Maintaining healthy and sustainable coastal and marine ecosystems relies on scientific understanding of how these areas function across landscape scales. Ecosystem-scale science addresses understanding important linkages between watersheds, estuaries, wetlands and offshore ocean regions. Human activities can impact or degrade the health and productivity of these resources by fragmenting habitats, altering drainage or circulation patterns, and introducing contaminants. USGS brings together multidisciplinary expertise, tools and models to improve our understanding of how healthy ecosystems function as well as how they respond to environmental changes and human impacts. Ecosystem scientific products are critical informational assets for planners, resource managers and decision-makers. |