Advancing the understanding of coastal disturbances with a network‐of‐networks approach

Journal Article · 08 January 2025 · Ecosphere

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.70156 · OSTI ID:2497864

Myers‐Pigg, Allison N.  ^[1]; Moanga, Diana ^[2]; Bond‐Lamberty, Ben ^[3]; Ward, Nicholas D.  ^[4]; Megonigal, J. Patrick ^[5]; White, Jr, Elliott ^[2]; Bailey, Vanessa L.  ^[6]; Kirwan, Matthew L.  ^[7]

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1. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Sequim Washington USA, Department of Environmental Sciences University of Toledo Toledo Ohio USA
2. Department of Earth System Science Stanford University Stanford California USA
3. Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory College Park Maryland USA
4. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Sequim Washington USA, School of Oceanography, University of Washington Seattle Washington USA
5. Smithsonian Environmental Research Center Edgewater Maryland USA
6. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Richland Washington USA
7. Virginia Institute of Marine Science, William &, Mary Batten School of Marine Sciences Gloucester Point Virginia USA

Abstract Coastal ecosystems are at the nexus of many high priority challenges in environmental sciences, including predicting the influences of compounding disturbances exacerbated by climate change on biogeochemical cycling. While research in coastal science is fundamentally transdisciplinary—as drivers of biogeochemical and ecological processes often span scientific and environmental domains—traditional place–based approaches are still often employed to understand coastal ecosystems. We argue that a macrosystems science perspective, including the integration across distributed research sites, is crucial to understand how compounding disturbances affect coastal ecosystems. We suggest that many grand challenge questions, such as advancing continental‐scale process understanding of extreme events and global change, will only be addressed in coastal ecosystems using a network‐of‐networks approach. We identify specific ways that existing research efforts can maximize benefit across multiple interested parties, and where additional infrastructure investments might increase return‐on‐investment along the coast, using the coastal continental United States as a case study.

• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• OSTI ID: 2497864
• Journal Information: Ecosphere, Journal Name: Ecosphere Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 16; ISSN 2150-8925
• Publisher: Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)Copyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English