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The fishery performance indicators: a management tool for triple bottom line outcomes

Pursuit of the triple bottom line of economic, community and ecological sustainability has increased the complexity of fishery management; fisheries assessments require new types of data and analysis to guide science-based policy in addition to traditional biological information and modeling. We introduce the Fishery Performance Indicators (FPIs), a broadly applicable and flexible tool for assessing performance in individual fisheries, and for establishing cross-sectional links between enabling conditions, management strategies and triple bottom line outcomes.

High and dry: high elevations disproportionately exposed to regional climate change in Mediterranean-climate landscapes

Predicting climate-driven species’ range shifts depends substantially on species’ exposure to climate change. Mountain landscapes contain a wide range of topoclimates and soil characteristics that are thought to mediate range shifts and buffer species’ exposure. Quantifying fine-scale patterns of exposure across mountainous terrain is a key step in understanding vulnerability of species to regional climate change.

One size does not fit all: Natural infrastructure investments within the Latin American Water Funds Partnership

Water funds seek to promote long-term watershed conservation with multiple benefits for biodiversity and human well-being. This approach has grown rapidly, particularly in Latin America where more than 30 water funds were in operation or development by 2014. To meet the need for evidence to guide ongoing decisions, we assessed the goals and strategies of 16 programs that were operating in 2013–2014 in association with the Latin American Water Funds Partnership. Our findings underscore the diversity within this approach to investment in watershed services.

Bioclimatic velocity: the pace of species exposure to climate change

To investigate the velocity of species-specific exposure to climate change for mid- and late 21st century and develop metrics that quantify exposure to climate change over space and time.

Modeling plant species distributions under futureclimates: how fine scale do climate projections need to be?

Recent studies suggest that species distribution models (SDMs) based on fine-scale climate data may provide markedly different estimates of climate-change impacts than coarse-scale models. However, these studies disagree in their conclusions of how scale influences projected species distributions. In rugged terrain, coarse-scale climate grids may not capture topographically controlled climate variation at the scale that constitutes microhabitat or refugia for some species.

Carbon emissions performance of commercial logging in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Adoption of reduced-impact logging (RIL) methods could reduce CO2 emissions by 30–50% across at least 20% of remaining tropical forests. We developed two cost effective and robust indices for comparing the climate benefits (reduced CO2 emissions) due to RIL. The indices correct for variability in the volume of commercial timber among concessions. We determined that a correction for variability in terrain slope was not needed.

Synthesizing Global and Local Datasets to Estimate Jurisdictional Forest Carbon Fluxes in Berau, Indonesia

Forest conservation efforts are increasingly being implemented at the scale of sub-national jurisdictions in order to mitigate global climate change and provide other ecosystem services. We see an urgent need for robust estimates of historic forest carbon emissions at this scale, as the basis for credible measures of climate and other benefits achieved. Despite the arrival of a new generation of global datasets on forest area change and biomass, confusion remains about how to produce credible jurisdictional estimates of forest emissions.

Connecting microclimates to plant species' range dynamics in a changing climate

Estimating watershed degradation over the last century and its impact on water-treatment costs for the world’s large cities

Urban water-treatment costs depend on the water quality at the city’s source, which in turn depends on the land use in the source watersheds. Here, we show that globally urban source watershed degradation is widespread, with 9 in 10 cities losing significant amounts of natural land cover in their source watersheds to agriculture and development. This watershed degradation has impacted the cost of water treatment for about one in three large cities globally, increasing those costs by about half.

From microclimates to macroecology: modeling plant species range dynamics in a changing climate