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Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Coastal Management
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The Office of Coastal Management protects and restores the resources of Ohio’s Lake Erie coastline and watershed.
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Ecological extinction and evolution in the brave new ocean
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The great mass extinctions of the fossil record were a major creative force that provided entirely new kinds of opportunities for the subsequent explosive evolution and diversification of surviving clades. Today, the synergistic effects of human impacts are laying the groundwork for a comparably great Anthropocene mass extinction in the oceans with unknown ecological and evolutionary consequences. Synergistic effects of habitat destruction, overfishing, introduced species, warming, acidification, toxins, and massive runoff of nutrients are transforming once complex ecosystems like coral reefs and kelp forests into monotonous level bottoms, transforming clear and productive coastal seas into anoxic dead zones, and transforming complex food webs topped by big animals into simplified, microbially dominated ecosystems with boom and bust cycles of toxic dinoflagel- late blooms, jellyfish, and disease. Rates of change are increasingly fast and nonlinear with sudden phase shifts to novel alternative community states. We can only guess at the kinds of organisms that will benefit from this mayhem that is radically altering the selective seascape far beyond the consequences of fishing or warming alone. The prospects are especially bleak for animals and plants compared with metabolically flexible microbes and algae. Halting and ultimately reversing these trends will require rapid and fundamental changes in fisheries, agricultural practice, and the emissions of green- house gases on a global scale.
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The Jones Center at Ichauway
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Spanning nearly 30,000 acres of woods, water, and wildlife, The Jones Center at Ichauway provides a unique combination of place, people, and processes to better understand, demonstrate, and promote effective management of natural resources through research, conservation, and education.
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ESSAY : The worst-case scenario
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Stephen Schneider explores what a world with 1,000 parts per million of CO2 in its atmosphere might look like.
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Coastal habitats shield people and property from sea-level rise and storms
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Extreme weather, sea-level rise and degraded coastal ecosystems are placing people and property at greater risk of damage from coastal hazards 1–5. The likelihood and magnitude of losses may be reduced by intact reefs and coastal vegetation 1, especially when those habitats fringe vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Using five sea-level-rise scenarios, we calculate a hazard index for every 1 km2 of the United States coastline. We use this index to identify the most vulnerable people and property as indicated by being in the upper quartile of hazard for the nation’s coastline. The number of people, poor families, elderly and total value of residential property that are most exposed to hazards can be reduced by half if existing coastal habitats remain fully intact. Coastal habitats defend the greatest number of people and total property value in Florida, New York and California. Our analyses deliver the first national map of risk reduction owing to natural habitats and indicates where conservation and restoration of reefs and vegetation have the greatest potential to protect coastal communities.
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Editorial : Beyond forest carbon
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The preservation of forests, both on land and in mangrove swamps, has received much attention in the move to protect biological carbon stores. Less conspicuous communities of organisms deserve some scrutiny, too.
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Contrasting futures for ocean and society from different anthropogenic CO2 emissions scenarios
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The ocean moderates anthropogenic climate change at the cost of profound alterations of its physics, chemistry, ecology, and services. Here, we evaluate and compare the risks of impacts on marine and coastal ecosystems—and the goods and services they provide—for growing cumulative carbon emissions under two contrasting emissions scenarios. The current emissions trajectory would rapidly and significantly alter many ecosystems and the associated services on which humans heavily depend. A reduced emissions scenario — consistent with the Copenhagen Accord’s goal of a global temperature increase of less than 2°C — is much more favorable to the ocean but still substantially alters important marine ecosystems and associated goods and services. The management options to address ocean impacts narrow as the ocean warms and acidifies.
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St. Andrew and St. Joseph Bays Estuary Program
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The St. Andrew Bay Watershed in the central Florida Panhandle covers 1,156 square miles that includes the interconnected estuary system of both St. Andrew Bay (West, North, and East bays) and St. Joseph Bay. This gem of an estuary and watershed is one of the most biologically diverse bays in North America and the only watershed in Northwest Florida located entirely in the state of Florida.
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Nova Scotia Nature Trust NSNT
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We protect Nova Scotia’s outstanding natural legacy through land conservation.
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