Introduction to Special Section: Land Use Change and Aquatic Consequences Alice L. Clarke Florida International University

Inappropriate land use decisions can have direct and indirect effects on the environment ranging from habitat fragmentation and loss of biodiversity to urban sprawl, traffic congestion, and a diminished sense of human community. While focus has traditionally centered on terrestrial ecosystems affected by land use decisions, in recent years it has become apparent that changes to the terrestrial landscape can also put aquatic systems greatly at risk. In this issue, two papers examine how land use changes can significantly affect surface waters, groundwater, and even associated estuarine systems. These papers were presented as part of a panel, The Environmental Politics of Domesticated and Exotic Species, which I organized for the 21st Annual Conference of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences held in October 2001 in Charleston, South Carolina. Mallin and Cahoon examine the consequences of a rapid proliferation of industrialized production of swine, poultry and cattle in the coastal plain of North Carolina. Though this mode of production may play a role in keeping the price of meat low in the United States, it is accomplished only by the importation of vast quantities of nutrients in the form of feed into the region to support the production of these domestic animals. The wastes produced are not exported back to the source of the feed supply but instead undergo virtually no treatment before they are released into the surrounding landscape, quickly reaching and overwhelming aquatic systems. Lewitus et al. report on another environmental threat to coastal aquatic systems in the

Please address correspondence to Alice L. Clarke, Department of Environmental Studies, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199. Population and Environment, Vol. 24, No. 5, May 2003  2003 Human Sciences Press, Inc.

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southeastern United States. The rapid growth in the permanent and seasonal tourist population along the coast of South Carolina has fueled residential and golf course development. Lewitus et al. find that artificial ponds, created to minimize pollutant runoff from these altered landscapes, serve also as incubators for harmful toxic algal blooms whose effects may extend beyond the ponds themselves to offshore estuaries through tidal creek connections. Of course, the problems presented in these two papers are not limited to North and South Carolina. Intensified agriculture and explosive population growth are now common features of coastal land use change throughout the U. S. and, as the authors here indicate, mitigation techniques and regulatory tools to manage these non-point sources of pollution are often inadequate. In the next issue of Population and Environment, we will examine the major challenges of restoring one such altered coastal region, the south Florida Everglades ecosystem.