Introduction - Science For Environmental Protection: The Road Ahead - page 3

and devote resources to successfully designing sustainable policies. Fully inte-
grating sustainability as it relates to the environment and human health requires
identifying and contending with tradeoffs within complex economic, cultural,
and political systems. Addressing the emerging challenges that EPA faces will
require not only good science and technologies, but data and information from
disciplines such as social, behavioral, and decision sciences and the integration
of broader frameworks that will allow a systems approach to assessing and man-
aging issues.
Frameworks for Incorporating Human-Environment Interactions
To respond effectively to complex and rapidly changing problems, it will be
important for EPA to strive toward incorporating a broader array of interactions
between humans and the environment into its regulatory and decision-making
processes, identify optimal ways to advance core human development and sustain-
ability goals, understand the tradeoffs that necessarily accompany decisions about
specific ways to use environmental resources, and align response options with the
level of governance at which options can be most effective. Several frameworks
have been developed to identify and incorporate the full array of interactions be-
tween humans and the natural environment into planning and evaluation. The
framework proposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) (MEA
2003, 2005) is useful because it includes the intrinsic value of biodiversity and
ecosystems and recognizes that people use multiple criteria when making deci-
sions about how to use the environment. The MEA framework focuses particular
attention on the linkages between ecosystem services and human well-being (Fig-
ure 1-1) and also stresses the roles of science and engineering as direct and indi-
rect drivers of environmental change. Similar frameworks have been developed by
committees of the National Research Council (NRC) (NRC 2000, 2004) and
EPA's Science Advisory Board (EPA SAB 2002, 2009). The Heinz Center (2002,
2008) also developed a comprehensive framework for assessing the state of the
nation's ecosystems.
The frameworks highlight the importance of a comprehensive conceptual
model of the environmental system that includes its structural elements, compo-
sitional elements, and dynamic functional properties. They also all direct atten-
tion to the supporting services (primary production, nutrient cycling, and soil
formation) that are necessary for the generation of all other ecosystem services.
EPA can draw upon those frameworks and increase its use of systems thinking
as it incorporates new knowledge and technical tools into its science and man-
agement activities. Taking advantage of those types of frameworks will require
scientific consortia that can provide an improved understanding of the problem,
create opportunities for interactions between diverse areas of specialization, and
integrate knowledge to identify effective solutions. This is a large job for any
single agency or organization, so it will be imperative that networks and partner-
ships be created or enhanced. It will also be necessary for EPA to communicate