BE/CNH: Comparative Stability and Resiliency of Ecosystems: Five Centuries of Human Interactions with the Environment on the Eastern Shore of Virginia

自然与人类相结合的生态系统现在镶嵌在地球的陆地表面。 几乎没有一片土地在某种程度上不是人类居住的结果。 鉴于现代社会有能力改变大气和海洋，即使是偏远和无人居住的景观也在一定程度上被人类活动改变。 但是，这种人类活动会影响自然-人类系统的稳定性吗？ 什么是自然-人类系统对变化的抵抗力？ 它的弹性是多少（在受到干扰后恢复到原始状态的可能性）？ 虽然人们通常认为这些问题的答案一定是肯定的，但本项目将通过先进的社会环境系统分析对问题进行定量和定性评估。 该提案将描述，量化和模拟过去500年来弗吉尼亚州东海岸的自然-人类耦合动力学谱，首先是美洲原住民，后来是欧洲和非洲殖民者及其后代与环境的互动。 这项跨学科的研究旨在提高对一个紧密耦合的自然-人类系统的复杂动态的理解，但在不同的空间和时间尺度上，以及在不同的社会和环境压力下。 这些努力将最终导致开发综合的人类生态系统模型，这些模型将通过历史、考古、生态和地球化学数据进行参数化、校准和验证，以模拟特定历史时期的自然-人类系统，这些系统代表了人类人口模式、土地使用实践和技术能力的变化：（1550-1610）;殖民地（1650-1700）;晚期种植园（1800-1850）;商业/工业（1850-1950）;和现代/保护（1950年至今）。 三个工作假设将进行调查，以了解和比较一系列的景观和海景尺度的生态系统的动态响应：（1）系统与更多的技术社会更能够抵御环境扰动的变化。 (2)拥有更多技术社会的系统对环境扰动的适应力更强。 (3)技术社会本身就是驱动系统未来地位的关键环境扰动。 将采用主成分分析和其他定量程序来评估系统的稳定性、弹性和在这些时间段期间和之间对变化的抵抗力，并确定在这些时间段内对抵抗力、弹性、该项目的预期智力贡献包括确定自然对人类施加的限制，以解释适应性姿势的范围假设人类社会，评估更大的自然-人类系统的人类社会的活动在一个广泛的时间范围内，并通过检查不同的人口，土地利用和技术制度在同一地点的反应。 预计该项目的更广泛影响包括增加对弗吉尼亚州东海岸自然-人类动态的了解，特别是对世界各地无数其他有人居住的陆地-水界面的了解。 该项目将确定对系统阻力、恢复力和稳定性至关重要的变量，从而为切萨皮克湾流域和世界各地类似地区的决策提供信息。 该项目还将为K-12学生、本科生和研究生以及公众提供教育和培训机会。 该项目得到了2003财政年度环境中生物复杂性特别竞赛的资助，该竞赛侧重于自然和人类系统耦合的动力学。

Coupled natural-human ecosystems now tessellate the terrestrial surface of the Earth. There is little land that is not to some degree a consequence of its human inhabitants. Given the capacity of modern societies to alter both the atmosphere and ocean, even remote and unpopulated landscapes are to some degree altered by human activity. But does this human activity affect the stability of the natural-human system? What is the natural-human system's resistance to change? What is its resilience (the likelihood of returning to its original state after being disturbed)? While people often assume that the answer to these questions must be in the affirmative, this project will assess the question quantitatively and qualitatively through advanced socio-environmental systems analysis. This proposal will characterize, quantify, and model the spectrum of coupled natural-human dynamics on the Eastern Shore of Virginia over the past 500 years as, first, Native Americans and, later, European and African colonists and their descendents interacted with their environment. This interdisciplinary study is designed to improve understanding of the complex dynamics of a tightly coupled natural-human system in a single locale, but at varying spatial and temporal scales and under differing social and environmental pressures. These efforts will culminate in the development of integrated human-ecosystem models, which will be parameterized, calibrated, and validated by historical, archaeological, ecological, and geochemical data to simulate natural-human systems during specific historical periods that represent changes in human demographic patterns, land-use practices, and technological capabilities: Protohistoric (1550-1610); Colonial (1650-1700); Late Plantation (1800-1850); Commercial/Industrial (1850-1950); and Modern/Conservation (1950-present). Three working hypotheses will be investigated to understand and compare a range of landscape- and seascape-scale ecosystems in terms of their dynamic responses: (1) Systems with more technological societies are better able to resist change from environmental perturbation. (2) Systems with more technological societies are more resilient to environmental perturbation. (3) Technological societies are themselves the critical environmental perturbation that drives the future status of the system. Principal component analysis and other quantitative procedures will be employed to assess system stability, resiliency, and resistance to change during and between these time periods and to identify those system components within time periods that are most critical to resistance, resilience, and stability.Anticipated intellectual contributions of this project include identifying constraints imposed by nature on humans in order to explain the range of adaptive poses assumed by human societies, assessing the response of the greater natural-human system to the activities of human societies over a broad range of time periods and through examination of distinctive demographic, land use, and technological regimes within the same locale. Anticipated broader impacts of this project include increase knowledge about natural-human dynamics on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, in particular, and countless other inhabited land-water interfaces throughout the world in general. The project will identify variables critical to system resistance, resilience, and stability, thereby informing policymaking in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and similar locales throughout the world. The project also will provide education and training opportunities for K-12 students, undergraduate and graduate students, and the general public. This project is supported by an award resulting from the FY 2003 special competition in Biocomplexity in the Environment focusing on the Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems.