The Freshwater Imperative: A Research Agenda

by Robert J. Naiman, John J. Magnuson, Diane M. McKnight, Jack A. Stanford, Kathryn D. Sullivan (Foreword by)

Overview

This volume summarizes the two-year effort of a working group of leading aquatic scientists sponsored by NSF, EPA, NASA, TVA, and NOAA to identify research opportunities and frontiers in freshwater sciences for this decade and beyond. The research agenda outlined focuses on issues of water availability, aquatic ecosystem integrity, and human health and safety. It is a consensus document that has been endorsed by all of the major professional organizations involved with freshwater issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610910712
Publisher:	Island Press
Publication date:	03/19/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	181
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

Robert J. Naiman received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1974. He is currently the director of the University of Washington's Center for Streamside Studies, which focuses research and education efforts on riparian management in the Pacific Northwest. His own resaerch efforts includes include the ecological dynamics of streams and rivers, the role of large animals in influencing ecosystems and landscape processes, and riparian processes. He is actively involved with UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme and is chair of the US MAB Program's Temporate Ecosystems Directorate.

John J. Magnuson serves as professor of zoology and director of the Center for Limnology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and principal investigator of the North Temporate Lakes Long-Term Ecological Research Site. He earned his BSc and his MS from the University of Minnesota in fisheries science and his Ph.D. in zoology from the University of British Columbia, Canada. His research interests are in fish and fisheries ecology, long-term ecological research on lake ecosystems, including climate change effects, and comparative analyses across diverse ecosystems.

Diane M. McKnight received a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from MIT in 1979. Since then she has been a research hydrologist with the US Geological Survey -- Water Resources Division. Her interests are in biogeochemical processes involving trace metals and natural organic material in freshwater ecosystems.

Jack A. Stanford is Jessie M. Bierman Professor of Ecology at the University of Montana and is also director of the Flathead Lake Biological Station. He received his Ph.D. in limnology from the University of Utah in 1975, and has studied lakes and streams throughout the world, and in particular, the Flathead River-Lake ecosystem in Montana and British Columbia.

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The Freshwater Imperative

A Research Agenda

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By Robert J. Naiman, John J. Magnuson, Diane M. McKnight

ISLAND PRESS

Copyright © 1995 Island Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61091-071-2

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CHAPTER 1

Fresh Water and the Freshwater Imperative

Importance of Fresh Water to Society

Human society depends on fresh water and the resources associated with it. Freshwater systems provide water for drinking, hydropower, irrigation, cooling, and cleaning; products such as food, plants, and minerals; and services such as recreation, waste purification, transportation, and aesthetics. Nationally and globally there is abundant evidence that freshwater resources are being rapidly depleted and their quality severely degraded. Depletion results directly from consumption as well as from the effects of human actions, direct and indirect, on the environment. Degradation—unfavorable change in distribution, abundance, and quality of water and aquatic ecosystems—represents a threat to the quality of human life, perhaps even to the sustainability of the biosphere and the long-term vitality of human society.

Human societies often naively operate as if they have an unlimited capability to alter water resources and the landscape without degrading the ability of those resources to meet human needs. Moreover, societies often act on the erroneous assumption that increasingly complex technology can continue to replace lost ecological values. The rate of degradation of freshwater resources worldwide is alarming (see chapter 2), a reflection of both the acceleration of human-caused environmental change and the sensitivity of freshwater ecosystems to change. Collectively, lakes, rivers, and wetlands integrate all the human and natural activities and events occurring in a watershed. Rivers act as "the arteries of the continents," and lakes and wetlands act as integrative sensors of air pollution, climate change, and land use change (Degens, Kempe, and Richey 1991). The characteristics of waters, like the characteristics of blood, are diagnostic of the integrity or health of watersheds (Sioli 1975). In addition to being diagnostic, the attributes of fresh waters determine the ultimate success of human and other life.

Of the many uses of fresh water, potable water is perhaps the most crucial resource for the maintenance of human societies. Yet fresh water is limited in total supply, unevenly distributed, and often of unacceptable quality, particularly in areas where supply is limited. Both the quantity and quality of water are shaped by virtually all components of a watershed and by biological and physical processes inherently characteristic of the groundwater, lakes, ponds, rivers, streams, and wetlands within which the water resides.

A complete understanding of the multiple factors influencing water quality and aquatic habitats requires a broad, multidisciplinary approach. Consideration of water as a commodity or resource in isolation from its associated chemical, physical, and biological properties has led to disastrous consequences for managers (National Research Council 1987; Stanford and Ward 1992a; Lee 1993; Oremland 1994). Application of basic principles of aquatic ecology is essential in any comprehensive research plan for the nation's or world's fresh water ( Karr 1991; Likens 1992).

Addressing Freshwater Issues

Addressing problems of water resource degradation requires an expanded understanding and evaluation of the nature of freshwater problems. It requires identification and development of appropriate societal responses to mitigate damage to natural resources (figure 1.1), including development and evaluation of restoration techniques. Effective approaches to accomplish these tasks depend on partnerships at several levels: among natural scientists in complementary disciplines, among natural and social scientists, and among scientists, policy makers, and natural resource managers. Partnerships among natural scientists include those spanning traditional physical, chemical, and biological disciplines and addressing the full range of interacting environments, such as groundwaters, lakes, streams, and wetlands and land, oceans, air, and ice. This breadth is encompassed within the science of limnology, or freshwater ecology, the study of inland waters in all their aspects.

Partnerships among natural and social scientists are necessary to produce not only high-quality science but also science in its most usable form. Unfortunately, these partnerships have not yet developed into an identifiable transdisciplinary science. However, interactive partnerships among freshwater scientists, policy makers, and resource managers are essential for developing a comprehensive approach to integrating freshwater sciences with management of freshwater systems. Early and continued interaction of scientists, managers, and policy makers will produce useful results that can, through adaptive management and bounded conflict (in the sense of Lee 1993), lead to improved management systems for fresh waters.

Two key challenges faced by freshwater scientists are distinguishing natural from human-induced changes and effectively assessing cumulative effects. These require long-term studies appropriate to the temporal and spatial scales of factors controlling aquatic systems and framing water resource issues. Increasing evidence, for example, suggests that changes in global climate can alter or decrease water resources in complex and poorly predicted ways (Smith 1991; Carpenter et al. 1992; Melack 1992). As freshwater issues become more complex, researchers need to develop the capacity to make predictions on temporal scales of 10 to 100 years and at spatial scales that include air-land-water interactions at the watershed scale (approximately 100 square kilometers) or larger. At broad spatiotemporal scales, interacting effects of numerous agents of change are superimposed. Habitat destruction, deforestation, acid precipitation, eutrophication, toxic pollution, climate change, overfishing, and introduction of exotic species act simultaneously and cumulatively and as such may have effects that exceed those of any single agent of change.

Currently, the issues surrounding fresh waters on a national scale are more extensive and complex than any one agency or institution can address effectively (Turner et al. 1990; Lee 1993). Unfortunately, long-term watershed-scale or regional-scale studies are not the norm for freshwater sciences. Yet this is the appropriate scale for integration of social, environmental, and economic issues influencing watershed characteristics. It is a scale toward which limnologists and resource managers need to direct more energy and expertise (Naiman 1992).

Because of the massive changes taking place in our aquatic systems and water supplies, only a short time remains for developing a predictive understanding of freshwater ecosystems and their management. Society and its leaders need to work expeditiously to set a positive agenda. To delay threatens the sustainability of the environment and hence the stability of human society. As Kai Lee (1993) warns: "One of the peculiar commonplaces of our time is the realization that civilized life cannot continue in its present form."

Objective of the Freshwater Imperative Research Agenda

The objective of the Freshwater Imperative (FWI) research agenda is to identify research opportunities and frontiers for inland water ecology (limnology) for the 1990s and beyond. This book is a comprehensive integration of ideas and concerns from recent workshops and symposia on research directions for lake, stream, and wetland science (for example, see Lehman 1986; Carpenter 1988; Stanford and Covich 1988; National Research Council 1991; Firth and Fisher 1992; Naiman 1992). The process of developing the FWI research agenda provided a broad-based opportunity for natural scientists to evaluate the state of knowledge in various disciplines, identify fundamental gaps in knowledge within and among disciplines, suggest program guidelines, identify future research and educational activities, and make specific suggestions for implementation. This book is intended to assist government agencies and private institutions in establishing long-term program directions for freshwater research that relate directly to improved regional watershed-level management and human sustainability.

The FWI research agenda addresses a strategic, long-term goal: to ensure that water resource managers and policy makers have adequate and timely scientific information to protect, utilize, and enhance the nation's water resources. This book can contribute significantly to the development of a national strategy for freshwater science that includes research, applications and technology transfer, and education and outreach. Such a freshwater science strategy requires an ever-improving infrastructure responsive to the evolving knowledge that eventually can provide a predictive understanding of freshwater resources and ecosystems.

CHAPTER 2

Status of Fresh Waters and Challenges Ahead

Degradation of Freshwater Resources

In the United States and other countries, degradation of water resources results in (1) biological impoverishment, (2) altered hydrologic regimes, and (3) risks to human health and quality of life. These three issues highlight the critical need for a freshwater research strategy that defines specific priority areas (figure 2.1). The strategic goal of the Freshwater Imperative is directly related to these issues, as is our opportunity as a nation to develop an ever-improving understanding and management of freshwaters (see chapters 3 and 4). The Freshwater Imperative is especially crucial at this time as the nation faces an unprecedented decline in the quantity and quality of its freshwater systems.

Biological Impoverishment

Biological impoverishment is the antithesis of ecological integrity—maintenance of the physical, chemical, and biological systems necessary for sustaining an acceptable quality of life. Declines in the integrity or health of biological support systems on earth are an ominous signal to human society (Karr 1993). Two major elements constitute ecological systems: the components, as measured by the numbers or types of plants, animals, chemicals, or biomass, and the processes, as measured by the rates of exchange of materials and energy among the components. This concept of biological impoverishment is roughly reflective of biological diversity but is a broader measure than genetic or species diversity.

Biological impoverishment results from human failure to recognize that we depend on the integrity of earth's life support processes. These biological processes include predation, photosynthesis, gas fluxes, and nutrient availability, as well as a host of other processes related to nutrient cycling, genetics, and reproduction. In addition, physical processes affect the rate of biological processes—for example, water circulation affects algal photosynthesis rates, nutrient supply, and dilution of pollutants. The interactions between biological and physical processes are integral to maintenance of ecosystem integrity.

Biological impoverishment takes several forms: habitat destruction and fragmentation, release of toxic organic materials and excess nutrients, acid deposition, spread of exotic species, noxious algal growth, overharvesting of fish and wildlife, and altered thermal regimes, among others (table 2.1).

Habitat Destruction and Fragmentation Elimination or irreversible alteration of aquatic habitats is ubiquitous because human populations and activities center on water, and water is treated as a sump for human activities (Turner et al. 1990; Moyle and Leidy 1992; Dynesius and Nilsson 1994). As a result, the cumulative effects of habitat destruction are considerable. Habitat destruction may be direct and obvious, such as channelization of streams or riprapping of lake shores, or a secondary result of other actions, such as downstream effects of dam construction or sediment and nutrient runoff from altered land use). Already wetlands in the United States have declined by 40–60 percent (Dahl 1990), while riparian forests have been destroyed on about 70 percent of the rivers of the coterminous United States (Swift 1984). The Nationwide Rivers Inventory estimated a total of 5,200,000 kilometers (3,230,000 miles) of streams in the contiguous forty-eight states, but only 2 percent (less than 10,000 kilometers) have sufficiently high-quality features to be worthy of federal protection as relatively pristine rivers (Benke 1990). In North America north of Mexico, in Europe, and in the republics of the former Soviet Union, seventy-seven percent of the total water discharge of the 139 largest river systems is strongly or moderately affected by fragmentation of the river channels by dams and by water regulation resulting from reservoir operation, interbasin diversion, and irrigation (Dynesius and Nilsson 1994). These conditions indicate that many types of river systems have been lost and that populations of many riverine species have become highly fragmented. Destruction of specific aquatic and riparian habitats also causes fragmentation among remaining habitats, which significantly influences the movement of water, materials, and organisms across the landscape. In addition, many organisms require several types of habitat to support different life history stages. Selective destruction of some habitats within a drainage network reduces the viability of populations in subtle ways that have severe long-term consequences for particular species. Destruction and fragmentation of habitats increase the costs of cleanup and decimate resources of considerable value to society, such as salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.) in the Pacific Northwest. A predictive knowledge of how habitat destruction and fragmentation affect aquatic resources can permit judicious planning that avoids the need for expensive restoration efforts.

Although the extent of destruction, fragmentation, and defragmentation of aquatic habitats is widely recognized, many fundamental questions remain:

• At what level of alteration do habitat destruction and fragmentation become irreversible, especially when viewed at different spatial and temporal scales?

• What is the extent to which degraded systems can be restored, especially when the definition of "natural" is likely to vary or to change over time as cultural values and perceptions change?

• What are the characteristics of a regional strategy for protection of aquatic biodiversity and environmental integrity in the face of continuous habitat degradation?

• What are the needs of society, and what are the costs and benefits of alternatives that address those needs?

Exotic Species A major cause of biological impoverishment is the spread of exotic aquatic and riparian organisms through both deliberate and accidental introductions. The results are loss of biodiversity as well as faunal homogenization. For example, the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha), Asiatic clam (Corbicula fluminea), and other molluscs; purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicarium), eurasian watermilfoil (Myriophyllum spicatum), and other macrophytes; carp (Cyprinus carpio), grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella), rainbow smelt (Osmerus mordax), sea lamprey (Petromyzon marinus), and other fishes; and other organisms that have been introduced into the nation's waters represent major threats to the health of freshwater ecosystems.

Invasion of freshwater ecosystems by exotic organisms has detrimental and irreversible consequences. Exotic organisms compete with native species for light, water, and other resources and frequently displace and cause extirpation or extinction of native species. Exotic species also interfere with natural successional processes, harm domestic animals, alter natural disturbance regimes, and even alter the dynamics of freshwater ecosystems by affecting geochemical and geophysical conditions and processes. A predictive understanding of their effects and the processes by which they affect native flora and fauna will require addressing the following questions:

• What ecological conditions allow these species to become established?

• What allows buildup of populations to nuisance levels and then, often, a subsequent decline to lower levels?

• How do resource managers decide when to count on a population crash to avoid expensive and unnecessary control efforts?

• Are some habitats especially prone to invasion? Is this feature related to earlier human disturbance? How will global climate change influence invasions and extinctions?

• What are the natural means of dispersal and the natural rates of invasion and extinction of aquatic systems that differ in degree of isolation and that often may be "islandlike"?

• What are the effects of diseases and parasites carried by introduced species?

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Freshwater Imperative by Robert J. Naiman, John J. Magnuson, Diane M. McKnight. Copyright © 1995 Island Press. Excerpted by permission of ISLAND PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Table of Figures
Foreword
Preface
Executive Summary
 
Chapter 1. Fresh Water and the Freshwater Imperative
Chapter 2. Status of Fresh Waters and Challenges Ahead
Chapter 3. Directions for Freshwater Research
Chapter 4. Linking Research, Management, and Policy
Chapter 5. Implementation Requirements
 
Appendix 1: FWI Research Agenda Participants
Appendix 2: Books and Proceedings Reviewed by the FWI Steering Committee
Literature Cited
Glossary of Terms and Acronyms
Index