Ecosystem health is evaluated as an integrated assessment based on ecosystem stability, resilience, and vulnerability concepts. Special emphasis is focused on two dimensions in the ecosystem health concept: a geocentric approach (i.e., considering any impacts or interactions in terms of their effects on natural geosystems or ecosystems) which deals with assessment of natural ecosystems and their disturbance; and an anthropocentric approach, which concerns effects on human beings and human environment. Analysis of the relevant terminology leads to the development of a conceptual framework for ecosystem health. A suggested method of environmental risk assessment is based on ranking and merging into one criterion a series of individual estimates: bioresources abundance, biodiversity, ecosystem stability and resilience, and feedback effects of a disturbed environment on human beings and their activities.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.