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Ecosystems: Diversity
Published in Yeqiao Wang, Terrestrial Ecosystems and Biodiversity, 2020
A coarse filter conservation approach has been proposed to maintain ecosystem diversity, which is the key to ecological sustainability. It is argued that preserving a good representation of all ecosystems helps to meet the habitat requirements of all native species in a locality, hence protecting biodiversity on both a local and regional scale.[43] Ecosystems include both physical and biological dimensions, and may be expanded to include economic, social, cultural, and ethical factors. With the challenges from a multitude of development threats, ecosystem management is vital for setting priorities and accommodating stressors, whether natural or anthropogenic, to sustain our planet as a provider of resources and other essential ecological services. Our knowledge of the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning will certainly benefit nature conservation and management as a whole.
Conceptualizing resilience in temporary wetlands
Published in Inland Waters, 2021
The model presented in this study is at the preliminary and conceptual stage and informed by preliminary scientific evidence. However, given the pressing need to manage temporary wetlands for resilience, the model can inspire future empirical research. Methods can apply available quantitative approaches rooted in resilience theory (Angeler et al. 2016), and approaches can build on adaptive management, sampling, inference, and modeling to reduce uncertainty (Baho et al. 2017). Furthermore, the model can be used in synergy with heuristics from resilience that focus on cross-scale interactions and dynamic systems change (e.g., Panarchy; Allen et al. 2014). These studies can be tailored to different spatiotemporal and environmental contexts (local to regional) to derive the broadest possible insight in the complex organization of temporary wetland networks and their management (Garmestani et al. 2020). Adaptive approaches may eventually be insufficient for ecosystem management (i.e., when regime shifts are unavoidable), and managers may need to prepare for transformative change and engage in scenario planning to envision potentially different novel ecosystems with changed conditions for ecosystem service provisioning (Chaffin et al. 2016).
Paleolimnological evidence of environmental change in Chinese lakes over the past two centuries
Published in Inland Waters, 2020
Ji Shen, Ke Zhang, Zhengwen Liu
The concept of ecosystem services, which recognizes the benefits that people receive from the natural environment, has gained considerable ground in the science and politics of sustainable landscape and ecosystem management (MEA 2005). The lack of long-term data, however, is a major barrier to assessing the sustainability of activities that exploit these services and to developing a basis for environmental restoration and sustainable management (Bennett 2017, Velez et al. 2018). Lake sediments are particularly suitable for reconstructing records of regulating ecosystem services, such as soil stability, sediment regulation, and water purification, which are often poorly monitored (Dearing 2013). Paleolimnological records have increasingly been employed to improve temporal perspectives on ecosystem services, and >50 different paleoenvironmental proxy records have already been mapped to a wide range of ecosystem service categories and subcategories in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Classification (Dearing et al. 2012).
A coupled-systems framework for reducing health risks associated with private drinking water wells
Published in Canadian Water Resources Journal / Revue canadienne des ressources hydriques, 2019
Stephanie Di Pelino, Corinne Schuster-Wallace, Paul D. Hynds, Sarah E. Dickson-Anderson, Anna Majury
Defining health within the context of ecohealth has been described in a metaphorical rather than literal sense, and is attributed to more than just human health (Charron 2012). The health of humans and the environment are closely intertwined in ecohealth. Bunch et al. (2011, p. 2) stated, ‘human health and well-being are important outcomes of effective ecosystem management’, which reinforces the need for multi-sectorial collaboration that brings together human health and the environment. Further, ecohealth can be defined as an approach to both understand and promote human health, specifically within the context of social and environmental issues (Waltner-Toews 2009). Unlike other approaches, ecohealth places humans as internal rather than external to the system; that is, human health is not the consequence of what occurs in the system, but rather reflects the role of humans as participants in the system.