Emergence and future role of long-term socio-ecological research for earth stewardship

Background/Question/Methods Interdisciplinary collaborations are essential for a research agenda on earth stewardship. In addition, researchers must develop fruitful interactions with policy makers, managers and the public to put planet earth on a path toward sustainability. We must acknowledge the fact that the human population will continue to grow significantly over the next century and that growing population will place additional demands on ecological systems and ecosystem services. The Long-Term Ecological Research Network has developed a research framework built around press-pulse dynamics that is explicitly interdisciplinary, long-term, and multi-site that can serve as a guide for collaborative research across the network, as well as provide a starting point for communication and outreach with policy makers and the public.

Results/Conclusions This presentation will describe the main components of the press-pulse dynamics framework (press-pulse interactions, ecosystem structure and function, ecosystem services, human responses and outcomes), and briefly compare it to other related frameworks for social-ecological research. Implementation of the framework will be illustrated by a detailed application on population growth in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and how that growth affects competing water use and demands in the region. The key drivers of postwar population growth will be described, along with the spatial patterns of urban growth and landuse.  Finally, the consequences of landuse change on water quantity and quality in the Middle Rio Grande will be presented to illustrate how the components and interactions of the press-dynamics model play out in this rapidly growing urban area in the southwestern US.