Atlantic Salmon Access Point

Since the Walkerton tragedy, the need for sustainable, integrated watershed management has been recognized by federal, provincial, and municipal agencies, the scientific community, as well as local service district representatives and individual community members and groups. In response to these and other concerns related to water quality and quantity, partnerships among a variety of actors have been established across the country, and indeed, around the globe, whose goals are broadly to enhance our ability as a society to manage water and watersheds effectively.

To some extent these efforts have been stymied by a lack of scientific information, not regarding the biophysical conditions, but demographic and socioeconomic conditions, and how they relate to biophysical parameters. ESDRC addresses this lack of integrated social ecological information through development of applied research projects related to sustainable watershed management. In particular, the Fredericton Area Watersheds Association and the Canaan-Washademoak Watershed Association provide living laboratories for scientists to examine a variety of questions related to watershed management.

Much of this applied research is conducted using the Human Ecosystem Framework (see Figure 1) as a tool to examine and measure the interactions between human communities and the biophysical systems we inhabit. For each variable, indicators are selected, and for each indicator, measures are chosen. These measures can then be monitored over time to detect trends in the system of interest. The net results of these exericses are both applied and theoretical, intended to contribute to enhancement of policy, planning, and management as well as advances in social ecological science.
A human ecosystem is defined as a coherent system of biophysical and social factors capable of adaptation and sustainability over time. For example, a rural community can be considered a human ecosystem, if it exhibits boundaries, resource flows, social structures, and continuity over time. Human ecosystems can be described at several spatial scales, and these scales are hierarchically linked. Thus, a family unit, community, country, region, nation and even the global population can be treated as human ecosystems (Machlis, Force, and Dalton, 1994).

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