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Ecological indicators are used to communicate information about ecosystems and the impact human activity has on ecosystems to groups such as the public or government policy makers. An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants animals and micro-organisms( Biotic factors in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical ( For the government of parliamentary systems see Executive (government. A policy is a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s Ecosystems are complex and ecological indicators can help describe them in simpler terms that can be understood and used by non-scientists to make management decisions. For example, the number of different beetle taxa found in a field can be used as an indicator of biodiversity. Beetles are the group of Insects with the largest number of known Species. A taxon (plural taxa) or taxonomic unit, is a name designating an organism or a group of Organisms In Biological nomenclature according to Biodiversity is the variation of Life forms within a given Ecosystem, Biome or for the entire Earth.   [1] [2] [3]

Many different types of indicators have been developed. They can be used to reflect a variety of aspects of ecosystems, including biological, chemical and physical. Due to this diversity, the development and selection of ecological indicators is a complex process.  [4]

Using ecological indicators is a pragmatic approach since direct documentation of changes in ecosystems as related to management measures, is cost and time intensive. [5] [6] For example, it would be expensive and time consuming to count every bird, plant and animal in a newly restored wetland to see if the restoration was a success. Birds ( class Aves) are bipedal endothermic ( Warm-blooded) Vertebrate animals that lay eggs. Plants are living Organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Restoration ecology is the study of renewing a degraded damaged or destroyed Ecosystem through active human intervention A wetland is an area of Land consisting of Soil that is Saturated with Moisture, such as a Swamp, Marsh, or Bog Instead a few indicator species can be monitored to determine success of the restoration. An indicator species is any Biological species that defines a trait or Characteristic of the environment  

“It is difficult and often even impossible to characterize the functioning of a complex system, such as an eco-agrosystem, by means of direct measurements. The size of the system, the complexity of the interactions involved, or the difficulty and cost of the measurements needed are often crippling”  [7]

The terms ecological indicator and environmental indicator are often used interchangeably. Environmental indicators are simple measures that tell us what is happening in the environment. However, ecological indicators are actually a sub-set of environmental indicators. Generally, environmental indicators provide information on pressures on the environment, environmental conditions and societal responses. An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants animals and micro-organisms( Biotic factors in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical ( Ecological indicators refer only to ecological processes. Ecology (from Greek grc οἶκος oikos, "house(hold" and grc -λογία -logia) is the scientific study of  

Contents

Policy evaluation

Ecological indicators play an important role in evaluating policy regarding the environment.

Contributions

Indicators contribute to evaluation of policy development by: [8]

Based on the United Nations convention to combat desertification and convention for biodiversity, indicators are planned to be built in order to evaluate the evolution of the factors. The United Nations ( UN) is an International organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in International law, International security The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification Particularly in Africa is a Convention to combat Desertification The Convention on Biological Diversity, known informally as the Biodiversity Convention, is an international Treaty that was adopted in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992 For instance, for the CCD, the Unesco-funded Observatoire du Sahara et du Sahel (OSS) has created the Réseau d'Observatoires du Sahara et du Sahel (ROSELT) (website [9]) as a network of cross-Saharan observatories to establish ecological indicators. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established on November 16

Limitations

There are limitations and challenges to using indicators for evaluating policy programs.

For indicators to be useful for policy analysis, it is necessary to be able to use and compare indicator results on different scales (local, regional, national and international). Currently, indicators face the following spatial limitations and challenges:

  1. Variable availability of data and information on local, regional and national scales.
  2. Lack of methodological standards on an international scale.
  3. Different ranking of indicators on an international scale which can result in different legal treatment.
  4. Averaged values across a national level may hide regional and local trends.
  5. When compiled, local indicators may be too diverse to provide a national result. [10]

Indicators also face other limitations and challenges, such as:

  1. Lack of reference levels, therefore it is unknown if trends in environmental change are strong or weak.
  2. Indicator measures can overlap, causing over estimation of single parameters.
  3. Long-term monitoring is necessary to identify long-term environmental changes.
  4. Attention to more easily handled measurable indicators distracts from indicators less quantifiable such as aesthetics, ethics or cultural values. [11]


References

  1. ^  Bertollo, P. (1998). "Assessing ecosystem health in governed landscapes: A framework for developing core indicators". Ecosystem Health 4: 33–51. doi:10.1046/j.1526-0992.1998.00069.x. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  
  2. ^  Girardin, P. , Bockstaller, C. & Van der Werf, H. (1999). "Indicators: Tools to evaluate the environmental impacts of farming systems". Journal of Sustainable Agriculture 13: 6–21.  
  3. ^  Kurtz, J. C. , Jackson, L. E. & Fisher, W. S. . (2001). "Strategies for evaluating indicators based on guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development". Ecological Indicators 1: 49–60. doi:10.1016/S1470-160X(01)00004-8. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  
  4. ^  Niemeijer, D. (2002). "Developing indicators for environmental policy: data-driven and theory-driven approaches examined by example". Environmental Science and Policy 5: 91–103. doi:10.1016/S1462-9011(02)00026-6. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  
  5. ^  Osinski, E. , Meier, U. , Büchs, W. , Weickel, J. , & Matzdorf, B. (2003). "Application of biotic indicators for evaluation of sustainable land use – current procedures and future developments". Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 98: 407–421. doi:10.1016/S0167-8809(03)00100-2. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  
  6. ^  Piorr, H. P. (2003). "Environmental policy, agri-environmental indicators and landscape indicators. ". Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 98: 17–33. doi:10.1016/S0167-8809(03)00069-0. A digital object identifier ( DOI) is a permanent identifier given to an Electronic document.  

External Links

See Also


Ecology (from Greek grc οἶκος oikos, "house(hold" and grc -λογία -logia) is the scientific study of The global ecology movement is based upon environmental protection and is one of several new Social movements that emerged at the end of the sixties. Ecosystem valuation is a widely used tool in determining the impact of human activities on an environmental system by assigning an economic value to an Ecosystem or its Ecological yield is the harvestable Population growth of an Ecosystem. Deep ecology is a recent branch of ecological Philosophy ( Ecosophy) that considers Humankind an integral part of its environment. Human ecology is an academic discipline that deals with the relationship between Humans and their natural social and created environments Systems ecology is an Interdisciplinary field of Ecology, taking a holistic approach to the study of ecological systems especially Ecosystems Ecosystem ecology is the integrated study of biotic and Abiotic components of Ecosystems and their interactions within an ecosystem framework Ecoinformatics is the science of information ( Informatics) in Ecology and Environmental science. An ecosystem is a natural unit consisting of all plants animals and micro-organisms( Biotic factors in an area functioning together with all of the non-living physical ( An ( EIA) is an assessment of the possible impact&ndashpositive or negative&ndashthat a proposed project may have on the Natural environment. Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA is a system of incorporating environmental considerations into policies plans and programmes Social Impact Assessment (SIA is a methodology to review the social effects of infrastructure projects and other development interventions A vulnerability assessment is the process of identifying quantifying and prioritizing (or ranking the vulnerabilities in a system The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment ( ACIA) is a study describing the ongoing Climate change in the Arctic and its The National Assessment on Climate Change (NACC was a massive multidisciplinary effort to study and portray in regional detail the potential effects of human-induced Global warming The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA is a research program that focuses on Ecosystem changes over the course of decades and projecting those changes into the future The Four-Step Impact Assessment is an academic framework initiated and published by the late Jonathan Mann and colleagues at the Francouis-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health Environmental ethics is the part of Environmental philosophy which considers the ethical relationship between Human beings and the Natural environment Environmental economics is a subfield of Economics concerned with environmental issues An indicator plant is a usually Weedy plant that grows in some specific environment allowing an assessment of Soil and other conditions in a place by simple observation An indicator species is any Biological species that defines a trait or Characteristic of the environment Wastewater quality indicators such as the Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD and the Chemical oxygen demand (COD are essentially Laboratory Tests The Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI is a concept in green economics and Welfare economics that has been suggested to replace Gross domestic product (GDP Key Performance Indicators ( KPI) are financial and non-financial Metrics used to help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals Sustainability, in a general sense is the capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely For article assessment process on Wikipedia see WikipediaVersion 1 Evaluation is systematic determination of merit worth and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards A policy is a deliberate plan of action to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome(s Bioaccumulation occurs when an organism absorbs a toxic substance at a rate greater than that at ftudruinsubstance is lost The soil food web is the community of organisms living all or part of their lives in the soil Soil ecology is the study of the interactions among soil organisms and between biotic and abiotic aspects of the soil environment "Conservation Biology" redirects here For the Scientific journal, see Conservation Biology (journal. Environmental Assessment Institute (EAI (Institut for Miljøvurdering is an independent body under the Danish Ministry of the Environment The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE is a subdivision and research institute of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kent, started in 1989 The Institute for Social Ecology is an educational institution in the United States offering courses related to Social ecology, an Anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian The timeline of environmental events is a historical account of events that have shaped humanity's perspective on the environment
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