Systems in Flames: Dynamic Coproduction of Social-Ecological Processes.

Ecologists who study human-dominated places have adopted a social-ecological systems framework to recognize the coproduced links between ecological and social processes. However, many social scientists are wary of the way ecologists use the systems concept to represent such links. This wariness is sometimes due to a misunderstanding of the contemporary use of the systems concept in ecology.

Urban runoff and stream channel incision interact to influence riparian soils and understory vegetation.

Riparian soil processes and vegetation are sensitive to water availability. Urbanization can alter riparian water availability by modifying stream flows and stream channel morphology. In cities, runoff from impervious surfaces tends to increase stormflow magnitudes, causing stream channels to incise, or downcut.

Theoretical Perspectives of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study: Conceptual Evolution in a Social-Ecological Research Project.

The Earth's population will become more than 80% urban during this century. This threshold is often regarded as sufficient justification for pursuing urban ecology. However, pursuit has primarily focused on building empirical richness, and urban ecology theory is rarely discussed.

Cross-scale controls on the in-stream dynamics of nitrate and turbidity in semiarid agricultural waterway networks.

Stream and riparian zone networks embedded in agricultural landscapes provide a potential intervention point to ameliorate the negative effects of agricultural runoff by reducing transport of nitrate (NO) and suspended sediments (SS) downstream. However, our ability to support and promote NO and SS attenuation is limited by our understanding of vegetative and hydrogeomorphic controls in realistic management contexts. In addition, agricultural landscapes are heterogenous on multiple management scales, from farm field to regional water management scales, and the effect of these heterogeneities and how they interact across scales to affect vegetative and hydrogeomorphic controls is poorly explored in many settings.

Controls on denitrification potential in nitrate-rich waterways and riparian zones of an irrigated agricultural setting.

Denitrification, the microbial conversion of NO to N gases, is an important process contributing to whether lotic and riparian ecosystems act as sinks for excess NO from agricultural activities. Though agricultural waterways and riparian zones have been a focus of denitrification research for decades, almost none of this research has occurred in the irrigated agricultural settings of arid and semiarid climates. In this study, we conducted a broad survey of denitrification potential in riparian soils and channel sediments from 79 waterway reaches in the irrigated agricultural landscape of California's Central Valley.