Seventy-four catchments, with a total area of 790 km2 (ranging from 1 to 50 km2), drain from the Santa Ynez Mountains along the northern coast of Santa Barbara Channel. The topography of these coastal catchments is characterized as mountainous headwaters and sloping coastal plains separated by transitional foothills. From west to east, there are both elevational and land use gradients. Headwater elevations increase from approximately 300 to 1400 m, and land uses on the coastal plain and foothills change from mostly rangeland to a combination of urban and agricultural lands.

Elevational Controls on Organic and Inorganic Nutrients in Stream Waters, Boulder Creek Watershed, Colorado Front Range

Jordan N. Parman and Mark W. Williams

Department of Geography and Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

Optical methods such as turbidimetry, UV-visible spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy are alternative methods for water quality characterization. They are reagent free and can be used in-situ or off-line. These methods have been used to assess and compare the quality of various streams in the Moselle watershed. Moselle (550 km) is a major tributary of the Rhine river and is flowing through three Western European countries (France, Luxembourg and Germany).

Woody encroachment and its effects on terrestrial ecosystems have been well-studied. However, the effect on riparian and aquatic ecosystems, specifically denitrification, has been lacking. Riparian areas of headwater prairie streams were historically dominated by grasses, but have become increasingly covered by woody vegetation. To determine potential consequences of woody plant invasion on denitrification, three adjacent reaches were delineated from two branches of King’s Creek, which drains Konza Prairie Biological Station.

 The primary research focus of the Santa Barbara Coastal (SBC) LTER is on the relative importance of bottom-up processes and allochthonous inputs to giant kelp forests, a highly diverse and productive marine ecosystem that occurs on shallow rocky reefs at the interface of the land-ocean margin. Giant kelp forests are found along the temperate coasts of western North and South America, southern Africa, Australia and most sub Antarctic islands, including Tasmania and New Zealand.

Human settlements in both arid lands and cities must, of necessity, alter hydrological regimes and geomorphology to provide clean, reliable drinking water, water for agriculture, and protection from flooding. Additionally, people also create substantial modifications to provide water for manufacturing, recreation, aesthetics, and sense of place. All of these practices can result in elimination or degradation of existing aquatic ecosystems, as well as creation of new ecosystems such as artificial lakes, stormwater retention basins, mitigation wetlands, groundwater recharge ponds, etc.

This would be an updated stable isotope working group that we ran in 2006. It was done at the last LTER to a room that overflowed, and some were not able to come in the room.

Stable isotope analyses remain proven technologies for characterizing long term change within ecosystems. This workshop/ information exchange/brainstorming group will focus on new technologies of continuous monitoring, or continuous flow analyses, as well as new elements that could be or are being employed for assessment of processes and sources within LTER ecosystems.

The major contribution of land-based activities to climate change and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) is widely recognized by the scientific community. The question of how and whether to include the agriculture and forestry sectors in GHG emission reduction projects suitable for carbon emissions trading in ‘cap–and–trade’ programs however, remains controversial.

Land uses and management practices in residential parcels (e.g., aesthetic/recreational/economic uses, land-cover choices, irrigation and chemical applications) impact and are impacted by social (e.g., stratification and status, environmental perceptions, zoning) and ecological (e.g., carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling, water demand and quality) processes.

Ecological complexity, a new but rapidly developing field integrating complexity theory and ecosystem function, can provide insights to tackle critical environmental problems. Here, ecological complexity is not merely describing complicated systems, but complex in the sense of studying many interacting components controlled by drivers operating across multiple scales.