title: Ecological forecasts: an emerging imperative.
abstract: Planning and decision-making can be improved by access to reliable forecasts of ecosystem state, ecosystem services, and natural capital. Availability of new data sets, together with progress in computation and statistics, will increase our ability to forecast ecosystem change. An agenda that would lead toward a capacity to produce, evaluate, and communicate forecasts of critical ecosystem services requires a process that engages scientists and decision-makers. Interdisciplinary linkages are necessary because of the climate and societal controls on ecosystems, the feedbacks involving social change, and the decision-making relevance of forecasts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708 USA. jimclark@duke.edu
authors.forename: J S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: S R
authors.initials: SR
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barber
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Collins
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dobson
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Foley
authors.forename: D M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Lodge
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pascual
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pielke
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Pizer
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pringle
authors.forename: W V
authors.initials: WV
authors.lastname: Reid
authors.forename: K A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Rose
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Sala
authors.forename: W H
authors.initials: WH
authors.lastname: Schlesinger
authors.forename: D H
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Wall
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wear
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D000818:Animals; D003657:Decision Making; D004196:Disease Outbreaks; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D004813:Epidemiology; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D011050:Policy Making; D011158:Population Growth; D013269:Stochastic Processes