Anthropogenic impacts on multi-scale ecosystems

Abstract

Natural influences and human activities continually bring about changes in ecosystems. It is becoming increasingly clear that species are less able to adapt to natural changes at local and regional scales when those changes are compounded by human-caused alterations (UNEP, 1995; Yang and Zhao, 2008; Yang, 2011). The primary objective of modeling the anthropogenic impacts is to provide scientific and statistically reliable data that can be used in numerical simulation and decision-making related to the corresponding environmental problems on the ecosystem. To develop the theory and method of modeling the anthropogenic impacts on multi-scale ecosystems, we co-organized the biennial international conference on Ecological Informatics and Ecosystem Conservation with the International Society for Environmental Information Sciences from August 27 to August 29, 2010. The objective of this international conference was to provide a forum to address issues relevant to monitoring, techniques and tools of ecological informatics. It was a unique opportunity to discuss ideas, theories, concepts, methodologies and results. The symposia organized at this conference were a good reflection of the topics on information variability and uncertainty, multi-scale modeling in the presentations by the delegates, such as ecological network analysis, ecological flow analysis, cycle of pollutants and CO2 emission control in river basin and urban scale. The paper by Chen and Chen (2012) defined a new concept concerning information variability within the risk modeling procedure in order to illuminate the handling of uncertainty on the system scale. Huang et al. (2012) investigated the conversions between marsh wetlands and dry lands in the Yellow River Delta during the period from 1986 to 2005 to determine the influences of cultivation on soil properties and soil nutrient storage and minimize the uncertain confounding factors. Sheng et al. (2012) attempted to generate an analysis framework to resolve the ubiquitous problem of missing data in ERA simply by applying the EMB algorithm to the missing data imputation and conducting an uncertainty analysis, and to explore the characteristics and laws for outbreak of BGA blooms in Dianchi Lake, China. Yang et al. (2012) investigated the changes of flow regimes to obtain the suitable flow regimes for maintaining the ecological integrity in the Lower Yellow River, China. The temporal abruption for annual streamflow was explored with the Mann–Kendall method, and alterations of flow regimes at daily scale were described in accordance with indicators of Hydrologic Alteration and Histogram Matching Approach. Mao and Yang (2012) introduced an ecological network analysis to show the independence and interaction between different trade sectors. A virtual water trade network model of the Baiyangdian Basin was built as an example of how this approach provides insights into the trade system. Liu et al. (2012) constructed an urban ecological network model to gain insights into the sustainable urban development process based on the accounting of the extended exergy utilization in the seven sectors of urban socio-economic system. Song et al. (2012) investigated the performance of GA-PLS and band ratio algorithms in the retrieval of Chl-a concentration from remote sensing reflectance (Rrs) in optically complex highly turbid inland water. The Guest Editor would like to express their high appreciation to the authors and reviewers for their great contribution to this special issue.