Sustainability of Coastal Ecosystems - Challenges and Solutions

Coastal ecosystems have great value to humans.  They are highly valued as places to live and provide a wealth of ecosystems services including food, storm protection, nutrient removal, and recreation.  Currently, coastal ecosystems face a wide range of challenges including nutrient over-enrichment, changes in freshwater flows, over fishing, and rising sea levels.  Some of these challenges are due to local and regional human management decisions while others are being driven by changes at the global level.  How can we best manage coastal change to sustain valuable ecosystem services?  What sort of scientific and technical solutions are available and what sorts of management and policy decisions need to be implemented?  The US LTER Network is well positioned to address these challenges as 8 of its 26 sites have a direct link to the coastal ocean. The first session(s) of this workshop we will focus on the social and ecological pressures facing the coastal ecosystems being studied by the LTER Network, followed by separate breakout sessions aimed at brainstorming about the research needed to find solutions.   Desired outcomes for this working group include: (1) identifying critical gaps in knowledge needed to sustain coastal ecosystems and the services that they provide, and (2) developing research plans for obtaining this much needed knowledge and putting it into practice.