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Studying coral health in St. Thomas. Ecosystem health is a metaphor used to describe the condition of an ecosystem. [1] [2] Ecosystem condition can vary as a result of fire, flooding, drought, extinctions, invasive species, climate change, mining, fishing, farming or logging, chemical spills, and a host of other reasons.
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.
Global map of countries by Environmental Performance Index, 2024 [1]. The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) is a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state's policies, highlightning the degradation of the planet's life-supporting systems on which humanity depends.
Ecological threshold is the point at which a relatively small change or disturbance in external conditions causes a rapid change in an ecosystem.When an ecological threshold has been passed, the ecosystem may no longer be able to return to its state by means of its inherent resilience.
Such assessments, in conjunction with contamination and human health risk assessments, help to evaluate the environmental hazards posed by contaminated sites and to determine remediation requirements. [1] In ecological assessment many abiotic and biotic indicators, reflecting the pluralistic components of ecosystems, are used.
Sustainability measurement is a set of frameworks or indicators used to measure how sustainable something is. This includes processes, products, services and businesses. Sustainability is to quantify. [1] It may even be impossible to measure as there is no fixed definition. [2]
[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 ...
The FAO has suggested that, over the period 2005–2050, effective use of tree planting could absorb about 10–20% of man-made emissions – so monitoring the condition of the world's forests must be part of a global strategy to mitigate emissions and protect ecosystem services. [20]