Ecologically resilient and sustainable multi-functional landscapes

当代对景观尺度生态功能和过程的科学认识强调了多尺度和多个子系统之间相互作用的重要性。了解和规划这种相互作用对于保持生态弹性和可持续的景观至关重要。然而，加拿大的土地利用规划和养护工作往往侧重于单一资源、生境类型或物种，这主要是因为缺乏适当的工具将整个系统的复杂性纳入决策过程。NSERC资助的这项研究计划专注于开发包含这种复杂性的工具，并应用这些工具来支持环境管理和规划决策，以应对大型景观的弹性。*未来五年，不列颠哥伦比亚省的奥卡纳根山谷将作为一个案例研究地区。奥卡纳根山谷是加拿大增长最快的地区之一，正在经历快速的土地利用变化。奥卡纳根包括一些加拿大最具生物多样性的生态系统，该地区超过20%的地区被归类为具有高度或非常高的相对生物多样性。随着人类土地利用和城市发展的不断增加，这些生态价值以及生态系统服务的提供都面临风险。这项研究计划将量化奥卡纳根地区不同土地利用变化情景对环境的影响和权衡，并就如何保持生态弹性景观提出建议，使人类土地利用(农业、木材采伐和建成环境)与生态系统服务供应和生物多样性保护(自然栖息地的面积和连通性)相协调。*方法将包括：1)开发和应用绘图和基于个体的建模工具，以确定大型景观生态廊道的位置，以促进野生动物的移动和生态系统服务的流动；2)评估对生态系统服务提供和连通性重要的区域与保护景观生物多样性重要区域之间的重叠；3)通过制定和测试景观弹性的定量工作定义，进一步完善对生态弹性的科学理解。因此，这项工作将为评估野生动物迁徙和生态系统服务供应的景观连通性以及景观规模的弹性的定量测量提供新的建模方法和途径。*除了做出重要的方法和科学贡献外，这项研究还将为不列颠哥伦比亚省南部内陆的保护工作提供参考。通过为综合土地利用规划提供量化支持，该研究计划将对奥卡纳根山谷未来的增长方向产生直接和应用的影响，为加拿大提供一个生态弹性和可持续景观的模式。**

Contemporary scientific understanding of landscape-scale ecological functions and processes emphasizes the importance of interactions across multiple scales and subsystems. Understanding and planning for such interactions is essential for maintaining ecologically resilient and sustainable landscapes. Land use planning and conservation efforts in Canada, however, are often focused on a single resource, habitat type or species, mostly due to a lack of appropriate tools to integrate the full complexity of the system into the decision-making process. This NSERC funded research program focuses on the development of tools that incorporate such complexity, and the application of these tools to support environmental management and planning decisions for resilience on large landscapes. ******Over the next five years, the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia will serve as a case study region. The Okanagan Valley is one of Canada's fastest growing regions and is undergoing rapid land use change. The Okanagan comprises some of Canada's most biologically diverse ecosystems with more than 20% of the region being classified as having high or very high relative biodiversity. These ecological values, as well as ecosystem service provisioning, are at risk as human land use and urban development continue to increase. This research program will quantify the environmental impacts and trade-offs of different land use change scenarios for the Okanagan, and make recommendations on how to maintain an ecologically resilient landscape that conciliates human land use (agriculture, timber harvest and built environments) with ecosystem services provisioning and biodiversity conservation (area and connectivity of natural habitats). ******Methods will involve: 1) developing and applying mapping and individual-based modelling tools to identify locations of ecological corridors for large landscapes, both to facilitate wildlife movement and the flow of ecosystem services; 2) evaluating the overlap between areas important for ecosystem service provisioning and connectivity and areas of importance for conserving biodiversity on a landscape; and, 3) further refining scientific understanding of ecological resilience by developing and testing a quantitative, working definition of landscape resilience. This work will, therefore, contribute new modelling methods and approaches for assessing landscape connectivity for both wildlife movement and ecosystem service provisioning as well as quantitative measures of resilience at the landscape scale.******In addition to making important methodological and scientific contributions, this research will inform conservation efforts in British Columbia's southern interior. By providing quantitative support for integrated land use planning, this research program will have a direct and applied impact on the direction of future growth in the Okanagan Valley, providing a Canadian model of an ecologically resilient and sustainable landscape.**