Considering Fish as Recipients of Ecosystem Services Provides a Framework to Formally Link Baseline, Development, and Post-operational Monitoring Programs and Improve Aquatic Impact Assessments for Large Scale Developments.

Brown, Carolyn J M; Curry, R Allen; Gray, Michelle A; Lento, Jennifer; MacLatchy, Deborah L; Monk, Wendy A; Pavey, Scott A; St-Hilaire, André; Wegscheider, Bernhard; Munkittrick, Kelly R (2022). Considering Fish as Recipients of Ecosystem Services Provides a Framework to Formally Link Baseline, Development, and Post-operational Monitoring Programs and Improve Aquatic Impact Assessments for Large Scale Developments. Environmental management, 70(2), pp. 350-367. Springer 10.1007/s00267-022-01665-0

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In most countries, major development projects must satisfy an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process that considers positive and negative aspects to determine if it meets environmental standards and appropriately mitigates or offsets negative impacts on the values being considered. The benefits of before-after-control-impact monitoring designs have been widely known for more than 30 years, but most development assessments fail to effectively link pre- and post-development monitoring in a meaningful way. Fish are a common component of EIA evaluation for both socioeconomic and scientific reasons. The Ecosystem Services (ES) concept was developed to describe the ecosystem attributes that benefit humans, and it offers the opportunity to develop a framework for EIA that is centred around the needs of and benefits from fish. Focusing an environmental monitoring framework on the critical needs of fish could serve to better align risk, development, and monitoring assessment processes. We define the ES that fish provide in the context of two common ES frameworks. To allow for linkages between environmental assessment and the ES concept, we describe critical ecosystem functions from a fish perspective to highlight potential monitoring targets that relate to fish abundance, diversity, health, and habitat. Finally, we suggest how this framing of a monitoring process can be used to better align aquatic monitoring programs across pre-development, development, and post-operational monitoring programs.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

10 Strategic Research Centers > Wyss Academy for Nature
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Aquatic Ecology

UniBE Contributor:

Wegscheider, Bernhard

Subjects:

500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology

ISSN:

0364-152X

Publisher:

Springer

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pubmed Import

Date Deposited:

23 May 2022 08:36

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:20

Publisher DOI:

10.1007/s00267-022-01665-0

PubMed ID:

35596789

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Ecosystem attributes Ecosystem services Environmental impact assessment Environmental monitoring Fish Relevant endpoints

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/170167

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170167

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