ERF's Initiative in Biocomplexity: Estuarine Responses to Climate Change and Variability

Teambuilding Effort on Begins at ERF 2001 Town Meeting

To accelerate the involvement of the estuarine science community in addressing the complex and critically important questions surrounding climate change and variability, the Estuarine Research Federation is holding a series of meetings to bring together estuarine, social and climate scientists. To initiate this process, a Town Meeting was held during the ERF 2001 Conference in St. Pete Beach. Approximately 50 people attended, including representatives from ERF, the Estuarine and Coastal Science Association (ECSA), and the American Meteorological Society (AMS).

The goal of this initiative is to identify productive and innovative avenues of research related to the effects of climate change and variability on biocomplexity and the mechanisms by which biocomplexity allows ecosystems to adapt to those forces. The National Science Foundation is supporting this initiative under its Biocomplexity in the Environment Program (http://www.nsf.gov/home/crssprgm/be/start.htm). Two ERF Past Presidents, Donald Boesch (University of Maryland) and Anne Giblin (Marine Biological Laboratory) are serving as the principal investigators on the project.

The ERF initiative has three major objectives:

1. Identify the major research priorities for the study of the impact of climate change and variability on estuarine ecosystems.
2. Facilitate the building of teams of estuarine scientists, social scientists, economic scientists, and climate scientists that can address these research priorities.
3. Provide scientists, managers, and policy makers with better tools and information so that they can begin to factor issues on the effects of climate change and variability on estuarine ecosystems into their work.

To address these goals there will be a workshop held in the spring of 2002 to outline the major research priorities need to advance our understanding of climate variability and change on estuarine ecosystems and to work on three synthesis documents relating to critical areas in need of more inter-disciplinary research. The workshop will be by invitation and will include about 40 scientists, managers and policy makers. The critical areas chosen are:

1. Coastal hazards and the physical transformations of coastlines and wetlands
2. Changes in freshwater loads to coastal ecosystems
3. Alterations and geographic shifts in ecosystems boundaries

The initial workshop will generate a report and three synthesis documents. After these documents are produced, the Steering Committee will hold a series of regional workshops to disseminate the results, seek further input, and to help facilitate building the multidisciplinary research teams necessary to address these issues.

Current information on the Biocomplexity Initiative will be posted on the ERF Web site at http://erf.org/biocomplexity/biocomplex_home.htm. The complete proposal (Adobe Acrobat Reader required) can be viewed and downloaded from http://ca.umces.edu/president/ERFbiocomplexity.pdf.

Additional information on this topic can be found in the report by Boesch, D., J.C. Field, and D. Scavia. 2000. The potential consequences of climate variability and change on coastal areas and marine resources. NOAA Coastal Ocean Program Decision Analysis Series # 21. This report is available on the web at http://www.cop.noaa.gov/pubs/das/das21.html. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required).