Integrating Human Health and Environmental Health into the DPSIR Framework: A Tool to Identify Research Opportunities for Sustainable and Healthy Communities

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has recently realigned its research enterprise around the concept of sustainability. Scientists from across multiple disciplines have a role to play in contributing the information, methods, and tools needed to more fully understand the long-term impacts of decisions on the social and economic sustainability of communities. Success will depend on a shift in thinking to integrate, organize, and prioritize research within a systems context. We used the Driving forces–Pressures–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) framework as a basis for integrating social, cultural, and economic aspects of environmental and human health into a single framework. To make the framework broadly applicable to sustainability research planning, we provide a hierarchical system of DPSIR keywords and guidelines for use as a communication tool. The applicability of the integrated framework was first tested on a public health issue (asthma disparities) for purposes of discussion. We then applied the framework at a science planning meeting to identify opportunities for sustainable and healthy communities research. We conclude that an integrated systems framework has many potential roles in science planning, including identifying key issues, visualizing interactions within the system, identifying research gaps, organizing information, developing computational models, and identifying indicators.     

Sustainable planning for a coastal wetland system with an integrated ANP and DPSIR model for conflict resolution

Wetlands are important ecosystems on earth due to their capability of preserving water sources, mediating flooding, providing habitats for wildlife, and stabilizing coastlines. Wetlands play a critical role in regional sustainable development because of their ability to enhance resilience against extreme weather events. Maintaining coastal sustainability requires consideration of both the health of coastal wetlands and the resilience of urban systems while mitigating the conflict among social, economic, and environmental goals in land usages around coastal wetland environment. This study investigates a sensitive coastal wetland system located at central Taiwan for demonstration of a sustainable planning practice with an integrated model based on network topology in a socio-ecological context. There are two parts of the integrated model. Whereas a Driving force–Pressure–State–Impact–Response (DPSIR) model helps delineate the complex behaviors among different stakeholders by identifying various indicators, the analytic network process (ANP) quantifies the network topology of DPSIR. According to the survey via questionnaires answered by a group of experts, the DPSIR model is composed of 32 major indicators that can be networked by ANP. The results reveal that an effective ecological conservation depends on a series of mitigation actions, including river and habitat restorations, pollution control, green tourism, and integrated community development via better zoning policies.     

Assessing and comparing relative farm-level sustainability of smallholder shrimp farms in two Sri Lankan provinces using indices developed from two methodological frameworks

As shrimp farming can be an important means of income generation, particularly among Sri Lanka’s rural communities, it is important that this industry grows in a sustainable manner, starting at the farm level. The objectives of this study were to; 1) create baseline farm-level sustainability indices for smallholder shrimp farms in Sri Lanka using both content-based and system-based frameworks adapted from agriculture; 2) determine whether arranging indicators within both content- and system-based sustainability frameworks would provide additional insight into relative farm sustainability (rather than using just one framework); and 3) seek differences between the North Western Province (NWP) and the Eastern Province (EP) in sustainability index, sub-index, or indicator scores that might be used to create province-specific policies and education programs designed to potentially improve sustainable practices at the farm level. Since little has been published on the development of practical indicators and evaluation of farm-level sustainability in aquaculture, this study adapted two types of frameworks used for measuring sustainability in agriculture: content- and system-based. Using both frameworks, along with expert opinion, indicators of farm level sustainability were developed into a questionnaire and measured on 225 farms in two provinces of Sri Lanka. Indicators primarily included modifiable practices that farmers could influence to improve the chances of their farms’ survival. The farm indicators were normalized using “min-max” normalization, where scores of zero and one were assigned for the least and most sustainable options, respectively. Farm indicators in each province were then aggregated into sub-indices as well an overall aggregated sustainability index score. Similar themes were gleaned from both the content-based and system-based sustainability frameworks, and there was no significant difference between mean overall sustainability scores for the two different frameworks. Farms in the NWP scored significantly higher on the overall sustainability indices of both models despite the NWP’s history of severe disease outbreaks while the EP farms had no disease. Possible reasons for this difference were explored with an in-depth analysis of sub-indices as well as individual indicators. An overall aggregated sustainability index score was a useful baseline measure for monitoring changes in sustainability over time; however, its use was limited when attempting to identify gaps in sustainable management practices and provide practical information for farmers and stakeholders to improve farm-level sustainability. It was important to evaluate individual indicators in addition to sub-indices and overall index scores when making recommendations or identifying gaps in sustainable practices at the farm level.     

Mapping indicator models: From intuitive problem structuring to quantified decision-making in sustainable forest management

Most commonly, sustainability indicator sets presented as lists do not take into account interactions among indicators in a systematic manner. Vice versa, existing environmental indicator systems do not provide a formalized approach for problem structuring and quantitative decision support. In this paper, techniques for considering indicator relationships are highlighted and a coupled approach between a qualitative and a quantitative method is analysed. Cognitive mapping (CM) is used for structuring indicators and three different causal maps are derived based on established sustainability concepts: (a) criteria and indicators (C&I hierarchy), (b) indicator network, and (c) Driving Force-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) system. These maps are transferred to the Analytic Network Process (ANP) to allow their application in multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA).In an application example, Pan-European indicators for sustainable forest management (SFM) are utilized in an ANP-based assessment. The effects of the model structure on the overall evaluation result are demonstrated by means of three reporting periods on Austrian forestry.In a comparative analysis of CM and ANP it is tested whether their measures of indicator significance do correspond. Both centrality in CM and single limited priorities in ANP have been reported to identify key indicators that play an important role in networks. We found out that the correspondence between CM and ANP is the stronger the more rigidly cause-effect relationships are interpreted, which is the case for the DPSIR system of SFM indicators.It is demonstrated that using indicator sets without consideration of the indicator interactions will cause shortcomings for evaluation and assessment procedures in SFM. Given strict and consistent definition of causal indicator relationships, a coupled use of CM and ANP is recommendable for both enhancing the process of problem structuring as well as supporting preference-based evaluation of decision alternatives.     

Socioeconomic indicators for sustainable design and commercial development of algal biofuel systems

Social and economic indicators can be used to support design of sustainable energy systems. Indicators representing categories of social well‐being, energy security, external trade, profitability, resource conservation, and social acceptability have not yet been measured in published sustainability assessments for commercial algal biofuel facilities. We review socioeconomic indicators that have been modeled at the commercial scale or measured at the pilot or laboratory scale, as well as factors that affect them, and discuss additional indicators that should be measured during commercialization to form a more complete picture of socioeconomic sustainability of algal biofuels. Indicators estimated in the scientific literature include the profitability indicators, return on investment (ROI) and net present value (NPV), and the resource conservation indicator, fossil energy return on investment (EROI). These modeled indicators have clear sustainability targets and have been used to design sustainable algal biofuel systems. Factors affecting ROI, NPV, and EROI include infrastructure, process choices, and financial assumptions. The food security indicator, percent change in food price volatility, is probably zero where agricultural lands are not used for production of algae‐based biofuels; however, food‐related coproducts from algae could enhance food security. The energy security indicators energy security premium and fuel price volatility and external trade indicators terms of trade and trade volume cannot be projected into the future with accuracy prior to commercialization. Together with environmental sustainability indicators, the use of a suite of socioeconomic sustainability indicators should contribute to progress toward sustainability of algal biofuels.     

Tourism sustainability in Tibet – Forward planning using a systems approach

The purpose of this study is to employ a nonlinear dynamic evaluation method to assess the tourism sustainability of Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), China, a new emerging tourism destination. The methodology draws on system dynamics and Back Propagation (BP) neural network. According to 7 setting principles, this study identifies 13 tourism sustainability indicators including conventional tourism income, tourism resources stock, pollution stock, etc., as well as specific residents’ tourism cognition, seasonal difference, accessibility, etc. Then a system dynamics model including the 13 indicators (variables) and other relevant auxiliary variables is established. Based on the numerical simulation, using a three layers BP neural network optimized by genetic algorithm and particle swarm algorithm, this study evaluates the future sustainability dynamically and compares the sustainability evolution from 2014 to 2050 under different development strategies. The research results not only provide information useful for the dynamic control and scientific management of the future sustainable tourism development, but also provide a systems approach to evaluate regional tourism sustainability.     

内蒙古典型草原优化放牧管理模拟研究——以内蒙古太仆寺旗为例

针对太仆寺旗公共草地全年连续放牧的传统放牧方式,通过控制性试验,并结合太仆寺旗多年的草地、家畜、经济和气象等数据,建立中国西部草地生态经济模型,对太仆寺旗典型草原公共放牧系统进行模拟分析。以草原生态恢复和牧民收入增加为目的,对典型草原的最适载畜率、家畜在冬春季节的合理补饲等问题进行探讨,提出了典型草原放牧管理优化模式。研究结果表明,从当年10月到翌年5月份,家畜能量需求与放牧、补饲能量供给严重不平衡,家畜体重下降;随着载畜率的增加,牧民年均净收入先增加后降低,在载畜率为2.275羊单位/hm2时,收入达到最高;太仆寺旗最适载畜率为每公顷1.55-2.275羊单位。降低载畜率、加强补饲、提高草地质量都有利于提高牧民收入。     

Benchmarking sustainability using indicators: An Indian case study

This paper develops an index to measure sustainability based on the broad themes of social, economy and environment. Nineteen appropriate indicators were selected based on relevance, data availability, and periodicity for each leg of sustainable development. A correlation analysis was carried out to assess relationships between the 19 indicators representing different parameters under the three themes. These parameters were then normalized using Z-score technique. The Z-scores computed for each of these parameters were then used to develop a Sustainable Development Index (SDI). The index is pilot tested on different States and Union Territories (UTs) of India. The values are compared and interpreted to adjudge the forerunners and laggards on the various dimensions of human well-being and environment. Significant relationships have been observed between income levels and area of administrative regions with sustainability indices of the regions. Smaller administrative regions with higher income levels have been observed with higher sustainability scores. The proposed index provides a useful measure of identifying problematic areas that can be plugged through policy measures and ensures that the region moves on sustainable development pathways.     

Sustainable Sourcing of Global Agricultural Raw Materials: Assessing Gaps in Key Impact and Vulnerability Issues and Indicators

Understanding how to source agricultural raw materials sustainably is challenging in today’s globalized food system given the variety of issues to be considered and the multitude of suggested indicators for representing these issues. Furthermore, stakeholders in the global food system both impact these issues and are themselves vulnerable to these issues, an important duality that is often implied but not explicitly described. The attention given to these issues and conceptual frameworks varies greatly—depending largely on the stakeholder perspective—as does the set of indicators developed to measure them. To better structure these complex relationships and assess any gaps, we collate a comprehensive list of sustainability issues and a database of sustainability indicators to represent them. To assure a breadth of inclusion, the issues are pulled from the following three perspectives: major global sustainability assessments, sustainability communications from global food companies, and conceptual frameworks of sustainable livelihoods from academic publications. These terms are integrated across perspectives using a common vocabulary, classified by their relevance to impacts and vulnerabilities, and categorized into groups by economic, environmental, physical, human, social, and political characteristics. These issues are then associated with over 2,000 sustainability indicators gathered from existing sources. A gap analysis is then performed to determine if particular issues and issue groups are over or underrepresented. This process results in 44 “integrated” issues—24 impact issues and 36 vulnerability issues —that are composed of 318 “component” issues. The gap analysis shows that although every integrated issue is mentioned at least 40% of the time across perspectives, no issue is mentioned more than 70% of the time. A few issues infrequently mentioned across perspectives also have relatively few indicators available to fully represent them. Issues in the impact framework generally have fewer gaps than those in the vulnerability framework.     

Assessment of sustainable livelihoods of different farmers in hilly red soil erosion areas of southern China

Livelihood vulnerability in environmentally fragile areas is emerging as a key issue due to its positive feedback to environmental degradation. Assessment of sustainable livelihoods is a crucial prerequisite for targeting interventions. However, aggregated analysis usually obtained ambiguous conclusions because they ignored the heterogeneity of rural households. Here, we evaluated the livelihood sustainability of different rural households by constructing an improved Livelihood Sustainability Index (LSI) in hilly red soil erosion areas of southern China. Changting County was selected as the study case by virtue of its unique representativeness in soil erosion and poverty. The results showed that livelihood sustainability among rural households was far from equivalent. Different from previous studies, higher nonfarm income share was not always consistent with higher extent of livelihood sustainability. Besides nonfarm employment, agricultural specialization could be another viable pathway to attain sustainable livelihoods. We also found that intergenerational sustainability was one primary cause for long-term livelihood differentiation of rural households. The poor education in rural areas would aggravate livelihood vulnerability of the poor and threaten the sustainable livelihoods of specialized agricultural households. Policy implications include further investment in rural infrastructure, irrigation and drainage, and stimulus for land transfer and concentration to facilitate agrarian specialization; enhancing investment in rural education to improve intergenerational sustainability; as well as targeting of the most vulnerable households, for example, promoting development of social insurance, social relief, and medical services for orphans and widows.     

国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系——以西藏色林错-普若岗日冰川国家公园潜在建设区为例

当前,国内外对于国家公园旅游可持续性的定义及其评估指标尚未形成共识,已有的部分指标存在可操作性较弱、管理成本较高等问题,无法直接应用于中国国家公园旅游可持续性的管理与评估。从三条路径构建国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系：以实际需求为导向,分析国家公园所在区域对旅游可持续性管理评估指标的需求;以国际共识为导向,检验《全球可持续旅游目的地标准》在国家公园的适用性;以实践为导向,梳理世界主要国家及地区国家公园旅游可持续性的管理重点。以色林错-普若岗日冰川国家公园（简称"色-普国家公园"）潜在建设区为例,建立国家公园旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系。从经济、社会、文化、生态环境等方面明确了色-普国家公园潜在建设区对管理评估指标体系的需求。经过适用性判定,识别在色-普国家公园潜在建设区具有较强适用性的可持续旅游目的地评估指标。通过频次统计,从经济、社会、文化、生态环境、制度建设等方面遴选世界主要国家及地区国家公园旅游可持续性的重点管理指标。所建立的色-普国家公园潜在建设区旅游可持续性管理评估指标体系包括5个一级指标,15个二级指标,36个三级指标。在此基础上,建议逐步建立健全监测与统计体系,为管理评估指标体系的应用提供支撑。     

Evaluation of sustainable land management in urban area: A case study of Shanghai,China

With the accelerating urbanization process, there is an increasing shortage of land resource. It leads to an increasingly serious conflicts between built-up areas and other types of land use. This will further hinder city sustainable development. To address the issue, this paper takes urban land management sustainability as the study object and puts forward an evaluation method on sustainable land management (SLM) in urban area. First, four aspects of sustainable land management are proposed, namely economic progress, social stability, urban improvement and ecological balance. Second, a system with fourteen indicators is built according to the aspects. Third, using the indicators, the sub-performance and the overall efficiency of SLM are evaluated with the technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) based on entropy weight. After that, the proposed method is applied to a case study of Shanghai, China. The results show the time series changing of SLM performance from 2000 to 2011 and reveal an unbalanced development path among the four aspects of SLM. Accordingly, policy recommendations are proposed to improve the sustainable land management efficiency. Therefore, it demonstrates that the proposed evaluation method can be used to reveal to what extend the urban land use is reasonable and sustainable and provides guidance on government urban land planning and policy making. Consequently, it helps to improve the land use efficiency and ease the land use conflict.     

Aggregate index of social–environmental sustainability to evaluate the social–environmental quality in a watershed in the Southern Amazon

The purpose of this study was to build an aggregate index of social–environmental sustainability derived from incorporation of indicators of the quality of soil, water, and vegetation, and social organization and socioeconomic variables, in order to assess the overall social–environmental quality in a micro watershed in the Southern Amazon. From a population of 105 family production units 56 were randomly selected for evaluation of indicators of the quality of soil and water as well as for conducting interviews to evaluate the farmers’ perception of soil, water, and vegetation quality and also of socioeconomic aspects of agroecosystems. The aggregate index built from social–environmental sustainability indicators shows that the selected indicators were adequate for describing social–environmental quality and confirms the hypothesis that the studied micro-watershed in the southern edge of the Amazon is in a state of collapse, and is socially and environmentally degraded.     

A selection of safeguard subjects and state indicators for sustainability assessments

Purpose

The purpose of this work is to identify and select safeguard subjects and state indicators that are suitable for sustainability assessment in product and production development, using an interpretation of the Brundtland definition of sustainable development. The purpose is also to investigate how indicators selected in this way differ from other selections in the literature.

Methods

We use a top-down approach, which starts with reviewing the Brundtland definition of sustainability and identifying the corresponding human basic needs to be satisfied. For each basic need, we identify relevant satisfiers, and for each satisfier, a number of safeguard subjects. The safeguard subjects represent critical resources for making satisfiers available. For each safeguard subject, a number of state indicators (=endpoint category indicators) are selected that are relevant for describing impacts from product life cycles on the safeguard subject.

Results and discussion

Ecosystem services, access to water, and abiotic resources are identified as environmental safeguard subjects. Technology for transports, environment, textiles, housing, food, information, and energy, together with income, are identified as economical safeguard subjects. Human health, land availability, peace, social security, continuity, knowledge, jobs/occupation, and culture are identified as social safeguard subjects. In comparison with the other selections of safeguard subjects in literature, our safeguard subjects are structured differently and delimited in scope, but there are also many similarities. The best agreement is on environmental issues, but we classify human health as a social issue. For social issues, we identify fewer safeguard subjects and state indicators than recommendations from UNEP/SETAC. For economic issues, we diverse from current LCC and approach UNECE measures of sustainability.

Conclusions

Identification and selection of safeguard subjects and state indicators benefit from a clear definition of sustainability, needs to be satisfied, and satisfiers. The interpretation of the sustainability concept has a large influence on which safeguard subjects that are included and which indicators that are needed to describe their state. Capacity building is an important sustainability indicator, which should be developed further for use in life cycle sustainability assessment. The top-down approach offers a good arena for a further research and discussions on how to structure and focus LCSA. Our results shall be seen as one example of which safeguard subject that may be identified with the top-down approach presented here.

     

Integrated assessment of agricultural production practices to enhance sustainable development in agricultural landscapes

This study presents an integrated assessment approach for the sustainable development of agricultural landscapes. The approach evaluates single agricultural production practices by means of environmental, economic and social indicators. To implement the approach, a mixed method was employed that combines modelling techniques and survey methods. The economic and environmental indicators were implemented within the bio-economic modelling system MODAM (Multi-Objective Decision support system for Agro-ecosystem Management) in order to assess economic performance and the effects on the abiotic and biotic environments. The modelling approach was applied to a case study in a region of north-eastern Germany, within the state of Brandenburg. In addition, the acceptance by farmers of different production alternatives that are known to have environmental benefits was examined in the case study. To allow for a direct comparison between different indicators, the results of the assessment are dimensionless index values that indicate the suitability of certain agricultural production practices with respect to an indicator. The indicator-related indices are then aggregated into an overall index of sustainability differentiating between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ sustainability. Results are presented for exemplarily chosen production practices for sugar beet, potato and winter rape production and set aside. Depending on the underlying concept of sustainability (‘weak’ vs. ‘strong’), different production practices were identified as the most suitable ones in a given situation. This integrated assessment enables determination of positive and negative correlations between indicators. The approach allows for the identification of production alternatives that are assessed to be economically and environmentally beneficial as well as socially accepted, although at different levels.     

Trade-off assessments between environmental and economic indicators in cropping systems of Pampa region (Argentina)

An overall sustainability assessment should include changes in the economic return, the social benefits and the human intervention on the biophysical resources in order to highlight potential trade-off or synergies among them. In this work, we studied the performance of 36 cropping systems (CS) of the Pampa region, Argentina, which include three different crops, three increasing levels of technology adoption in four contrasting site conditions. For each CS, we simultaneously assessed 1) the ecosystem energy flow using the emergy synthesis; 2) the pesticide ecotoxicity using a simple dose-response model; and 3) the economic profit, in order to evaluate the influence of crop identity, technological level, and site location on the indicators values as well as to detect potential trade-offs between indicators. Results revealed that maize crop entailed the most sustainable indicator profile by exhibiting relative high emergy return, low non-renewable emergy use, low pesticide ecotoxicity, and high gross income. In addition, results showed a significant trade-off between economic profit and ecotoxicological risk in the CS studied. Further studies should be conducted for including more contrasting indicators in order to explore the potential trade-off among other ecosystem components as a promising way to identify sustainable crop management regimes for different production zones.     

An Entangled Model for Sustainability Indicators

Nowadays the challenge for humanity is to find pathways towards sustainable development. Decision makers require a set of sustainability indicators to know if the sustainability strategies are following those pathways. There are more than one hundred sustainability indicators but they differ on their relative importance according to the size of the locality and change on time. The resources needed to follow these sustainability indicators are scarce and in some instances finite, especially in smaller regions. Therefore strategies to select set of these indicators are useful for decision makers responsible for monitoring sustainability. In this paper we propose a model for the identification and selection of a set of sustainability indicators that adequately represents human systems. In developing this model, we applied evolutionary dynamics in a space where sustainability indicators are fundamental entities interconnected by an interaction matrix. we used a fixed interaction that simulates the current context for the city of Cuernavaca, México as an example. We were able to identify and define relevant sets indicators for the system by using the Pareto principle. In this case we identified a set of sixteen sustainability indicators with more than 80% of the total strength. This set presents resilience to perturbations. For the Tangled Nature framework we provided a manner of treating different contexts (i.e., cities, counties, states, regions, countries, continents or the whole planet), dealing with small dimensions. This model provides decision makers with a valuable tool to select sustainability indicators set for towns, cities, regions, countries, continents or the entire planet according to a coevolutionary framework. The social legitimacy can arise from the fact that each individual indicator must be selected from those that are most important for the subject community.     

Monitoring sustainability in insular areas

The notion of sustainability is used widely at the policy level, but only few approaches deal with its measurement, especially at the local level. Here, we develop and apply a practical tool for the estimation of the sustainability state at the island level with the use of indicators selected and adapted from international agencies and institutes, in a framework which is an expanded version of the DPSR approach. The identification of the significant sustainability state factors and the selection of the indicators are based on areas’ characteristics, namely their insularity and the fact that they are in the Mediterranean. The values of these indicators were obtained or calculated for the islands of Paros and Kos in Greece. The findings reveal that the method can be of great use for the sustainability evaluation and for planning the sustainable development of islands.     

Emergy evaluation of the impact of waste exchanges on the sustainability of industrial systems

Emergy evaluation provided global performance indicators that were used to assess the impact of waste exchanges on the sustainability of a sulfuric acid production system (SAPS) and a titanium dioxide production system (TDPS) in Pan-zhi-hua City, China. Impact of emissions was quantified in terms of emergy and integrated into the classic emergy-based indicators. Results show that waste exchanges improve the sustainability of the two systems, although the SAPS benefits more from the waste exchanges than the TDPS from an economic perspective however, the impact of emissions reduces their sustainability to some degree. This study creates awareness and brings new insight to the gains achieved with resource recovery from waste in the interrelated industrial systems, which is derived from the mutualism relationship existing in natural ecosystems. Finally, this paper puts forward some corresponding suggestions.     

Re‐stocking practices and illegal fishing in northern Chile (SE Pacific coast): a study case

We constructed eco‐social models with different levels of complexity in order to represent the activities that fishermen operating under two different regimes, Chilean Territorial Use Rights in Fisheries (TURFs) and Open Access Areas (OAAs). We used Levins's loop analysis as a theoretical framework for assessing the local stability or sustainability of the models and management strategies represented by the scenarios. Our results suggest that the current harvest dynamics (scenario 1 of all models) cannot be locally stable or sustainable unless they meet the following conditions: (1) the abundance of Concholepas concholepas adults fluctuates close to its carrying capacity (K); and (2) the demand (market) presents some type of control (i.e. taxes). Likewise, simultaneous re‐stocking of C. concholepas adults and juveniles in TURFs seems to be sustainable only if the demand is controlled, thus, under current conditions it is not recommended as a management strategy. Alternatively, the simultaneously exploiting C. concholepas and re‐stocking juveniles can lead to stability, but again if the demand is controlled. The sustainability of illegal fishing of C. concholepas from OAAs (for re‐stocking into TURFs and for the local market) is not reached independent of the self‐dynamics of demand and the abundance of wild meta‐populations. Moreover, habitat destruction caused during the search for C. concholepas individuals in OAAs causes instability in the system and, therefore, educational efforts should be aimed at the fishermen as a way to avoid these practices. Given the results obtained, we find it difficult to consider TURFs – as a whole – to be a conservationist administrative measure. On the contrary, we believe that, as currently practiced, TURFs better resemble a simple program of C. concholepas mariculture, in which case they are comparable to traditional intensive agriculture, which is itself far from conservationist. The approach developed here is proposed as a general strategy for examining the consequences of natural changes and human interventions in marine coastal ecosystems.