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European colonization precipitated the first industrial transformation of Australian landscapes. We review the evolution of the environmental and societal setting of Australian landscapes since this first industrial transformation, the emergence of drivers precipitating a second industrial transformation, and what it will take to adapt. In concert with climate change and growing societal expectations of environmental stewardship, we identify six emerging economies for ecosystem services - carbon, water, food, energy, amenity and mining - which will exert transformational pressure on land use and management. The requirements for transformational adaptation - to thrive within environmental limits - include: fostering new partnerships between government, science, the private sector, and local communities to support local adaptation; identifying critical environmental limits and rationalizing environmental laws; establishing innovative social processes and adaptive governance; and developing innovative, well-supported market-based and community-based incentives.

European colonization precipitated the first industrial transformation of Australian landscapes. We review the evolution of the environmental and societal setting of Australian landscapes since this first industrial transformation, the emergence of drivers precipitating a second industrial transformation, and what it will take to adapt. In concert with climate change and growing societal expectations of environmental stewardship, we identify six emerging economies for ecosystem services - carbon, water, food, energy, amenity and mining - which will exert transformational pressure on land use and management. The requirements for transformational adaptation - to thrive within environmental limits - include: fostering new partnerships between government, science, the private sector, and local communities to support local adaptation; identifying critical environmental limits and rationalizing environmental laws; establishing innovative social processes and adaptive governance; and developing innovative, well-supported market-based and community-based incentives.

Quantitative models are crucial to almost every area of ecosystem science. They provide a logical structure that guides and informs empirical observations of ecosystem processes. They play a particularly crucial role in synthesizing and integrating our understanding of the immense diversity of ecosystem structure and function. Increasingly, models are being called on to predict the effects of human actions on natural ecosystems. Despite the widespread use of models, there exists intense debate within the field over a wide range of practical and philosophical issues pertaining to quantitative modeling. This book--which grew out of a gathering of leading experts at the ninth Cary Conference--explores those issues. The book opens with an overview of the status and role of modeling in ecosystem science, including perspectives on the long-running debate over the appropriate level of complexity in models. This is followed by eight chapters that address the critical issue of evaluating ecosystem models, including methods of addressing uncertainty. Next come several case studies of the role of models in environmental policy and management. A section on the future of modeling in ecosystem science focuses on increasing the use of modeling in undergraduate education and the modeling skills of professionals within the field. The benefits and limitations of predictive (versus observational) models are also considered in detail. Written by stellar contributors, this book grants access to the state of the art and science of ecosystem modeling