Ecosystem Management with Multiple Owners: Landscape Dynamics in a SouthernAppalachian Watershed

摘要

We examine ecosystem management issues using spatial models that simulatelandscape change for a study site in the southern Appalachian highlands of the United State. We attempt to frame a set of ecosystem managment issues by examining how this landscape could develop under a number of different scenarios designed to reflect historical land-cover dynamics as well as hypothetical regulatory approaches to ecosystem management. Scenarios based on historical change show the recent shifts in social forces that drive land cover change on both public and private lands imply a more stable and a more forested landscape. Scenarios based on two hypothetical regulatory instruments indicate that public land management may have only limited influence on overall landscape pattern and that spatially targeted approaches on public and private lands may be more efficient than blanket regulation for achieving landscape-level goals.