Effective ecological monitoring is imperative in a human-dominated world, as our ability to manage functioning ecosystems will depend on understanding biodiversity responses to anthropogenic impacts. Yet, most monitoring efforts have either been narrowly focused on particular sites, species and stressors — thus inadequately considering the cumulative effects of multiple, interacting impacts at scales of management relevance — or too unfocused to provide specific guidance.

This study demonstrates the importance of scale in understanding the common property institutions of indigenous groups in the Amazon. Using the example of the Pueblo Kichwa de Rukullakta, an ethnic Kichwa group in the Ecuadorian Amazon, we analyze land tenure arrangements at the household, community, and territory levels using a common property framework. The specific bundle of rights identified by the framework is held at the household level but households rely on community and territory level arrangements for their enforcement.

Eutrophication of urban surface waters from excess nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) inputs remains a major issue in water quality management. Although much research has focused on understanding loading of nutrients from storm events, there has been little research to understand the contribution of baseflow, the water moving through storm drains between rainfall events. We investigated the relative contributions of baseflow versus stormflow for loading of water and nutrients (various forms of N and P) by the storm drain network in six urban sub-watersheds in St. Paul, MN, USA.