Paul L. Angermeier
2019
<div id="abstracts" class="Abstracts u-font-serif"><div id="ab0010" class="abstract author" lang="en"><div id="as0010"><p id="sp0050"><span>Contemporary policymakers rarely stress ecological knowledge, and yet this knowledge remains crucial—just as it was in prehistory—to protecting overall human well-being. Measuring carefully selected ecological health indicators—that is, signs or symptoms, especially those focused on biotic assemblages—can provide insights into the ecological condition of a place and the variety of ecological consequences of proposed or present human actions there. In turn, measured ecological conditions may be judged as acceptable (healthy) or unacceptable (unhealthy), depending on prevailing value systems and societal goals. Ecological health indicators characterize the ecological conditions of where we live; improve scientific understanding of ecosystems and the benefits they provide; diagnose causes of ecological degradation; communicate scientific knowledge to nontechnical audiences; guide </span>environmental policy; and measure progress toward societal goals. By helping to identify who benefits and who suffers from societal choices, ecological health indicators inform our choices about how to use or protect ecosystems and their living components, including human society itself.</p></div></div></div>
application/pdf
10.1016/B978-0-12-409548-9.10926-1
en
Elsevier
Ecological health indicators
chapter