Coral reefs are among the most productive and diverse marine ecosystems on the planet,  but have experienced extensive declines over the past few decades from a combination of stressors.  Currently, many policy and management decisions are made without considering the services humans derive from ecosystems and the costs associated with protecting them.   The new strategic focus for EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research Program is to conduct innovative ecological research that provides the information and methods needed by decision makers to assess the benefits of ecosystem services to human well-being, and, in turn, to shape policy and management actions at multiple spatial and temporal scales.  We present a general conceptual model for human interactions with coral reef ecosystems using the driver-pressure-state-impacts-response (DPSIR) framework. 

Results/Conclusions

The conceptual model maps the connections between human needs (energy, homes) and the pressures they create (greenhouse gas emissions, pollution) on the state of the aquatic environment and coral reef ecosystem with the resulting impacts on human well-being (tourism, fisheries).  Focus groups and literature surveys were conducted to derive the elements and connections within the model, and to prioritize elements for research by the availability of information and importance to coral reef persistence and sustainable delivery of services.  Integrating socio-economic with more traditional ecological data is essential to understand 1) the human needs that create pressures on ecosystems and 2) the impacts of ecosystem changes on human well-being.  Mapping the links between humans and the coral reef ecosystem, from driver to response, provides a broader range of information for decision-making, allowing us to target key elements for policy decisions, as well as assess the potential tradeoffs and repercussions of such decisions.  The conceptual framework will guide the development of modelling and decision-support tools to evaluate sustainability of coral reef ecosystem services in response to management decisions.