ADVANCES IN ASSESSMENT OF ECOSYSTEM HEALTH
生态系统健康评价的研究进展

The assessment of ecosystem health is the foundation of environmental management and ecosystem monitoring and it can also be promoted by ecosystem monitoring. The generation,development and various ideas of ecosystem health are introduced in this paper with particular focus on indicators and the problems of assessment of ecosystem health. Indicators of assessment of ecosystem health can be divided into three groups: ecological indicators,physical chemical indicators and human health and social economic indicators. Ecological indicators are those reflecting the characters and state of an ecosystem and are classified into indicators or indicator systems at different levels, viz. integrated ecosystem level,community level and individual population level. The physical chemical indicators relate to the abiotic environment of an ecosystem. The human health and social economic indicators are focused on the supporting role of ecosystems in human survival and social development,with economic parameters and environmental pressure indicators of social development being adopted to measure the quality and sustainability of ecological service. According to their sensitivity and function,indicators for evaluation of ecosystem health were identified as early warning indicators,compliance indicators and diagnostic indicators respectively. An integrated assessment of ecosystem health should consist of indicators or indicator systems in all three groups,but indicator selection was usually used and varied with the purpose and objective of the specific assessment practice. Two problems to be urgently solved at present in assessment of ecosystem health were proposed: how to efficiently identify the criteria of assessment and reference system and how to precisely discriminate anthropogenic pressure from natural disturbance.