生态系统综合评价的内容与方法

生态系统综合评价是系统分析生态系统的生产及服务能力,对生态系统进行健康诊断,做出综合的生态分析和经济分析,评价其当前状态,并预测生态系统今后的发展趋势,为生态系统管理提供科学依据。从总体上讲,综合评价更强调生态系统一系列产品与服务功能之间的权衡,具有很强的实践意义。许多学者对不同的生态系统服务功能进行了经济价值评估,但缺乏对生态系统的产品、服务、健康与管理之间关系的进一步探讨。对生态系统服务功能评价、健康评价的生态管理与预测进行了系统论述,目的是提出生态系统综合评价的框架,指导生态系统评价行动及生态系统管理。     

An Overview of Coastal Environmental Health Indicators

Discussions of the coastal environment and its health can be improved by more precise use of terms and clarification of the relationship, if any, between the health of ecosystems and the risks to human health. Ecosystem health is seldom defined and, in any case, has to be regarded in different terms than human health. Ecosystem health should embody both the structure and function of the ecosystem. One attractive concept is to define the health of ecosystems in terms of their vigor, organization and resilience. From that perspective, the health of an ecosystem is reduced if it becomes a less vigorous producer of valuable living resources, less diverse and organized, and more susceptible to and slower to recover from stress. Useful indicators of ecosystem health should reflect these properties, but also be supported by understanding of cause and effect relationships generated through research. Significant challenges remain in the integration of indicators in terms of both their interrelationships and holistic significance. There is also a need to develop indicators that are relevant to emerging threats to coastal ecosystems.     

生态系统健康研究进展

健康的生态系统一般被视为环境管理的终极目标,进行生态系统健康研究对探索区域与生态系统可持续发展具有重要意义。随着国际生态与健康学会(International Association for Ecology and Health)的解体,生态系统健康研究视角出现转型。系统梳理了近年来国际上有关生态系统健康概念及其评估方法、指标的新进展,通过文献统计和重要文献引用揭示了国际生态系统健康研究的发展历程,提出了从生态系统健康到生态健康再到生态文化健康的三大核心框架发展阶段,生态系统健康的研究对象和范围正在不断扩充。资源环境研究领域是国内研究者应用生态系统健康概念与方法的优势领域,在区域尺度上评价生态系统的健康更贴近资源环境和社会文化交互作用的复合表征理念。因此,我国生态系统健康研究的趋向不仅应包括在生态系统尺度上研究的继续深化,也应包含对生态文化健康概念的完善与应用,并发挥地理-生态视角的区域集成研究优势,从而有效指导区域生态与环境政策制定与实施。     

Medical Students’ Attitudes About Cosmetic Pesticides before and after an Ecosystem Health Seminar: A Pilot Study

The University of Western Ontario has incorporated ecosystem health as an integral component of its Community Health course for medical students. There is increasing concern regarding the negative health effects of pesticides. The issue of pesticides is, therefore, an obvious topic for the Community Health course. The goal of this pilot study was to compare the attitudes of medical students about cosmetic pesticide use before and after attending a special seminar on that topic. Sixty-three students were surveyed on their opinions before and after the pesticides seminar. After the seminar, the students’ attitudes shifted towards a more negative view of unrestrained cosmetic pesticide use. The students also felt that there were greater risks involved with the use of pesticides (P < 0.001) after attending the seminar. The results of this pilot study demonstrate the need and the effectiveness of including ecosystem health topics in medical curricula.     

Ecosystem Health: Coming of Age in Professional Curriculum

The evolution of a new paradigm, ecosystem health, began with the coining of the term “ecosystem medicine” in the late 1970 s. From its humble roots, it has matured into a dynamic area of study with concepts relevant to every facet of life. Increasingly, ecosystem health principles are flourishing in professional curricula while its tenets transcend disciplinary boundaries. This article is part of the ongoing process, one in which shared experiences highlight new challenges and opportunities.     

生态系统健康与生物多样性*

生态系统健康学是一门研究人类活动、社会组织、自然系统及人类健康的整合性学科,主要探讨资源环境管理对策,以及生态系统健康与人类健康的关系。生态系统健康是人类健康的基础,是人类可持续发展的重要前提,维护生态系统健康,保护生物多样性,也就是维护人类生存的机会。人类健康依附于健康的生态系统功能和服务日益为人们所认识,关注和理解生物多样性、生态系统健康、人类健康之间的相互联系已成为全球可持续发展的必要条件。本文着重综述了生态系统健康的研究内容及全球环境变化背景下生物多样性的变化对生态系统健康的影响效应。     

Towards Enhancing Community Health in El-Fayoum,Egypt, Using Ecosystem Approaches

Ecosystem degradation caused by factors such as improper natural resources management and contamination with agricultural, industrial, and domestic wastes often results in the creation of an unhealthy ecosystem, a main cause for the prevailing poverty and poor health in many parts of rural Egypt. In collaboration with members of the community in some villages of El-Fayoum province, an interdisciplinary research team is currently employing an ecosystem approach to arrive at an understanding of community health problems with a view to develop resource management interventions and policies aimed at enhancing community health and well-being. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) techniques were used to measure the perceptions of the community’s men and women of their health and environmental priorities, and to test their current state of knowledge and awareness of the health-related issues. The results indicate that these perceptions were gender-sensitive and were different from those of Ministry of Health. Spatial and temporal monitoring and assessment of the ecosystem components revealed considerable land and water resources degradation. Presence of water pools and waterways in the vicinity of the residential areas enhanced the risk of water-associated diseases. Although, the disease-carrying vectors of schistosomiasis and malaria were detected in the waterways, the incidence of the two diseases was relatively low in the main village in contrast to the situation in the nearby hamlets. Prevalence of schistosomiasis was substantially higher in these hamlets (20–30% compared to 2–3% in the main village). Such a highly infected community represents a continuous pool of reinfection of the waterways, an issue that needs to be further examined to determine its relation to the hamlets’ specific ecosystem characteristics. A high incidence of hepatitis C and soil transmitted-intestinal parasites were markedly detected. It is concluded that in addition to natural resources degradation, other potential health risk factors were identified including socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional factors. Further studies are being conducted to explore these potential risk factors and their links to human health and well-being.     

生态系统健康评价方法初探

生态系统是维持人类环境的最基本单元,生态系统功能主要体现在两个方面：一是生态服务功能（service);二是价值功能（goods)这两种功能是人类生态和发展的基础,生态系统健康是保证生态系统功能正常发挥的前提,结构和功能的完整性,具有抵抗干扰和恢复能力（resilience)、稳定和可持续性是生态系统健康的特征,生态系统健康评价需要基于生态系统的结构、功能过程来确定指标,包括生态系统的完整性,适应性和效率,生态系统健康评价主要有两种方法：一是指示物种评价,二是结构功能指标评价,结构功能指标评价包括单指标评价,复合指标评价和指标体系评价,指标体系评价中又包括自然指标体系评价,社会－经济－自然复合生态系统指标体系评价,本文针对生态系统健康的不同评价方法进行了对比研究,同时,针对不同的生态系统类型应选择其健康评价方法方面进行了简要的阐述。     

Operationalizing the ecosystems approach: Assessing the environmental impact of major infrastructure development

The ecosystem services approach is increasingly applied in the context of environmental resources management and impact assessment. Assessments often involve analysis of alternative scenarios for which potential changes in ecosystem services are quantified. For such assessments to be effective there is a requirement to represent changes in ecosystem services supply in a clear and informative manner. Here we compute Ecosystem Services Ratio (ESR), a simple index that quantifies the relative change in ecosystem service provision under altered conditions given the baseline, and the Modified Ecosystem Services State Index, which averages the ESR scores obtained for each ecosystem service assessed, to provide an overall measure of the change. Given that modelling approaches to quantification of ecosystem services often result in production of maps of ecosystem supply, the proposed metrics can be visualized as maps in support to decision making processes. We use these indices to investigate potential changes in the supply of seven modelled ecosystem services resulting from the introduction of a major road development – a highway with associated green infrastructure – into a predominantly agricultural landscape in the UK. We find that the planted woodland, scrubland and grassland can increase the supply of multiple ecosystem services not accounted for in previous green infrastructure studies, although the magnitude of change differs with the type of vegetation, initial conditions and timeframes of the assessment.     

协商货币评估法在生态系统服务价值评估中的应用

生态系统服务价值评估是生态系统保护和管理的基础。以往研究采用多种方法对生态系统服务价值进行评估,但是至今还未形成得到一致认可的生态系统服务价值的评估方法。协商货币评估法(Deliberative Monetary Valuation,DMV)将协商方法和陈述偏好法相结合,成为一种正在探索使用的新的货币评估法。分析了DMV的研究背景,并从DMV的独特适用性、DMV在生态系统服务价值评估中的应用、DMV获得价值的性质3个方面总结了DMV的主要研究内容,在此基础上阐述了DMV面临的挑战,并提出了DMV在中国生态系统价值评估应用中的启示,以期能够为DMV在中国的应用及推广提供借鉴,为生态系统服务价值评估探索更有效的方法。     

Ecosystem Health in Professional Curriculum: Experience to Date

In order to present a holistic view of defining problems and exploring long-term solutions for health-related issues, several colleges and universities are adopting an ecosystem health approach. While these curricular offerings are varied in nature, a number of common themes appear to be emerging. The case study is the preferred method for introducing the subject matter as this provides immediate relevance to the student studying within a specific discipline but, when carefully designed, promotes systems thinking and allows exploration of a number of features common to all complex systems. These include: interdependence of system components, complexity, uncertainty, and the need for transdisciplinary thinking when analyzing the issues. The articles appearing in this supplement are examples of how this approach has been introduced into a variety of curricula pertaining to human health, animal health, and other related fields.     

Indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem services: a synthesis across ecosystems and spatial scales

According to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, common indicators are needed to monitor the loss of biodiversity and the implications for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services. However, a variety of indicators are already being used resulting in many, mostly incompatible, monitoring systems. In order to synthesise the different indicator approaches and to detect gaps in the development of common indicator systems, we examined 531 indicators that have been reported in 617 peer‐reviewed journal articles between 1997 and 2007. Special emphasis was placed on comparing indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem services across ecosystems (forests, grass‐ and shrublands, wetlands, rivers, lakes, soils and agro‐ecosystems) and spatial scales (from patch to global scale). The application of biological indicators was found most often focused on regional and finer spatial scales with few indicators applied across ecosystem types. Abiotic indicators, such as physico‐chemical parameters and measures of area and fragmentation, are most frequently used at broader (regional to continental) scales. Despite its multiple dimensions, biodiversity is usually equated with species richness only. The functional, structural and genetic components of biodiversity are poorly addressed despite their potential value across habitats and scales. Ecosystem service indicators are mostly used to estimate regulating and supporting services but generally differ between ecosystem types as they reflect ecosystem‐specific services. Despite great effort to develop indicator systems over the past decade, there is still a considerable gap in the widespread use of indicators for many of the multiple components of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and a need to develop common monitoring schemes within and across habitats. Filling these gaps is a prerequisite for linking biodiversity dynamics with ecosystem service delivery and to achieving the goals of global and sub‐global initiatives to halt the loss of biodiversity.     

What is a healthy ecosystem?

Rapid deterioration of the world's major ecosystems has intensified the need for effective environmental monitoring and the development of operational indicators of ecosystem health. Ecosystem health represents a desired endpoint of environmental management, but it requires adaptive, ongoing definition and assessment. We propose that a healthy ecosystem is one that is sustainable – that is, it has the ability to maintain its structure (organization) and function (vigor) over time in the face of external stress (resilience). Various methods to quantify these three ecosystem attributes (vigor, organization, and resilience) are discussed. These attributes are then folded into a comprehensive assessment of ecosystem health. A network analysis based ecosystem health assessment is developed and tested using trophic exchange networks representing several different aquatic ecosystems. Results indicate the potential of such an ecosystem health assessment for evaluating the relative health of similar ecosystems, and quantifying the effects of natural or anthropogenic stress on the health of a particular ecosystem over time.     

Ecosystem engineering as an energy transfer process: a simple agent-based model

Ecosystem engineers are defined as organisms who modulate the availability of resources for themselves and other organisms by physically changing the environment. Ecosystem engineering is a well-recognised ecological interaction, but there is a limited number of general models due to the recent development of the field. Agent-based models are often used to study how organisms respond to changing environments and are suitable for modelling ecosystem engineering. To our knowledge, agent-based methodology has not yet been used to model ecosystem engineering. In this paper, we develop a simple agent-based population dynamics model of ecosystem engineering as an energy transfer process. We apply energy budget approach to conceptually explain how ecosystem engineers transfer energy to the environment and define various types of energy transfers relative to their effects on the engineers and other organisms. We simulate environments with various levels of resource abundance and compare the results of the model without ecosystem engineering agents to the model with ecosystem engineering agents. We find that in environments with higher levels of resources, the presence of ecosystem engineers increases the average carrying capacity and the strength of population fluctuations, while in environments with lower levels of resources, ecosystem engineering mitigates fluctuations, increases average carrying capacity and makes environments more resilient. Finally, we discuss about the further application of agent-based modelling for the theoretical and experimental development of the ecosystem engineering concept.     

中国东海海岸带地区生态系统健康评估及其尺度依赖性

维持生态系统健康是实现社会经济可持续发展的关键性工作之一。本文基于邻域变异度和人为干扰修正后的活力-组织-弹性-服务模型,从5 km至地级市设置8个评估尺度单元,定量化的评估了我国东海海岸地区（包括上海、嘉兴、宁波、温州、台州、宁德、福州、莆田、泉州、厦门和漳州共11个城市）1990—2015年的生态系统健康状况,并分析了其时序变化特征和空间分异规律,探究了生态系统健康的尺度依赖性效应,得到以下结论：1）研究时段内,研究区生态系统健康水平以2000年为节点先下降后上升,但整体呈下降趋势。自2000年起生态系统健康值分布更加离散,呈现健康的生态系统更加健康,劣化的生态系统不断劣化的分化趋势。2）生态系统健康在空间分布上具有较高的异质性特征。沿海地区、宁波以北地区的生态系统健康值较低;远离海洋部分的山地丘陵的生态系统健康值较高。小尺度下上海市中心生态健康最差,地级市尺度下嘉兴市生态健康状况最差。3）生态系统健康评估工作具有一定的空间尺度依赖性。大尺度生态系统健康评估结果趋于平均化,可用于刻画变化趋势的空间分布格局。小尺度评估结果能够更好的解释生态系统健康程度的聚类分异细节。因而,在生态系统健康评估中不存在最佳的研究尺度,多尺度的设置有助于全面解析生态系统健康的时空分异特征。     

Smallholder perceptions and communication gaps shape East African riparian ecosystems

Human livelihood needs and nature conservation often contradict. Yet, healthy ecosystems are crucial for human livelihood quality. The semi-arid regions of East Africa suffer under demographic pressure and soil depletion. Ecosystem degradation becomes particularly visible along rivers in semiarid regions of south-east Kenya, where former pristine riparian forests have been transformed into agricultural fields and settlements with negative effects on ecosystem services. In this study, we aim to understand how local smallholders perceive the challenges for the riparian ecosystems and what factors affect their engagement in environmental conservation. We surveyed about 200 farmers and performed expert interviews with representatives from governmental institutions from the field of land- and resource management along Nzeeu River in south-east Kenya. We assessed the level of education, land use practices, environmental knowledge, attitudes and the willingness to contribute to nature conservation. We tested for spatial bias to understand smallholders’ perceptions on environmental challenges. Our data show that land division due to inheritance is not perceived as a problem by the farmers. However, owners holding?<?1 ha of land property are less willing to spare some of their land for conservation, as opposed to those holding land plots above this size. Despite a high level of general willingness to conserve ecosystems, our data underline that local people hardly actively engage in conservation action. Furthermore, our data indicate a communication gap between local smallholders and regional governmental officers as well as overconfidence in mass media through the radio which can contradict successful adoption of pro-environment behavior. Sustainable land management in our study area is not a matter of education, but depends from the size of land property. There is an urgent need to bridge this communication gap, as a prerequisite to improve sustainable land management.     

生态系统服务及其保护策略

阐述了生态系统服务的定义、内涵及研究动态,比较了自然生态系统和人工系统提供的服务,提出了生态系统服务的保护策略和途径．生态系统服务是指对人类生存及生活质量有贡献的生态系统产品和生态系统功能．生态系统的开放性是生态系统服务的基础和前提．生态系统服务的保护面临着许多困难和压力,如认识尺度的限制、生活水平的低下等．自然生态系统与人工系统在提供生态系统服务方面存在显著差异,后者没有缓冲保护和保险措施．民众行为、政府行为和经济手段等是保护生态系统服务的策略和途径．生态系统服务对于地球的持续使用和人类社会的持续发展起到决定性作用,必须努力加以保护     

Ecosystem Health in Professional Education: The Path Ahead

This supplement shows that ecosystem health has become a vital part of the curriculum in a small number of medical, veterinary, and public health schools. This limited, but important, experience provides the groundwork for further expansion into other professional schools and into other universities. Although ecosystem health has defined underlying principles, previous experience has shown that each professional faculty should define what ecosystem health means for the institution and for its students. Based on this definition, it is important that detailed learning objectives be defined for ecosystem health as it pertains to the profession. A model for further development is proposed in this editorial. This model focuses on developing the necessary skill sets for ecosystem health education, the expansion of ecosystem health into earlier and later stages of learning (high school through undergraduate, through postgraduate, and onto practicing professional levels), and raising the awareness of ecosystem health in the local community and at national and international levels. Once comprehensive, transdisciplinary, continuous ecosystem health programs become mainstream, one can expect a “sea change” in the attention given to the interrelationship between humans and their environments, and a more concerted effort to restore the health of our planetary ecosystems.     

基于PSR的黄河河口区生态系统健康评价

根据压力-状态-响应(PSR)框架模型,从广义上定义河口区生态系统,将河口及毗邻的陆域、海域生态系统作为一个整体,从压力指标、状态指标、响应指标3个方面构建了黄河河口区生态系统健康评价的指标体系,以研究区1991年数据和相关国家标准为基准,2013年代表现况,利用综合指数法(CEI)评价了黄河河口区的生态系统健康状况。结果显示:黄河河口区生态系统健康评价的响应指数最高(0.9055),压力指数居中(0.8288),状态指数最低(0.6458),综合指数为0.7427。总体来看,与1991年相比,目前黄河河口区生态系统仍处于"健康"状态,但健康状况明显下降,其中状态指数下降最为严重。从区域轻度开发到人类活动强烈干扰阶段,黄河河口区存在过度捕捞、湿地不合理开发、浅海养殖过度及污染物排放等一系列影响生态系统健康的问题,应进行区域的生态恢复和科学管理。