Bottom-up into top-down: how site-specific information can inform ecologically sensitive landscape policy development

摘要

Detailed baseline information about freshwater ecosystem functions can be applied to management of the wider landscape in which freshwater ecosystems sit. For example, recent research suggests that policies that promote wetland consolidation as a landscape management tool need to be revisited if losses to North American freshwater wetlands are to be halted. Baseline information about freshwater ecosystems also informs policy development in European catchment management: data on the condition and nature of freshwater habitats in designated sites are used to appraise policies against environmental objectives in Catchment Flood Management Plans. This paper explores how specific information on freshwater ecosystems can be integrated from the bottom-up into broad-scale policy development and appraisal, resulting in policies that are more sensitive to the importance of freshwater ecosystems on the landscape. Such ecologically sensitive policies can lead to top-down approaches that integrate freshwater ecosystems into landscape management.