Determining Characteristic Stressor Scales for Ecosystem Monitoring and Assessment

摘要

While most environmental scientists appreciate the importance of appropriate spatial and temporal scales for environmental assessment and monitoring, the issue of how to determine these scales has not (in our view) been addressed in sufficient depth. Here we define the characteristic spatial scale for a stressor as the nearest distance from the source at which stressor values cannot be statistically distinguished from those further away, while the characteristic' time scale is the length of time required to detect a statistically significant decline in average stressor values within the defined characteristic spatial scale in response to reduced stressor emission at the source.