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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons™
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Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Altered Ecological Flows Blur Boundaries In Urbanizing Watersheds, Todd R. Lookingbill, Sujay S. Kaushal, Andrew J. Elmore, Robert Gardner, Keith N. Eshleman, Robert H. Hilderbrand, Raymond P. Morgan, Walter R. Boynton, Margaret A. Palmer, William C. Dennison
Altered Ecological Flows Blur Boundaries In Urbanizing Watersheds, Todd R. Lookingbill, Sujay S. Kaushal, Andrew J. Elmore, Robert Gardner, Keith N. Eshleman, Robert H. Hilderbrand, Raymond P. Morgan, Walter R. Boynton, Margaret A. Palmer, William C. Dennison
Geography and the Environment Faculty Publications
The relevance of the boundary concept to ecological processes has been recently questioned. Humans in the post-industrial era have created novel lateral transport fluxes that have not been sufficiently considered in watershed studies. We describe patterns of land-use change within the Potomac River basin and demonstrate how these changes have blurred traditional ecosystem boundaries by increasing the movement of people, materials, and energy into and within the basin. We argue that this expansion of ecological commerce requires new science, monitoring, and management strategies focused on large rivers and suggest that traditional geopolitical and economic boundaries for environmental decision making be …