Читать книгу Coastal Ecosystems in Transition - Группа авторов - Страница 11

A series of workshops was hosted in the 1990s by the Marine Biology Station Piran of the National Institute of Biology (Slovenia), the Centre for Marine Research of the Ruđer Bošković Institute Rovinj (Croatia), and the Horn Point Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (USA). Their purpose was to advance our understanding of how coastal ecosystems are responding to cultural eutrophication, coastal development, and fishing pressure through a comparative analysis of the Northern Adriatic Sea and Chesapeake Bay, two river‐dominated systems with urbanized watersheds that support extensive industrial agriculture.

These workshops led to the 1999 publication of Ecosystems at the Land–Sea Margin: Watershed to the Coastal Sea as part of the AGU Estuarine and Coastal Sciences Series. The comparative analysis was undertaken in order to improve our understanding of how coastal ecosystems are responding to the pressures of human expansion. The focus was on impacts of local anthropogenic pressures that are occurring globally (coastal development, habitat loss, nutrient pollution, and fisheries) and was based on research conducted during the 1980s and 1990s.

Revisiting these two ecosystems two decades later provides an opportunity to assess changes in anthropogenic pressures (including climate‐driven changes) that have occurred in the past two decades and to inform ecosystem‐based approaches to managing multiple anthropogenic pressures on coastal marine ecosystem services. In addition, we hope that this publication will foster international collaboration and information exchange on the ecology and value of coastal ecosystems in the Anthropocene.

The chapters that follow include updates on current anthropogenic pressures with an emphasis on the effects of nutrient enrichment and climate change on the extent and condition of critical coastal habitats, patterns of stratification and circulation, food‐web dynamics from phytoplankton to fish, nutrient cycling, water quality, and harmful algal events. A common theme running throughout is the causes and consequences of interannual variability and secular trends in annual cycles and means.

Publication of this book commemorates the 50th anniversary of Slovenia’s Marine Biology Station Piran, the only institution for marine research and monitoring of seawater quality in Slovenia. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the following: Long Term Ecological Research Network in Italy and Slovenia (LTER‐Italy, LTER‐Slovenia), Slovenian Research Agency, Croatian Ministry of the Science, Environmental Agency of Slovenia, Croatian Meteorological and Hydrological Service, the European Environmental Agency, the District Po River Basin Authority, the Regional Environmental Protection Agencies of Emilia Romagna, European Commission, US Environmental Protection Agency, US Geological Survey, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and US National Science Foundation.

Thomas C. Malone

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Horn Point Laboratory, USA

Alenka Malej

National Institute of Biology, Marine Biology Station, Slovenia

Jadran Faganeli

National Institute of Biology, Marine Biology Station, Slovenia