%0 Journal Article
%T Establishing an Indicator System for Ecosystem Health Evaluation on Wetlands Ⅰ. A Theoretical Framework<br>湿地生态系统健康评价指标体系Ⅰ.理论
%A CUI Bao-Shan
%A <br>崔保山
%J 生态学报
%D 2002
%I 
%X The ecosystem health of wetland is a newly emerged concept, which refers to the state of a wetland having no impairment to the processes of material cycling and energy flow inside the studied ecosystem. When wetland is identified as a healthy ecosystem, this wetland ecosystem remains resistant or resilient to the long-term and unexpected disturbance caused by natural or human activities and shows diversity, complexity and robustness, because the critical ecological components of the ecosystem are well preserved and exhibit no symptoms. The evaluation of ecosystem health of wetland is aimed to determine the magnitude of the jeopardy to or deterioration of the ecosystem, and deliver an early warning or provide information to the decision-making process on maintaining sustainability of wetland. For evaluating the ecosystem health of a wetland, the selection of the assessment indicators should take account of the dynamics of ecological processes, economic structures and societal dimensions under differing management mechanisms, and incorporate the temporal or spatial scales at study because a wetland is a complex ecosystem with compounding interactions among natural, economic, and social aspects. Here, a suit of principles are put forth for choosing ecosystem indicators, which may depict the attributes or states of the ecological components and represent the management objectives and evaluation targets of a wetland ecosystem. Moreover, these ecosystem indicators are able to explain the natures of structures, functions and variations of the ecosystem and the ecological perturbations. Based on these principles, a theoretical framework is established for designing an indicator system involving the subsets of ecological identity indicators, wetland indicators of functional integrity, and the socio-political indicators associated with wetlands, to evaluate the ecosystem health of wetlands. In details, among the three subsets, the ecological identity indicators exhibiting the structures and intrinsic functions of a wetland ecosystem, include natural state, water balance, water chemistry, biotic safety, and species diversity; the indicators of functional integrity show the external profiles of the ecosystem health of wetland, comprising flood control, microclimate stabilization, water quality maintenance, animal and plant products, and; the socio-political indicators are the important exterior factors imposing effects indirectly on the ecosystem health, and composed of relevant policies and laws, development or conservation planning, policy enforcement, public participation, social equity of intra-generation or trans-generations, and individual or organizational acceptability. In practice, a comprehensive evaluation of the indicators of the three subsets may help determine the states of ecosystem health of wetland.
%K wetland
%K ecosystem health
%K indicator system
%K evaluation
%K theory<br>湿地生态系统
%K 健康评价指标体系
%K 理论
%U http://www.alljournals.cn/get_abstract_url.aspx?pcid=90BA3D13E7F3BC869AC96FB3DA594E3FE34FBF7B8BC0E591&jid=FE163E5DB2274E5937319DE98913EC37&aid=65B72EB8322BF59D&yid=C3ACC247184A22C1&vid=BC12EA701C895178&iid=DF92D298D3FF1E6E&sid=67C739DC23BADF58&eid=BCE65990EF9348F5&journal_id=1000-0933&journal_name=生态学报&referenced_num=73&reference_num=14