Urban cities generate considerable potential for ecological disturbance leading to environmental degradation (Programme 2: Anthropogenic Disturbances of Coastal Habitats). In particular, there are problems for organisms on hard and soft substrata because of building jetties, seawalls, pilings, etc. Human disturbances include foraging for bait and food and disposal of wastes. The research to understand ecological changes due to these disturbances is time-consuming and long-term, particularly when experimental analyses of processes during disturbances are planned. Predicting, measuring and interpreting impacts are hamstrung by poor sampling and analysis - often dictated by inadequate statutory requirements for Environmental Impact Statements. One major problem is that natural ecological assemblages of species vary enormously from time to time and place to place. Thus, even when undisturbed by people, ecological patterns are very different from place to place and change rapidly from time to time. A thriving coastal city needs massive infrastructure in terms of ports, seawalls, outfalls, etc. Building ports and airports, preventing coastal erosion by building sea-walls, creating recreational facilities such as marinas, swimming-pools and moorings for boats all create potential environmental problems. Among the most important are the loss and fragmentation of natural habitats and the creation of very different artificial habitats. The Centre for Research on Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities (EICC) has generated many scientific papers and theses from research projects on the effects of urban structures and associated activities. The link to the URL provided in this record provides a link to this research.

Urban cities generate considerable potential for ecological disturbance leading to environmental degradation (Programme 2: Anthropogenic Disturbances of Coastal Habitats). In particular, there are problems for organisms on hard and soft substrata because of building jetties, seawalls, pilings, etc. Human disturbances include foraging for bait and food and disposal of wastes. The research to understand ecological changes due to these disturbances is time-consuming and long-term, particularly when experimental analyses of processes during disturbances are planned. Predicting, measuring and interpreting impacts are hamstrung by poor sampling and analysis - often dictated by inadequate statutory requirements for Environmental Impact Statements. One major problem is that natural ecological assemblages of species vary enormously from time to time and place to place. Thus, even when undisturbed by people, ecological patterns are very different from place to place and change rapidly from time to time. Commercial fishing, recreational fishing and aquaculture can all cause impacts other than their direct effects on the species being harvested. Trawling, for example, has potentially large-scale consequences for animals and plants on and in the sea-floor. Aquaculture causes artificial installations and potential contamination by wastes and nutrients. Ecologically sustainable fisheries and aquaculture absolutely requires decision-making based on well-developed ecological understanding of those indirect effects. To date, the focus by government departments has been almost exclusively on direct consequences of the harvesting. The Centre for Research on Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities (EICC) has generated many scientific papers and theses from research projects on the effects of fishing, aquaculture and associated activities. The link to the URL provided in this record provides a link to this research.

Urban cities generate considerable potential for ecological disturbance leading to environmental degradation (Programme 2: Anthropogenic Disturbances of Coastal Habitats). In particular, there are problems for organisms on hard and soft substrata because of building jetties, seawalls, pilings, etc. Human disturbances include foraging for bait and food and disposal of wastes. The research to understand ecological changes due to these disturbances is time-consuming and long-term, particularly when experimental analyses of processes during disturbances are planned. Predicting, measuring and interpreting impacts are hamstrung by poor sampling and analysis - often dictated by inadequate statutory requirements for Environmental Impact Statements. One major problem is that natural ecological assemblages of species vary enormously from time to time and place to place. Thus, even when undisturbed by people, ecological patterns are very different from place to place and change rapidly from time to time. All assessments of impacts are made difficult by large natural variations in space and time in the number of animals and plants. Against this very complex natural background, it is important to be able to design appropriate sampling and statistical procedures for reliable detection of unnatural change. Particularly important have been analyses of complex impacts through time, the consequences of impacts acting at different and unpredictable spatial scales and the power of sampling programmes, i.e. their likelihood of finding an impact of a particular size. The Centre for Research on Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities (EICC) has generated many scientific papers and theses from research projects on numerous new and modified sampling designs and analytical procedures to help detect and measure impacts. The link to the URL provided in this record provides a link to this research.

Deterioration of coastal marine and estuarine habitats is inevitable in areas where human development is active. This is particularly the case in New South Wales (and throughout Australia) where a very large proportion of the population live on the edges of the coast-line. To sustain biodiversity and to maintain ecological processes and functions (for its own sake or for anthropocentric, human reasons), it will be necessary, for a very long time, to recreate, rebuild or repair habitats (Programme 3: Restoration of Disturbed Coastal Habitats). The science of restoration of coastal habitats is virtually unknown, and there is no sensible theory or understanding of how to create habitat that develops ecological function and maintains natural biodiversity. Around cities, there must be extensive infrastructure for ports, runways, bridges, roads, sea-walls, etc. Most of these create very alien habitats. For example, sea-walls are vertical and relatively featureless compared with the irregular, mostly horizontal natural rocky shores. The Centre for Research on Ecological Impacts of Coastal Cities (EICC) has generated many scientific papers and theses from research projects on changing urban structures as a form of restoration. The link to the URL provided in this record provides a link to this research. In addition, there is research on the ways discarded objects (e.g. old cars) on the sea-floor can replace lost subtidal habitat for animals and plants and what are the overall consequences for fauna and flora when rubbish is removed from areas of an urban harbour.

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Freshwater Aquatics at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.

Anthropogenic activities including industrialization, urbanization, and agriculture have resulted in frequent detection of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) across Great Lakes tributaries. Thus, there is a need to identify CECs of high and low ecotoxicological concern to help focus risk assessment and regulatory efforts. Here we present a weight-of-evidence framework developed to prioritize organic contaminants detected within the Milwaukee Estuary Area of Concern (AOC) (Milwaukee, WI). Chemical prioritization was carried out using experimental data (in vivo, in vitro, and analytical data) generated in 2017 -2018 Milwaukee AOC caged-fish studies, and chemical-specific data collated from US EPA databases (CompTox Chemicals Dashboard, ECOTOXicology Knowledgebase, ToxCast database) and/or estimated using quantitative structure-activity relationships. Overall prioritization was based on multiple lines of evidence: Detection Characteristics (spatial frequency, temporal frequency, environmental distribution), Environmental Fate (persistence, bioaccumulation, biomagnification), Ecotoxicological Potential (exceedence of water quality, in vivo, and in vitro toxicity benchmarks), and Effect Covariance (covariance with effects in caged fish studies). Results indicated within the Milwaukee Estuary AOC, 19/83 CECs were high priority, 13/83 were low priority, and 19/83 were data limited, requiring further investigation for prioritization efforts. Overall, this study presents an effect-based weight-of-evidence strategy that can be employed for CEC prioritization, and highlights several chemicals of ecotoxicological interest within the Milwaukee Estuary AOC. This dataset is associated with the following publication: Maloney, E., D. Villeneuve, B. Blackwell, K. Vitense, S. Corsi, M. Pronschinske, K. Jensen, and G. Ankley. A framework for prioritizing contaminants in retrospective ecological assessments: Application in the Milwaukee Estuary (Milwaukee, WI). Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. Allen Press, Inc., Lawrence, KS, USA, 19(5): 1276-96, (2023).

Understanding how ecological and cultural resources may change in the future is an important component of conservation planning and for the implementation of long-term environmental monitoring. We modeled six future scenarios of urbanization and sea level rise to investigate their potential effects on the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative's Priority Resources (PFLCC 2016), which were identified as important for conservation through a cooperative multi-partner effort to prioritize conservation efforts on a state-wide scale. These data represent conservation targets for the Coastal Uplands at present, and under six future scenarios of sea level rise and urbanization.