Land to Sea: integrated modelling of consequences of terrestrial activities and climatechange for freshwater and coastal marine biodiversity and ecosystem services

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Environmental policy and management to regulate multiple human activities require detailed understanding of how activities act individually and in combination to affect ecosystems and the range of services they provide. Progress has been made in characterising effects of many anthropogenic pressures on biodiversity, consequences for ecosystems and links to services. Further work and integration is required and research must be extended to capture effects in multiple dimensions of biodiversity and determine how changes in one ecosystem affect others.Land2Sea aims to (a) develop an integrative framework of coupled models for predicting the immediate and long term consequences of land-use and climate change for the delivery of ecosystem services and the underlying biodiversity and ecosystem processes in freshwater and marine ecosystems and (b) co-design a mechanism for the application of the framework to environmental policy and practise.The project brings together a multidisciplinary team from Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Canada and the USA. It will focus on combined impacts on freshwater and marine systems of selected human inputs to terrestrial systems (nutrients, biocides) and future climate-induced changes to hydromorphology. Empirical research will characterise combined effects of these stressors on multiple dimensions of biodiversity and on ecosystem processes, services and benefits. Findings will fill gaps in existing knowledge, which will be reviewed and complemented by expert opinion as a basis for a framework of coupled models (physical, biological and socio-economic) to predict impacts on aquatic ecosystems and ecosystem services. The framework and its application to policy and management will be developed and trialed through four case study areas with differing environmental and societal contexts but with strong backgrounds of research and societal dependence on freshwater and marine ecosystems. Engagement with stakeholders throughout the project will ensure the relevance and impact of its outputs.