC and WFF, this involves close coordination with the FWS, NPS, and a variety of local agencies to protect wildlife and preserve habitat for threatened and endangered species. Before undertaking construction or new activities, NASA routinely consults with Federal, State, and local agencies concerning the environmental implications of such proposals and potential mitigation. Use of State clearinghouses has proved to be an important tool.

NASA coordinates its ecosystem management related research with other Federal agencies through the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which is organized by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) sponsored Committee on Environment and Natural Resources (CENR). Individual projects may be jointly funded, such as the Landsat Pathfinder program to produce a global assessment of forest/non-forest cover for the moist tropics; the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey are key partners in this endeavor. Major field campaigns to understand ecological processes, such a the Boreal Ecosystem-Atmosphere Study (BOREAS) and the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study (JGOFS) almost always involve multi-agency partnerships and the sharing of resources (including aircraft, ships, other unique and valuable equipment, field study sites, and personnel -- in addition to funds). NASA participates in a variety of interagency coordinating groups that address issues relevant to ecosystem management. As an example, NASA participates in the Man and the Biosphere Program led by the U.S. Department of State; this program sponsors research and integrative, synthetic activities that assess human's role in the environment and focus on studying ecosystem sustainability.

NASA has been actively participating in the Interagency Ecosystem Management Coordination Team for about six months. Already this group is providing a forum for information exchange and clarifying interagency thinking about ecosystem management issues and needs. NASA's continued participation in this coordination team will be important so that NASA can keep its surface cover monitoring activities and process studies aligned with the interests and needs of the Federal agencies that have far more significant ecosystem management responsibilities than does NASA.

TOOLS OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

NASA has considerable experience with a wide variety of spatial data analysis tools. The use of remotely sensed data has required such tools, and over the years NASA has played a strong role in their development and implementation. In addition to this research and development role, most of the NASA field centers have implemented geographic information systems (GIS) for their site. They are endeavoring to use GIS in managing the sites in order to minimize impacts on the environment.

NASA's Information Systems Office continues to play leadership role in exploring new approaches and more sophisticated techniques for image analysis, pattern recognition, increased automation, expert systems, and modeling aids. The EOSDIS now under development will be a comprehensive and integrative data and information system to capture, correct and calibrate, document, archive, and distribute Mission to Planet Earth data sets. GIS techniques and other spatial data handling tools will be essential tools for EOSDIS.

FUNDING ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

Management of the NASA field center properties falls under their overall operational budgets. Special studies are funded out of the responsible program office's or NASA center's budget, as needed. NASA does not believe budget restructuring will be required to accommodate ecosystem management at its field center sites.

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITIES

NASA does not believe there are any serious staffing or legal restrictions that constrain its ability to manage the NASA field center properties or to conduct research relevant to ecosystem management.

In the recent past there have been constraints related to the sharing of commercial data sets for operational uses. Many of these constraints have been successfully alleviated, but the situation has been dynamic and could continue to be so. For example, NASA is just beginning to explore the possibility of developing a global land cover data set at fine spatial resolution (perhaps as a follow-on to the Landsat Pathfinder or as a separate activity) for global change research purposes. It is clear that such a data set (or sets) would address the needs of land and ecosystem managers as well as research scientists for a wide variety of applications. Policies are now in place to make Landsat data available for non-commercial purposes and sharing among a large user group at a reasonable cost. However, if data from the French SPOT, European Space Agency's ERS-1/2, Canada's RADARSAT, or Japan's JERS-1 or ADEOS satellites were to be used, special negotiations for applied use and expanded data sharing would probably be required (current agreements only cover research use) -- probably involving additional costs to the U.S. Federal Government. For coastal ecosystems, policies are in place only for research use of SeaWiFS data. It is possible that coastal ecosystem management activities that would benefit from SeaWiFS data becoming available might not be able to share data sets created for research purposes.

CONTACT

Diane E. Wickland
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Terrestrial Ecology Program
YSE
300 E Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20546

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT ACTIVITIES

Ecosystem management is a management decision system utilizing the synthesis of scientific disciplines including ecology, economics, wildlife management, forestry, geology and geography applied over a wide range of spaciotemporal scales. Fundamentally, ecosystem management is an integrative approach to the maintenance of land and water resources as functional habitat for an array of organisms and the provision of goods and services to society. Hence, the objective of ecosystem management is to sustain biodiversity while providing vital social and economic systems. We also could define ecosystem management as "human management", the management of human use and manipulation of the environment.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) supports fundamental research that is critical to managing ecosystems. As a component of this mission, the NSF has been involved in research on ecosystem management for over 30 years and on the components that we currently recognize as parts of modern ecosystem management since its inception. In the 1960's, the NSF supported early ecosystem studies by Eugene Odum on disturbances to the southeastern wetlands and by Frank Bormann and Gene Likens on the impacts of clear-cutting on forest ecosystems in the Northeastern US. This emphasis continued through the International Biome Program of the late 1960's and early 1970's funded through the NSF in which the interacting forces that regulated the functioning of ecosystems were studied.

Today, the NSF is involved in supporting a wide array of studies on ecosystem dynamics and the services that ecosystems provide in cooperation with other Federal agencies, the Nation's universities, and many private and local entities. The NSF supports a wide array of innovative ideas that come from the Nation's foremost resource, its citizens, to assess the physical/chemical constraints on ecosystem processes, the biotic compositions of differing ecosystems, the interactions amongst ecosystem components, and how all of these components come together to provide the vast array of services that ecosystems provide to humans. Below we list some of the projects and topics that are supported by the NSF. Please remember that these are only a limited number of the outstanding research efforts underway.

Baseline Surveys

In order to manage ecosystems, many types of baseline data are needed. At the NSF, we are supporting basic studies designed to produce baseline information that can be utilized to formulate management strategies.

Ecosystem Diversity and Habitat Descriptions

Numerous projects are underway that are studying relationships between organisms and their environments, especially for ecosystems that we have little understanding of. For example, the Antarctic dry valleys were viewed as an analog for Mars because of the harsh conditions. However, researchers have demonstrated that organic matter produced in the oceans and in the many glacial ponds blow onto the land and provide the resources for complete food webs for a wide variety of microorganisms and animals.

Basic systematic relationships

The NSF supports basic research on taxonomic relationships among organisms that comprise all ecosystems, both natural and managed.

Taxa Descriptions of Lesser-Known But Important Biological Groups

Surveys are ongoing that are attempting to describe many groups of organisms that are important as tools for biotechnology and are crucial for the functioning of ecosystems. For example, there are many fungi known as truffles that form symbiotic associations with trees. These fungi are required for growth by the trees and also are a major food item for many small mammals that are, in turn, food for many birds such as the spotted owl.

Development of Techniques to Assess Larger Scales Than Single Communities or Watersheds

Although satellite imagery is available to produce images of the earth, understanding what the signals mean and gleaning important information from the tremendous amount of satellite data is a daunting task. Researchers supported by the NSF have pioneered the theory and use of geographic information systems (GIS) and other computer tools for assessing ecosystem structure. New computer models and analytical methods are being developed to integrate information gathered at a variety of scales to describe the characteristics of ecosystems and to understand how organisms move and utilize resources across ecosystem boundaries.

Long-Term Data Sets That Describe Biotic Conditions

The present conditions often are the result of the history of changes that have occurred in the past. Long term studies supported by the NSF are critical to understanding both the current conditions and the dynamics of ecosystems.

Resources for Biotechnology

Genetic engineering is an important industry in the US. However, traits important for the biotechnology industry are not created in an engineering sense but are found in nature and transferred to organisms or conditions in which they are most useful for humans. Baseline information is being gathered in which interesting or novel drugs or other products are found in existing ecosystems.

Defining Structure-Function Relationships of Ecosystems

In order to properly manage ecosystems, the relationships between organisms and land/sea-scapes need to be understood. Examples are:

• -Sources of trace gases that influence our environment. It is crucial that natural sources and rates be understood in order to know how humans are changing these quantities.
• -The importance of keystone organisms such as oysters and kangaroo rats that appear to regulate the composition of their surrounding communities and dictate the rates of nutrient cycling.
• -The importance of the diversity of organisms in ecosystems and the role of biodiversity. Research has demonstrated that during years of stress, subordinate organisms are often crucial to maintain productivity of ecosystems.

Assessments of Perturbations

Both human and natural disturbances have the ability to profoundly alter the dynamics of ecosystems that influence management decisions. Examples are:

• -The effects of the large California wildfires on the recovery or lack of recovery of the vegetative communities that comprise these wildlands and how the recovery pattern influences the stability of these slopes.
• -Arctic ecosystems are shifting from net importers of C02 to net exporters of C02 further exacerbating the C02 greenhouse effect.
• -Large atmospheric inputs of nitrogen from agricultural and automotive sources are causing ecosystems to change and be controlled by other factors than nitrogen. This often leads to a competitive advantage by weedy species allowing invasions into native areas.

Historical/Prehistoric Influences That Determine Current Ecosystems

We often assume that the ecosystems that we manage are the result of some stabilized permanent conditions. However, both historical and prehistoric conditions have often dictated that ecosystems are structured in their current form. For example:

• -Native Americans utilized the forests in several ways that resulted in the open forests that occurred at the turn of the century. Without their influence, the forests of today are less productive and support a lower diversity of wildlife.
• -Farmland clearing in the late 18th and early 19th centuries has left a legacy in their trace gas emissions even though the entire area today is contiguous forest.

Special Programs

LTER/LMER

There are three programs at the NSF that are uniquely capable of providing information useful to ecosystem managers. The Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) program consolidates an extended temporal outlook over a wide variety of ecosystems. The Land-Margin Ecosystem Research (LMER) program provides specialized information at the interface of our coastal lands, wetlands, and oceans. The Conservation and Restoration Biology (CRB) Program provides fundamental information crucial to protecting and restoring critical biological and ecological resources.

The LTER and LMER programs are especially important for ecosystem management. A long-term research outlook is crucial for evaluating the full spectrum of ecosystem functions and changes. Extended time frames are more apt to capture rare or episodic events like floods, volcanic eruptions and spectacular, ephemeral vegetation dynamics. The LTER program's 18 research sites from Alaska to Antarctica with 600 collaborating scientists and students of various disciplines spans a wide variety of ecosystems and their functions. Represented in this set, for example, are temperate coniferous and deciduous forests, Arctic tundra and Antarctic desert, tall grass prairie and row-crop agriculture.

Even though the LTER program crosses over extremely diverse ecosystems there is a common thread of basic ecological research. Scientists at each site ask similar questions with regard to successional change, population dynamics, landscape patterns, nutrient cycling, productivity and natural and human disturbance. Many utilize shared datasets, satellite imagery and geographic information systems (GIS) to achieve a synthesis across a network of sites, an effort which is growing to include international activities.

Ecosystem management espouses the ability to provide quality habitat as well as goods and services to society. Research at the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest LTER site has provided specific examples of how retaining forest structure as part of the harvest system has a positive effect on habitat quality and long-term forest site productivity. Work at the Cedar Creek Natural History Area LTER site illustrated how the biodiversity of plant life is an asset in the face of catastrophic events such as drought. Research topics at the Kellogg Biological Station LTER site include productivity and environmental impact of production level cropping systems. Not all research is focused on terrestrial systems. 12 LTER sites engage in stream research which elucidates geomorphologic processes, aquatic and riparian ecosystem functions, and response to disturbance. Data from stream chemistry research at the Coweeta Hydrological Laboratory LTER site has been instrumental in the modification of forest management practices in the region. Palmer Station, the LTER Antarctic marine site, investigates open-water polar marine food webs and habitats.

Assessing the veracity and validity of ecosystem management in achieving the goals society sets will be dependent on feedback from monitoring. LTER and LMER sites in representative ecosystems with their long-term outlook can provide the necessary controls for assessing the effectiveness of ecosystem management.

Conservation/Restoration Biology

A special program at the NSF is the CRB program in which the special problems of protecting endangered ecosystems and restoring destroyed ecosystems are addressed. A wide array of projects are being undertaken. As ecosystems are managed for differing resources, such as timber, the resulting changes in ecosystem structure can serve as a bottleneck on populations. For example, habitat fragmentation affects the genetic diversity of residual populations.

The restoration of destroyed ecosystems is a critical research need. Putting viable ecosystems back together requires a better understanding of both fundamental concepts of ecosystem dynamics and careful incorporation of management practices. The NSF has supported several important projects studying the restoration of disturbed lands. These include understanding the limiting stages in succession in a restored strip mine, assessing the importance of planting diversity in tropical forest plantations, and assessing the size and distance relationships of restored areas to existing native patches of plants and pollinators.

COORDINATION AND COOPERATION

The NSF commonly cooperates with other agencies through the funding of fundamental research. The primary example is the interaction with other agencies on the LTER and LMER sites. Most of the sites are on Federal research stations (e.g., Forest Service Experiment Stations, Agricultural Research Stations, National Wildlife Refuges). Academic research is integrated with Federal research on these sites for a more complete understanding of the biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics required for ecosystem management. Some of the sites are owned privately (e.g., Harvard University) or by non-governmental organizations (e.g., The Nature Conservancy) resulting in coordination among academic, private and Federal research.

TOOLS OF ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

GIS are common tools in many of the environmental disciplines of academic research. The LTER sites have excellent GIS and GPS capabilities including the electronic transfer of spatial data across the network for cross-site comparison and analysis. The GIS system of choice is ARC/INFO.

FUNDING ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT

The NSF does not perform ecosystem management as a part of its mission. The budget for fundamental research on biodiversity and ecosystem dynamics, which are important to ecosystem management, is an important priority in the Biological Sciences Directorate and will influence future funding priorities.

ECOSYSTEM MANAGEMENT LIMITS AND OPPORTUNITIES

The role of fundamental research supported by NSF on ecosystem management can be enhanced in many ways. Current plans, for example, to augment the LTER program to allow expansion to regional scales and include more social and economic science will improve the opportunities for extrapolating the results of fundamental science to natural resource use and social welfare. Adding more LTER and LMER sites also is important to understand additional types of habitats, situations, etc., and provide a better knowledge base for the entire continent. Additional interactions with the research programs and research sites of other agencies is necessary. NSF is attempting to work with other agencies to develop a network of networks; linking the many research stations and sites together in a way that allows for information exchange, sharing of expertise, and broad-scale analyses and syntheses of research important to the management of ecosystems.

CONTACT

Mike Allen
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Room 640
Arlington, VA 22203