ABSTRACT
Ecosystem services valued by society are concentrated in coastal marine and estuarine ecosystems. Ecosystem-based management of these services must be informed by observing and modeling systems (a system of systems, or SoS) that inform integrated ecosystem assessments (IEAs) and the timely provision of such assessments to decision makers. Such an SoS must (1) be sustained, (2) provide continuous streams of quality-controlled, multidisciplinary data via observations and models, (3) effectively link observations and modeling to the preparation of IEAs via integrated data management and communications, and (4) adapt over time to improve performance based on stakeholder feedback. The procedures required to achieve these operational objectives are described, and the status of two efforts to establish such an SoS are described to illustrate the problems and challenges that must be addressed: a relatively mature program (the Chesapeake Bay Program in the United States) and a relatively young program (the Ecosystem Health Monitoring Program in Australia).
