Ecological Forecasts: An Emerging Imperative

Access to reliable forecasts of ecosystem state, ecosystem services, and natural capital will increase the ability to forecast ecosystem change and create a capacity to produce, evaluate, and communicate forecasts of critical ecosystem services.

Abstract

Planning and decision-making can be improved by access to reliable forecasts of ecosystem state, ecosystem services, and natural capital. Availability of new data sets, together with progress in computation and statistics, will increase our ability to forecast ecosystem change. An agenda that would lead toward a capacity to produce, evaluate, and communicate forecasts of critical ecosystem services requires a process that engages scientists and decision-makers. Interdisciplinary linkages are necessary because of the climate and societal controls on ecosystems, the feedbacks involving social change, and the decision-making relevance of forecasts.