"There is a fundamental tension between resilient ecosystems, shaped by extreme events, and humans need for sustainable resources in a changing world. This tension is best understood through ecological science, but best resolved through multi-disciplinary efforts. Coastal resilience serves as a valuable unifying concept, but is in danger of losing core features from its roots in ecological science. Resilient ecosystems are defined by three primary characteristics. They suffer periodic extreme events (e.g. hurricanes) which measurably affect natural resources from species composition and abundances, to the range of trophic and non-trophic interactions; in the aftermath they undergo a recovery process; and return to an ecosystem which closely resembles the original one.
Open access to the scientific literature means the removal of barriers (including price barriers) from accessing scholarly work. There are two parallel roads towards open access: Open Access articles and self-archiving. Open Access articles are immediately, freely available on their Web site, a model mostly funded by charges paid by the author (usually through a research grant). The alternative for a researcher is self-archiving (i.e., to publish in a traditional journal, where only subscribers have immediate access, but to make the article available on their personal and/or institutional Web sites (including so-called repositories or archives)), which is a practice allowed by many scholarly journals.
Open Access raises practical and policy questions for scholars, publishers, funders, and policymakers alike, including what the return on investment is when paying an article processing fee to publish in an Open Access articles, or whether investments into institutional repositories should be made and whether self-archiving should be made mandatory, as contemplated by some funders.
Last date updated on March, 2024