Advancing Land-Sea Conservation Planning: Integrating Modelling of Catchments, Land-Use Change, and River Plumes to Prioritise Catchment Management and Protection.

ABSTRACT: Human-induced changes to river loads of nutrients and sediments pose a significant threat to marine ecosystems. Ongoing land-use change can further increase these loads, and amplify the impacts of land-based threats on vulnerable marine ecosystems. Consequently, there is a need to assess these threats and prioritise actions to mitigate their impacts. A key question regarding prioritisation is whether actions in catchments to maintain coastal-marine water quality can be spatially congruent with actions for other management objectives, such as conserving terrestrial biodiversity. In selected catchments draining into the Gulf of California, Mexico, we employed Land Change Modeller to assess the vulnerability of areas with native vegetation to conversion into crops, pasture, and urban areas. W

SUBMITTER: Alvarez-Romero JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4695094 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature