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The term "ecosystem management" has been in use at least since the 1950s. [11] The term "ecosystem health" has become widespread in the ecological literature, as a general metaphor meaning something good, [12] and as an environmental quality goal in field assessments of rivers, [13] lakes, [14] seas, [15] and forests. [16]
supporting services – (sustainability) ecosystem services that are necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services e.g. biomass production, production of atmospheric oxygen, soil formation, nutrient and water cycling. surface runoff – that part of rainfall passing out of an area into the drainage system.
Sustainability is regarded as a "normative concept".[5] [22] [23] [2] This means it is based on what people value or find desirable: "The quest for sustainability involves connecting what is known through scientific study to applications in pursuit of what people want for the future."
The term nature-based solutions was put forward by practitioners in the late 2000s. At that time it was used by international organisations such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the World Bank in the context of finding new solutions to mitigate and adapt to climate change effects by working with natural ecosystems rather than relying purely on engineering interventions.
Ecological indicators are used to communicate information about ecosystems and the impact human activity has on ecosystems to groups such as the public or government policy makers. Ecosystems are complex and ecological indicators can help describe them in simpler terms that can be understood and used by non-scientists to make management decisions.
[1] [2] [3] Although indigenous communities have employed sustainable ecosystem management approaches implicitly for millennia, ecosystem management emerged explicitly as a formal concept in the 1990s from a growing appreciation of the complexity of ecosystems and of humans' reliance and influence on natural systems (e.g., disturbance and ...
An example of an ecosystem service is pollination, here by a honey bee on avocado crop.. Ecosystem services are the various benefits that humans derive from ecosystems.The interconnected living and non-living components of the natural environment offer benefits such as pollination of crops, clean air and water, decomposition of wastes, and flood control.
Ecological health is a term that has been used in relation to both human health and the condition of the environment. In medicine, ecological health has been used to refer to multiple chemical sensitivity, which results from exposure to synthetic chemicals (pesticides, smoke, etc.) in the environment, hence the term ecological. [1]