A Poster Introducing BES III
BES at the All Scientists’ Meeting
Every three years, the participants in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network meet to share and compare results, and to plan for the future. this effort, involving more than one thousand researchers, educators, artists, and other collaborators in LTER, is called an All Scientists’ Meeting. The details of this large meeting can be found on the website of the LTER Network: http://www.lternet.edu/node/49531
Members of BES will be presenting posters, plenary talks, and workshops. We’ll report on some of the highlights after the meeting is done.
An Overview of BES for the ASM
Trees, Vegetation: Patchiness, Change, and Function
The Urban Stream Dis/Continuum: Patterns and Processes
1 – 2. The results clustered in the right hand panel of the poster focus on streams. Kaushal and Belt (2012) have proposed a conceptual refinement to the stream continuum concept to apply this widely used comparative tool to urban systems. They emphasize the role of engineering, and the effects of enhanced connections in hydrological flow paths, along with the effects of disruptions in hydrological flows. Some of these connections and disconnections are intentional, while others are incidental to the way water is routed. They present data to show that stream contamination depends on where in this complex dis/continuum a sampling station is located.
3. Detention basins are designed to control the flow of stormwater and reduce the loading of copious rains into storm sewers while continuing to avoid street and structure flooding. Neil Bettez and Peter Groffman (submitted for publication) have shown that although several kinds of detention structures were engineered to control stormwater, in fact, they are also adaptive for reducing the amount of nitrate in stormwater. They thus can contribute to improving the water quality downstream. Some of these engineered structures facilitate enough biological processing of nitrate that they do better than natural riparian zones in the area.
Social and Educational Processes
The poster places these results and concepts into a graphical form. This will be on display throughout the All Scientists Meeting in Colorado during the week of 9 – 13 September 2012. We hope it gives a little flavor of where BES is going in its third phase, motivated by the pressure of cities to become more sustainable.
Publications
Kaushal, S.S. & K.T. Belt. 2012. The urban watershed continuum: evolving spatial and temporal dimensions. Urban Ecosystems 15:409-435
Nowak, D.J. and E.J. Greenfield. 2012. Tree and impervious cover change in U.S. cities. Urban Forestry and Urban Greening. 11:21-30.
Troy, A. J.M. Grove & J. O’Neil-Dunne. 2012. The Relationship between Tree Canopy and Crime Rates across an Urban-Rural Gradient in the Greater Baltimore Region, Lands. Urban Plann. 106: 262-270.
Zhou, W., G. Huang, S.T.A. Pickett, & M.L. Cadenasso. 2011. 90 years of forest cover change in the urbanizing Gwynns Falls watershed, Baltimore, Maryland: spatial and temporal dynamics. Landscape Ecology 26:645-659