Ecological Sustainability, Indicators and Climate Change: Robert Costanza

5
ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY, INDICATORS AND

CLIMATE CHANGE1
Robert Costanza2
5.1 Introduction
The 1995 IPCC working group 3 report (Bruce et al. 1996) identified several
unique characteristics of climate change that makes it problematic for conventional
forms of analysis:
"Decision making related to climate change must take into account the unique
characteristics of the ’problem’: large uncertainties (scientific and economic),
possible nonlinearities and irreversibilities, asymmetric distribution of impacts
geographically and temporally, the very long time horizon, and the global nature
of climate change with the associated potential for free riding." (p. 7)
1
Paper prepared for the IPCC Expert Meeting on “Development, Equity, and Sustainability”,
Colombo, Sri Lanka, 27-29 April, 1999. This paper is a synthesis of ideas that have appeared in
a number of other papers with various co-authors, whose contributions are gratefully
acknowledged. These include: R. Bishop, H. Daly, S. Farber, C. Folke, M. Mageau, B. Norton,
B. Patten, D. Rapport, M. Ruth, M. van den Belt, and L. Wainger.
2
Professor, Center for Environmental Science and Biology Department, and Director, Institute for
Ecological Economics, University of Maryland, Box 38, Solomons, MD 20688-0038, USA,
Phone: (410) 326-7263 Fax: (410) 326-7354 email: costza@cbl.umd.edu
109
Climate Change and DES
These characteristics require a different conceptual framework or “pre-analytic

vision” (Schumpeter 1954) as well as the different analyses and policies that follow from
this vision. Key elements of an emerging consensus about this new vision (which has
been called “ecological economics” - Costanza et al. 1996) include: (1) the vision of the
earth as a thermodynamically closed and non-materially-growing system, with the
economy as a subsystem of the global ecosystem. This implies that there are limits to
biophysical throughput through the economic subsystem; (2) the future vision of a
sustainable planet with a high quality of life and fair distribution of resources for all its
inhabitants (both humans and other species) within the material constraints imposed by 1
(above); (3) the recognition that in the analysis of complex adaptive systems like the
earth at all space and time scales, fundamental uncertainty is large and irreducible and
certain processes are irreversible, requiring a fundamentally precautionary stance; and
(4) the goal that institutions and management should be proactive rather than reactive
and should result in simple, adaptive, and implementable policies based on sophisticated
understanding of the underlying systems which fully acknowledge the underlying
uncertainties. This forms the basis for policy implementation which is itself sustainable.
In addition, there is emerging consensus about the three major goals of human
development (Daly 1992, Munasinghe 1999).
(1) assessing and insuring that the scale of human activities within the biosphere are
ecologically sustainable;
(2) distributing resources and property rights fairly, both within the current
generation of humans and between this and future generations, and also between
humans and other species; and
(3) efficiently allocating resources as constrained and defined by 1 and 2 above,
and including both marketed and non-marketed resources, especially ecosystem
services.
This chapter deals mainly with the problem of ecological sustainability from
within this broader emerging conceptual framework.
5.2 Ecological Sustainability
ECOSYSTEMS, BIODIVERSITY, AND ECOLOGICAL SERVICES
An ecosystem consists of plants, animals and microorganisms which live in

biological communities and which interact with each other and with the physical and
chemical environment, with adjacent ecosystems and with the atmosphere. The structure
and functioning of an ecosystem is sustained by synergistic feedbacks between
organisms and their environment. For example, the physical environment puts constraints
on the growth and development of biological subsystems which, in turn, modify their
physical environment.
Solar energy is the driving force of ecosystems, enabling the cyclic use of
materials and compounds required for system organization and maintenance. Ecosystems
capture solar energy through photosynthesis by plants. This is necessary for the
conversion, cycling, and transfer to other systems of materials and critical chemicals that
affect growth and production, i.e. bio-geochemical cycling. Energy flow and bio-
110
Ecological sustainability
geochemical cycling set an upper limit on the quantity and number of organisms, and on
the number of trophic levels that can exist in an ecosystem (Odum 1989).
Holling (1986) has described ecosystem behavior as the dynamic sequential
interaction between four basic system functions: exploitation, conservation, release and
reorganization. The first two are similar to traditional ecological succession.
Exploitation is represented by those ecosystem processes that are responsible for rapid
colonization of disturbed ecosystems during which organisms capture easily accessible
resources. Conservation occurs when the slow resource accumulation builds and stores
increasingly complex structures. Connectedness and stability increase during the slow
sequence from exploitation to conservation and a "capital" of biomass is slowly
accumulated. Release or creative destruction. takes place when the conservation phase
has built elaborate and tightly bound structures that have become “over-connected,” so
that a rapid change is triggered. The system has become brittle. The stored capital is then
suddenly released and the tight organization is lost. The abrupt destruction is created
internally but caused by an external disturbance such as fire, disease, or grazing pressure.
This process of change both destroys and releases opportunity for the fourth stage,
reorganization where released materials are mobilized to become available for the next
exploitative phase.
The stability and productivity of the system is determined by the slow
exploitation and conservation sequence. Resilience, that is the system's capacity to
recover after disturbance, its capacity to absorb stress, is determined by the effectiveness
of the last two system functions. The self-organizing ability of the system, or more
particularly the resilience of that self-organization, determines its capacity to respond to
the stresses and shocks imposed by predation or pollution from external sources.
Some natural disturbances, such as fire, wind and herbivores, are an inherent
part of the internal dynamics of ecosystems and in many cases set the timing of
successional cycles (Holling et al. 1995). Natural perturbations are parts of ecosystem
development and evolution, and seem to be crucial for ecosystem resilience and
integrity. If they are not allowed to enter the ecosystem, it will become even more brittle
and thereby even larger perturbations will be invited with the risk of massive and
widespread destruction. For example, small fires in a forest ecosystem release nutrients
stored in the trees and support a spurt of new growth without destroying all the old
growth. Subsystems in the forest are affected but the forest remains. If small fires are
blocked out from a forest ecosystem, forest biomass will build up to high levels and
when the fire does come it will wipe out the whole forest. Such events may flip the
system to a totally new state that will not generate the same level of ecological functions
and services as before (Holling et al. 1995). These sorts of flips may occur in many
ecosystems. For example savannah ecosystems (Perrings and Walker 1995), coral reef
systems (Knowlton 1992), and shallow lakes (Scheffer et al. 1993) all can exhibit this
kind of behavior. The flip from one state to another is often induced by human activity.
For example cattle ranching in savannah systems can lead to completely different grass
species assemblages, nutrient enrichment and physical disturbance around coral reefs can
lead to replacement with algae-dominated systems, and nutrient additions can lead to
eutrophication of lakes.
Ecosystems, including human dominated systems, have been called "complex
adaptive systems." Because these systems are evolutionary rather than mechanistic they
111
exhibit a limited degree of predictability. Understanding the problems and constraints

which these evolutionary dynamics pose for ecosystems is a key component in managing
them sustainably (Costanza et al. 1993).
ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY
Species diversity appears to have two major roles in the self-organization of

large-scale ecosystems. First, it provides the units through which energy and materials
flow, giving the system its functional properties. There is some experimental evidence
(Naeem et al. 1994) that species diversity increases the productivity of ecosystems, by
utilizing more of the possible pathways for energy flow and nutrient cycling. Second,
diversity provides the ecosystem with the resilience to respond to unpredictable surprises
(Solbrig 1993; Tilman and Downing 1994; Holling et al. 1995; Folke et al. in press).
"Keystone process" species are those that control the system during the
exploitation and conservation phases. The species that keep the system resilient in the
sense of absorbing perturbation are those that are important in the release and
reorganization phases. The latter group can be thought of as a form of ecosystem
"insurance." (Barbier et al. 1994). The insurance aspect includes the reservoirs of
genetic material necessary for the evolution of microbial, plant, animal, and human life.
Genes preserve information about what works and what does not. Genes thereby
constrain the self-organization process to those options which have a higher probability
of success. They are the record of successful self-organization (Schneider and Kay
1994). Günther and Folke (1993) distinguish between working and latent information in
terms of the function of genes. Similarly, the organisms or groups of organisms that are
controlling the ecosystem during the exploitation and conservation phases could be
looked upon as working information, with the ability to take over the system during the
release and reorganization phases, i.e. those who keep the system resilient, by storing
latent information. Both are part of functional diversity.
Hence, it is the number of organisms involved in the structuring set of processes
during the different stages of ecosystem development, and at different spatial and
temporal scales, that determines functional diversity. This number is not necessarily the
same as the number of all organisms in the system (Holling et al. 1995). Therefore, it is
not simply the diversity of species that is important, it is how that diversity is organized
into a coherent whole system. The degree of organization of a system is determined by
the network of interactions between the component parts (see below, and Ulanowicz
1980, 1986). It is this organization, along with system resilience and productivity (or
vigor) which jointly determine the overall health of the system (Mageau et al. 1995).
ECOSYSTEMS AND ECOLOGICAL SERVICES
Ecological systems play a fundamental role in supporting life on Earth at all

hierarchical scales. They form the life-support system without which economic activity
would not be possible. They are essential in global material cycles like the carbon and
water cycles. Ecosystems produce renewable resources and ecological services. For
example a fish in the sea is produced by several other ’ecological sectors’ in the food web
112
of the sea. The fish is a part of the ecological system in which it is produced, and the
interactions that produce and sustain the fish are inherently complex.
Ecological services are those ecosystem functions that are currently perceived to
support and protect human activities or affect human well being (Barbier et al. 1994).
They include maintenance of the composition of the atmosphere, amelioration of climate,
flood controls and drinking water supply, waste assimilation, recycling of nutrients,
generation of soils, pollination of crops, provision of food, maintenance of species and a
vast genetic library, as well as maintenance of the scenery of the landscape, recreational
sites, and aesthetic and amenity values (Ehrlich and Mooney 1983; Folke 1991; Ehrlich
and Ehrlich 1992; de Groot 1992, Costanza et al. 1997). Biodiversity at genetic, species,
population and ecosystem levels all contribute in maintaining these functions and
services. Cairns and Pratt (1995) argue that if a society was highly environmentally
literate, it would probably accept the assertion that most if not all ecosystem functions
are, in the long term, beneficial to society.
The work of ecosystems and the services that they generate are seldom reflected
in resource prices or taken into account by existing institutions, even though these
ecosystem services represent a significant portion of the total human “income”
(Costanza et al. 1997). Many current societies employ social norms and rules which: (1)
bank on future technological fixes and assume that it is possible to find technical
substitutes for the loss of ecosystem goods and services.; (2) use narrow indicators of
welfare; and (3) employ world views which alienate people from their dependence on
healthy ecosystems. But as the scale of human activity continues to increase,
environmental damage begins to occur not only in local ecosystems, but regionally and
globally as well. Humanity now faces a novel situation of jointly determined ecological
and economic systems. This means that as economies grow relative to their life
supporting ecosystems, the dynamics of both become more tightly connected. In
addition, the joint system dynamics can become increasingly discontinuous the closer the
economic systems get to the carrying capacity of ecosystems (Costanza et al. 1993;
Perrings et al. 1995).
The support capacity of ecosystems in producing renewable resources and
ecological services has only recently begun to receive attention, despite the fact that they
have always been a prerequisite for economic development. In the long run a healthy
economy can only exist in symbiosis with a healthy ecology. The two are so
interdependent that isolating them for academic purposes has led to distortions and poor
management.
DEFINING AND PREDICTING SUSTAINABILITY IN ECOLOGICAL TERMS
Defining sustainability in ecological terms is actually quite easy (Costanza and

Patten 1995):
A sustainable system is one which survives or persists.
Biologically, this means avoiding extinction, and living to survive and reproduce.
Economically, it means avoiding major disruptions and collapses, hedging against
instabilities and discontinuities. Sustainability, at its base, always concerns temporality,
and, in particular, longevity.
113
The problem with the above definition is that, like "fitness" in evolutionary
biology, determinations can only be made after the fact. An organism alive right now is
fit to the extent that its progeny survive and contribute to the gene pool of future
generations. The assessment of fitness today must wait until tomorrow. The assessment
of sustainability must also wait until after the fact.
What often pass as definitions of sustainability are therefore usually really
predictions of actions taken today that one hopes will lead to sustainability. For example,
keeping harvest rates of a resource system below rates of natural renewal should, one
could argue, lead to a sustainable extraction system—but that is a prediction, not a
definition. It is, in fact, the foundation of MSY-theory (maximum sustainable yield), for
many years the basis for management of exploited wildlife and fisheries populations
(Roedel 1975). As learned in these fields, a system can only be known to be sustainable
after there has been time to observe if the prediction holds true. Usually there is so much
uncertainty in estimating natural rates of renewal, and observing and regulating harvest
rates, that a simple prediction such as this, as Ludwig et al. (1993) correctly observe, is
always highly suspect, especially if it is erroneously thought of as a definition.
The second problem is that when one says a system has achieved sustainability,
one does not mean an infinite lifespan, but rather a lifespan that is consistent with its
time and space scale. Figure 1 indicates this relationship by plotting a hypothetical curve
of system life expectancy on the y axis versus time and space scale on the x axis.
We expect a cell in an organism to have a relatively short lifespan, the organism
to have a longer lifespan, the species to have an even longer lifespan, and the planet to
have a longer lifespan. But no system (even the universe itself in the extreme case) is
expected to have an infinite lifespan. A sustainable system in this context is thus one that
attains its full expected lifespan.
Individual humans are sustainable in this context if they achieve their “normal“
maximum lifespan. At the population level, average life expectancy is often used as an
indicator of health and well-being of the population, but the population itself is expected
to have a much longer life span than any individual, and would not be considered to be
sustainable if it were to crash prematurely, even if all the individuals in the population
were living out their full “sustainable“ life spans.
Since ecosystems experience succession as a result of changing climatic
conditions and internal developmental changes, they have a limited (albeit fairly long)
lifespan. The key is differentiating between changes due to normal life span limits and
changes that cut short the life span of the system. Things that cut short the life span of
humans are obviously contributors to poor health. Cancer, AIDS, and a host of other
ailments do just this. Human induced eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems causes a
radical change in the nature of the system (ending the life span of the more oligotrophic
system while beginning the life span of a more eutrophic system). We would have to call
this process “unsustainable“ using the above definitions since the life-span of the first
system was cut “unnaturally“ short. It may have gone eutrophic eventually, but the
anthropogenic stress caused this transition to occur “too soon“.
More formally, this aspect of sustainability can be thought of in terms of the
system and it’s component part’s longevity (Costanza and Patten 1995):.
114
A system is sustainable if and only if it persists in nominal behavioral states

as long as or longer than its expected natural longevity or existence time;
and
neither component- nor system-level sustainability, as assessed by the
longevity criterion, confers sustainability to the other level.
Within this context, one can begin to see the subtle balance between longevity
and evolutionary adaptation across a range of scales that is necessary for overall
sustainability. Evolution cannot occur unless there is limited longevity of the component
parts so that new alternatives can be selected. And this longevity has to be increasing
hierarchically with scale as shown schematically in Figure 1. Larger systems can attain
longer life spans because their component parts have shorter life spans and can adapt to
changing conditions. Systems with an improper balance of longevity across scales can
become either “brittle“ when their parts last too long and the cannot adapt fast enough
(Holling 1986) or “unsustainable“ when their parts do not last long enough and the
higher level system’s longevity is cut unnecessarily short.
ECOSYSTEMS AS SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS
Ecological systems are our best current models of sustainable systems. Better
understanding of ecological systems and how they function and maintain themselves can
thus yield insights into designing and managing sustainable economic subsystems. For
example, in mature ecosystems all waste and by-products are recycled and used
somewhere in the system or fully dissipated. This implies that a characteristic of
sustainable economic systems should be a similar "closing the cycle" by finding
productive uses and recycling currently discarded energy and material, rather than
simply storing it, diluting it or changing its state, and allowing it to disrupt other existing
ecosystems and economic systems that cannot effectively use it.
Ecosystems have had countless eons of trial and error to evolve these closed
loops of recycling of organic matter, nutrients and other materials. A general
characteristic of closing the loops and building organized non-polluting natural systems
is that the process can take a significant amount of time. The connections, the feedback
mechanisms, in the system must evolve and there are characteristics of systems that
enhance and retard evolutionary change. Humans have the special ability to perceive this
process and potentially to enhance and accelerate it. For example, the economic
subsystem currently has a very weak “decomposer” function, and this function needs to
be enhanced.
Historically, the first by-product, or pollutant, of the activity of one part of the
system that had a disruptive effect on another part of the system was probably oxygen, an
unintentional by-product of photosynthesis that was very disruptive to early anaerobic
respiration. There was so much of this "pollution" that the earth's atmosphere eventually
became saturated with it and new species evolved that could use this by-product as a
productive input in aerobic respiration. The current biosphere represents a balance
between these processes that have evolved over millions of years to insure that the
formerly unintentional by-product is now an absolutely integral component process in
the system.
115
Eutrophication and toxic stress are two current forms of by-products that can be
seen as resulting from the inability of the affected systems to evolve fast enough to
convert the "pollution" into useful products and processes. Eutrophication is the
introduction of high levels of nutrients into formerly lower nutrient systems. The species
of primary producers (and the assemblages of animals that depend on them) that were
adapted to the lower nutrient conditions are outcompeted by faster growing species
adapted to the higher nutrient conditions. But the shift in nutrient regime is so sudden
that only the primary producers are changed and the result is a disorganized collection of
species with much internal disruption (i.e. plankton blooms, fish kills) that can rightly be
called pollution. The introduction of high levels of nutrients into a system not adapted to
them causes pollution (called eutrophication in this case) whereas the introduction of the
same nutrients into a system that is adapted to them (i.e. marshes and swamps) would be
a positive input. We can minimize the effects of such by-products by finding the places
in the ecosystem where they represent a positive input and placing it there. In many
cases, what we think of as waste are resources in the wrong place.
Toxic chemicals represent a form of pollution because there are no existing
natural systems that have ever experienced them and so there are no existing systems to
which they represent a positive input. The places where toxic chemicals can most readily
find a productive use are probably in other industrial processes, not in natural
ecosystems. The solution in this case is to encourage the evolution of industrial
processes that can use toxic wastes as productive inputs or to encourage alternative
production process which do not produce the wastes in the first place.
5.3 Indicators of Sustainability
ECOSYSTEM HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY
To understand and manage complex systems (like ecological and economic

systems), we need some way of assessing the system’s overall performance - its relative
"health". The US EPA has begun to shift the stated goals of its monitoring and
enforcement activities from protecting only "human health" to protecting overall
"ecological health." Indeed, EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB 1990) stated:
EPA should attach as much importance to reducing ecological risk as it

does to reducing human health risk. These very close linkages between
human health and ecological health should be reflected in national
environmental policy. When EPA compares the risks posed by different
environmental problems in order to set priorities for Agency action, the
risks posed to ecological systems must be an important part of the
equation.
Although this statement gives the concept of ecological health importance as a

primary EPA goal, it begs the question of what ecosystem health is, while tacitly
defining it as analogous to human health. The dictionary definitions of health are: "1. the
condition of being sound in mind, body, and spirit; 2. flourishing condition or well-
being." These definitions are obviously rather vague. In order to meet the mandate for
116
effectively managing the environment a more rigorous and operational definition of

health must be constructed - one that is applicable to all complex systems at all levels of
scale, including organisms, ecosystems, and economic systems.
DEFINING ECOSYSTEM HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY
All complex systems are, by definition, made up of a number of interacting parts.

In general, these components vary in their type, structure, and function within the whole
system. Thus a system’s behavior cannot be summarized simply by adding up the
behavior of the individual parts. Contrast a simple physical system (say an ideal gas)
with a complex biological system (say an organism). The temperature of the gas is a
simple aggregation of the kinetic energy of all the individual molecules in the gas. The
temperature, pressure, and volume of the gas are related by simple relationships with
little or no uncertainty. An organism, however, is composed of complex cells and organ
systems. The state of an organism cannot be surmised simply by adding up the states of
the individual components, since these components are themselves complex and have
different, non-commensurable functions within the overall system. Indicators that might
be useful for understanding heart function—pumping rate and blood pressure, for
instance—are meaningless for skin or teeth.
Past explicit or implicit definitions of ecosystem health have included:
• Health as homeostasis
• Health as the absence of disease
• Health as diversity or complexity
• Health as stability or resilience
• Health as vigor or scope for growth
• Health as balance between system components
All of these concepts represent pieces of the puzzle, but none is comprehensive
enough to serve our purposes here. In this paper, we develop the concept of ecosystem
health as a comprehensive, multi-scale, dynamic, hierarchical measure of system
resilience, organization, and vigor. These concepts are embodied in the term
"sustainability" which implies the system's ability to maintain its structure (organization)
and function (vigor) over time in the face of external stress (resilience). A healthy system
must also be defined in light of both its context (the larger system of which it is part) and
its components (the smaller systems that make it up).
In its simplest terms, then, health is a measure of the overall performance of a
complex system that is built up from the behavior of its parts. Such measures of system
health imply a weighted summation or a more complex operation over the component
parts, where the weighting factors incorporate an assessment of the relative importance
of each component to the functioning of the whole. This assessment of relative
importance incorporates "values," which can range from subjective and qualitative to
objective and quantitative as we gain more knowledge about the system under study. In
the practice of human medicine, these weighting factors or values are contained in the
body of knowledge and experience embodied in the medical practitioner.
Figure 2 shows the progression from directly measured "indicators" of a
component's status, through "endpoints" that are composites of these indicators, to health
with the help of "values." Measures of health are inherently more difficult, more
117
comprehensive, require more modeling and synthesis, and involve less precision, but are
more relevant than the endpoints and indicators from which they are built. It remains to
determine which general approaches to developing these measures of health for
ecosystems are most effective.
Health is also a scale-dependent characteristic and like sustainability is a
function of expected life-span at various nested scales (as discussed earlier – Figure 1).
How can we create a practical definition of system health that is applicable with
equal facility to complex systems at all scales? Let us first lay out the minimum
characteristics of such a definition. First, an adequate definition of ecosystem health
should integrate the concepts of health mentioned above. Specifically it should be a
combined measure of system resilience, life expectancy, balance, organization
(diversity), and vigor (metabolism). Second, the definition should be a comprehensive
description of the system. Looking at only one part of the system implicitly gives the
remaining parts zero weight. Third, the definition will require the use of weighting
factors to compare and aggregate different components in the system. It should use
weights for components that are linked to the functional dependence of the system's
sustainability on the components, and the weights should be able to vary as the system
changes to account for "balance." And fourth, the definition should be hierarchical to
account for the interdependence of various time and space scales.
Costanza et al. (1992) develop the following definition of ecosystem health:

An ecological system is healthy and free from "distress syndrome" if it is
stable and sustainable—that is, if it is active and maintains its
organization and autonomy over time and is resilient to stress.
Ecosystem health is thus closely linked to the idea of sustainability. “Health” is

a comprehensive, multi-scale dynamic measure of system resilience, organization, and
vigor. It is intended as a predictor or indicator of sustainability. This definition is
applicable to all complex systems from cells to ecosystems to economic systems (hence
it is comprehensive and multi-scale) and allows for the fact that systems may be growing
and developing as a result of both natural and cultural influences. According to this
definition, a diseased or unhealthy system is one that is predicted to be unsustainable in
the sense that it will not achieve its maximum life span. The time and space frames are
obviously important in this definition. Distress syndrome (Rapport et al. 1985, 1992)
refers to the irreversible processes of system breakdown leading to the termination of the
system before its normal life span. To be healthy and sustainable, a system must maintain
its metabolic activity level as well as its internal structure and organization (a diversity of
processes effectively linked to one another) and must be resilient to outside stresses over
a time and space frame relevant to that system.
What does this mean in practice? Table 1 lays out the three main components of
this proposed concept of system health (resilience, organization, and vigor) along with
related concepts and measurements in various fields.
118
Table 1. Indices of vigor, organization, and resilience in various fields
Probable
Component Related Related Field method
of health concepts measures of origin of solution
Vigor Function GPP, NPP, GEP Ecology Measurement

Productivity GNP Economics
Throughput Metabolism Biology
Organization Structure Diversity index Ecology Network

Biodiversity Average mutual information (Ulanowicz analysis
1986)
Predictability (Turner et al. 1989)
Resilience Scope for growth (Bayne 1987) Ecology Simulation

Population recovery time (Pimm 1984) modeling
Disturbance absorption capacity (Holling
1987)
Combinations Ascendancy (Ulanowicz 1986) Ecology

Index of Biotic Integrity (Karr 1991)
What we are looking for is an assessment that combines these three basic aspects
of system performance and health - vigor, organization, and resilience. To operationalize
these concepts (especially organization and resilience) will require a heavy dose of
systems analysis, synthesis, and modeling, combined with broad-based input from the
full range of stakeholders involved in the management of ecosystems.
In this paper we propose a systems level assessment of ecosystem health that is
reasonably easy to measure, and incorporates values in a general manner allowing for the
possibility of reaching a consensus. More specifically, we identify three components of
ecosystem health (vigor, organization, and resilience) that encompass many of the
concepts discussed above. Furthermore, we describe the quantification of these
components, illustrate how they can be incorporated into a quantitative assessment of
ecosystem health, examine some initial testing of the assessment, and discuss
opportunities for future testing.
THREE COMPONENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY HEALTH
Mageau et al., (1995) illustrated the three components of system health in a three
dimensional plot (Figure 6). The two dimensional planes formed when each of the
components are zero are labeled. The first plane describes systems characterized by
various combinations of organization and resilience, but no vigor. Systems with little or
no vigor, such as ice, rocks and minerals, are ’crystallized’. The second plane describes
systems characterized by various combinations of resilience and vigor, but with no
organization. Systems with little or no organization, such as nutrient enriched lakes,
streams and ponds, or early successional ecosystems dominated exclusively by ’r’
119
selected species, are ’eutrophic’. The third plane indicates systems that are characterized
by various combinations of vigor and organization, but no resilience. Natural variation
in external environments preserves resilience preventing systems from reaching the
extreme of this plane, but certain highly managed systems, such as agriculture,
aquaculture and plantations, approach this plane and are ’brittle’. Crystallized, eutrophic
and brittle systems are not healthy. Instead, a healthy system is characterized by some
balance between vigor, organization and resilience. We propose that a ’healthy’ system is
one that can develop an efficient diversity of components and exchange pathways (high
organization) while maintaining some redundancy or resilience as insurance against
stress, and substantial vigor to quickly recover or utilize stress in a positive manner.
The vigor of a system is simply a measure of its activity, metabolism or primary
productivity. Examples include gross primary productivity in ecological systems, and
gross national product in economic systems. It has been hypothesized that a systems
ability to recover from stress, or to utilize it, is related to its overall metabolism, energy
flow (Odum 1971), or "scope for growth" (Bayne et al. 1987). The latter is the difference
between the energy required for system maintenance and the energy available to the
system for all purposes. Each of these measures is aimed at the systems capability to
respond to generalized stress. Vigor is the most straightforward of the three components
to measure. Vigor can be measured directly and relatively easily by existing methods in
most systems. Examples include Gross Primary Production (GPP) and organism
metabolism in ecological systems and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in economic
systems. These empirical measures quantify the magnitude of input (material or energy)
available to an ecosystem (GPP), or the overall activity (measured in dollars per unit
time) of an economic system. But, as investigators in several fields have long recognized,
vigor alone is not an adequate measure of health.
The organization of a system refers to the number and diversity of interactions
between the components of the system. Measures of organization are affected by the
diversity of species, and also by the number of pathways of material exchange between
each component. For example, a highly organized system is characterized by a high
diversity of specialized components, and their corresponding specialized exchange
pathways. Organization decreases as the diversity of species and the specialization of
exchange pathways decrease. It is important to realize that for any given level of species
diversity organization can vary with the pattern of exchange pathways between them. A
system containing species that feed on only one or two specific prey items, and are in
turn prey for only one or two other species will have higher values of organization than a
system containing the same number of generalist feeders with multiple pathways of
exchange between them. Organization, therefore extends traditional measures of
diversity by also considering the patterns of exchange between system components.
It is more difficult to quantify organization than vigor because quantifying
organization involves measuring both the diversity and magnitude of system components
and the exchange pathways between them. Diversity indices and multi-species indices
fail to incorporate exchange pathways connecting system components. Network analysis
is a potential approach to the problem of measuring organization. It involves the
quantitative analysis of interconnections between components of a system (species) and
their connections with the larger system (their abiotic environments). Practical
quantitative analysis of interconnections in complex systems began with the economist
120
Wassily Leontief (1941) using what has come to be known as Input-output (I/O) analysis.
Recently these concepts have been applied to the study of interconnections in ecosystems
(Hannon 1973, 1976, 1979, 1985a, 1985b, 1985c; Costanza and Neill 1984). Related
ideas, under the heading of compartmental analysis, were also developed (Barber et al.
1979; Finn 1976; Funderlic and Heath 1971). Walter Isard (1972) was the first to take
advantage of the similar methodology by attempting a combined ecological/economic
system I/O analysis, and several others have proposed ecological/economic mass-balance
models (Daly 1968; Cumberland 1987). Ulanowicz (1986) has used information theory
to develop a specialized suite of systems-level, network analysis indices. One particular
index (Average Mutual Information) may be used as a comprehensive measure of
organization. Average Mutual Information (AMI) transcends the traditional diversity
indices used in ecology by estimating not only the number of different species in a
system, but, more importantly, how they are organized.
The resilience of a system refers to its ability to maintain its structure and pattern
of behavior in the presence of stress (Holling 1986). In the context of this paper, it may
refer to the systems ability to maintain its vigor and organization in the presence of
stress. A healthy system is one that possesses adequate resilience to survive various
small scale perturbations. The concept of system resilience has two main components.
The most commonly used aspect refers to the length of time it takes a system to recover
from stress. A second aspect refers to the magnitude of stress from which the system can
recover, or the systems specific thresholds for absorbing various stresses. A related
point involves the alternative system states once thresholds are crossed, these may vary
from total system collapse to a stable state that may actually be more beneficial. The
limits of ecosystem stability or resilience are currently being debated. Holling (1986)
argues that the limits range from the assumption of complete global stability, implicit in
many of humanities past efforts to manage, to the idea of ecosystems being extremely
fragile.
Measuring the resilience of a system is difficult because it implies the ability to
predict the dynamics of that system under stress. Predicting ecosystem impacts over
time generally requires dynamic simulation models (Costanza et al., 1990). There are
two different definitions on resilience in the literature. Pimm (1984) defines resilience as
the time it takes for a system to recover from stress. Holling (1986) defines resilience as
the magnitude of stress beyond which the system never recovers its former state. Figure
4 illustrates these two components of resilience (Mageau et al., in press).
We combine these two ideas into a single measure of resilience. The Recovery
Time (RT) can be estimated simply by measuring the time it takes for a system to recover
from a wide variety of stresses to some previous steady state. Mageau et al., (in press)
demonstrated how the maximum magnitude of stress (MS) from which a system can
recover can be measured by progressively increasing simulated stress until the system
reverts to some new steady state, and documenting the magnitude of the stress that
caused the shift. We then propose that an overall measure of resilience can be obtained
from the ratio of MS/RT.
121
MODELING COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS
New understanding about system dynamics and predictability which has

emerged from the study of “complex systems” is creating new tools for modeling
interactions between human and natural systems. A range of techniques has become
available through advances in computer speed and accessibility, and by implementing a
broad, interdisciplinary systems view.
Systems are groups of interacting, interdependent parts linked together by
exchanges of energy, matter, and information. Complex systems are characterized by:
(1) strong (usually nonlinear) interactions between the parts; (2) complex feedback loops
which make it difficult to distinguish cause from effect; (3) significant time and space
lags; discontinuities, thresholds and limits; all resulting in (4) the inability to simply
“add-up” or aggregate small scale behavior to arrive at large-scale results (von
Bertalanffy 1968, Rastetter et al. 1992). Ecological and economic systems both
independently exhibit these characteristics of complex systems. Taken together, linked
ecological economic systems are devilishly complex.
While almost any subdivision of the universe can be thought of as a "system,"
modelers of systems usually look for boundaries that minimize the interaction between
the system under study and the rest of the universe in order to make their job easier. The
interactions between ecological and economic systems are many and strong. So, while
splitting the world into separate economic and ecological systems is possible, it does not
minimize interactions and is a poor choice of boundary.
Classical (or reductionist) scientific disciplines tend to dissect their subject into
smaller and smaller isolated parts in an effort to reduce the problem to its essential
elements. In order to allow the dissection of system components, it must be assumed that
interactions and feedbacks between system elements are negligible or that the links are
essentially linear so they can be added up to give the behavior of the whole (von
Bertalanffy 1968). Complex systems violate the assumptions of reductionist techniques
and therefore are not well understood using the perspective of classical science. In
contrast, systems analysis is the scientific method applied across many disciplines,
scales, resolutions, and system types in an integrative manner.
In economics, for example, a typical distinction is made between partial
equilibrium analysis and general equilibrium analysis. In partial equilibrium analysis, a
subsystem (a single market) is studied with the underlying assumption that there are no
important feedback loops from other markets. In general equilibrium analysis, on the
other hand, the all markets are studied together, in order to bring out the general
interdependence in the economy. The large-scale, whole economy, general equilibrium
effects are usually quite different from the sum of the constituent small-scale partial
equilibrium effects. Add to this the further complication that in reality "equilibrium" is
never achieved, and one can begin to see the limitations of classical, reductionist science
in understanding complex systems.
Economic and ecological analysis needs to shift away from implicit assumptions
which eliminate links within and between economic and natural systems, because, due to
the strength of the real world interactions between these components, failing to link them
can cause severe misperceptions and indeed policy failures (Costanza 1987). Since
122
reductionist thinking fails in the quest to understand complex systems, new concepts and
methods must be devised.
To achieve a comprehensive understanding that is useful for modeling and
prediction of linked ecological economic systems, requires the synthesis and integration
of several different conceptual frames. As Levins (1966) has described this search for
robustness: “we attempt to treat the same problem with several alternative models each
with different simplifications... Then, if these models, despite their different
assumptions, lead to similar results we have what we call a robust theorem which is
relatively free of the details of the model. Hence our truth is the intersection of
independent lies.”
Existing modeling approaches can be classified according to a number of
criteria, including scale, resolution, generality, realism, and precision. The most useful
approach within this spectrum of characteristics depends on the specific goals of the
modeling exercise. We describe a few examples of how one might match model
characteristics with several of the possible modeling goals relevant for ecological
economic systems, and claim that a better appreciation of the range of possible model
characteristics and goals can help to more optimally match characteristics and goals.
Complex systems analysis offers great potential for generating insights into the
behavior of linked ecological economic systems. These insights will be needed to
change the behaviour of the human population towards a sustainable pattern, a pattern
that works in synergy with the life supporting ecosystems on which it depends. The next
step in the evolution of ecological economic models is to fully integrate the two fields
and not just transfer methods between them. Clark’s (1976, 1981, 1985) bio-economics
work was the start of this recognition of the importance of linking the mutually
interacting sub-parts. But much work remains to be done to bring the two fields and the
technology that supports them to the point where their models can adequately interact.
Transdisciplinary collaboration and cooperative synthesis among natural and social
scientists and others will be essential (Norgaard 1989).
5.4 Applications to Climate Change
The unique characteristics of the climate change problem and the foregoing
considerations of ecosystems health, sustainability, and modeling, suggest a different
approach to governance and management. Ecological sustainability is seen to be the
achievement of a scale-dependent and limited lifespan for the nested set of subsystems
which make up the global ecosystem. Since we will only know what is sustainable after
the fact, the goal of ecological sustainability requires a set of indicators that can serve as
predictors of what will eventually prove to be sustainable. These indicators embody what
we mean by a “healthy” system – one that retains its vigor, organization, and resilience
over time. Because the systems involved are complex and adaptive, there is huge
uncertainty involved in the assessments of health as predictors of the eventual
sustainability of the systems. We must therefore develop “adaptive management”
approached and a sustainable governance framework that can deal with this uncertainty
in a way that still assures health and sustainability.
123
GOVERNANCE TO ASSURE ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY
The key to achieving sustainable governance is an integrated (across disciplines,

stakeholder groups, and generations) approach based on the paradigm of “adaptive
management” (Holling 1978, Walters 1986, Gunderson et al. 1995). In adaptive
management, policy making is an iterative experiment acknowledging uncertainty, rather
than a static “answer.” Within this paradigm, six core principles embody the essential
criteria for sustainable governance (Costanza et al. 1998). Some of them are already well-
accepted in the international community (for example, Principle 3); others are variations on
well-known themes (for example, Principle 2 is an extension of the subsidiary principle);
while others are relatively new in international policy, although they have been well
developed elsewhere (for example, Principle 4). The six Principles together form an
indivisible collection of basic guidelines for the maintenance of ecosystem health and
ecological sustainability.
Principle 1: Responsibility. Access to environmental resources carries attendant

responsibilities to use them in an ecologically sustainable, economically efficient, and
socially fair manner. Individual and corporate responsibilities and incentives should be
aligned with each other and with broad social and ecological goals.
Principle 2: Scale-Matching. Ecological problems are rarely confined to a single scale.

Decision-making on environmental resources should (i) be assigned to institutional
level(s) that maximize relevant ecological input, (ii) ensure the flow of ecological
information between institutional levels, (iii) take ownership and actors into account, and
(iv) internalize costs and benefits. The appropriate scales of governance will be those
that have the most relevant information, can respond quickly and efficiently, and are able
to integrate across scale boundaries.
Principle 3: Precaution. In the face of uncertainty about potentially irreversible

environmental impacts, decisions concerning their use should err on the side of caution.
The burden of proof should shift to those whose activities potentially damage the
environment.
Principle 4: Adaptive Management. Given that some level of uncertainty always exists
in environmental resource management, decision-makers should continuously gather and
integrate appropriate ecological, social, and economic information with the goal of
adaptive improvement.
Principle 5: Full Cost Allocation. All of the internal and external costs and benefits,
including social and ecological, of alternative decisions concerning the use of
environmental resources should be identified and allocated. When appropriate, markets
should be adjusted to reflect full costs.
Principle 6: Participation. All stakeholders should be engaged in the formulation and

implementation of decisions concerning environmental resources. Full stakeholder
124
awareness and participation contributes to credible, accepted rules that identify and
assign the corresponding responsibilities appropriately.
One must recognize that any attempts to achieve “globally optimal” governance
policies in the face of natural and human uncertainty are chimeras. The best hope lies in
raising awareness and including multiple viewpoints in an integrated, adaptive,
framework structured around a core set of mutually agreed principles. The six Lisbon
principles listed above have been proposed as that core set (Costanza et al 1998).
Adhering to them will help ensure that governance is inclusive, inquisitive, careful, fair,
scale-sensitive, adaptive, and, ultimately, sustainable.
SUSTAINABILITY-BASED VALUATION
Valuation ultimately refers to the contribution of an item to meeting a specific
goal. A baseball player is valuable to the extent he contributes to the goal of the team’s
winning. In ecology, a gene is valuable to the extent it contributes to the goal of survival
of the individuals possessing it and their progeny. In conventional economics, a
commodity is valuable to the extent it contributes to the goal of individual welfare as
assessed by willingness to pay. The point is that one cannot state a value without stating
the goal being served. Conventional economic value is based on the goal of individual
utility maximization. But other goals, and thus other values, are possible. For example,
if the goal is sustainability, one should assess value based on the contribution to
achieving that goal - in addition to value based on the goals of individual utility
maximization, social equity, or other goals that may be deemed important. This
broadening is particularly important if the goals are potentially in conflict.
There are at least three broad goals which have been identified as important to
managing economic systems within the context of the planet's ecological life support
system as mentioned above. These are (1) ecological sustainability, (2) social fairness,
and (3) economic efficiency (Daly 1992).
Several authors have discussed valuation of ecosystem services with respect to
goal 3 above - allocative efficiency based on individual utility maximization (e.g.
Mitchell and Carson 1989, Costanza et. al. 1989, Dixon and Hufschmidt 1990, Barde
and Pearce 1991, Aylward and Barbier 1992, Pearce 1993, Goulder and Kennedy 1996).
But the implications of extending these concepts to include valuation with respect to the
other two goals of (1) ecological sustainability, and (2) distributional fairness have not
been fully explored. The “Kantian“ or intrinsic rights approach discussed by Goulder
and Kennedy (1996) is one approach to goal 2, but it is important to recognize that the
three goals are not "either-or" alternatives. While they are in some senses independent
"multiple criteria" (Arrow and Raynaud 1986) they must all be satisfied in an integrated
fashion to allow human life to continue in a desirable way. Similarly, the valuations
which flow from these goals are not "either-or" alternatives. Rather than an "utilitarian
or intrinsic rights" dichotomy, we must integrate the three goals listed above and their
consequent valuations.
Valuations are also the relative weights we give to the various aspects of the
individual and social decision problem, and these weights are reflections of the goals and
world views of the community, society, and culture of which individuals are a part (e.g.
Costanza 1991, North 1994, Berkes and Folke 1994, Norton et al 1996). We cannot
avoid the valuation issue, because as long as we are forced to make choices we are doing
125
valuation. But we need to be as comprehensive as possible in our valuations and choices

about ecosystems and sustainability, recognizing the relationship between goals and
values.
ECOSYSTEM VALUATION WITH SUSTAINABILITY AND FAIRNESS AS GOALS
Ideally, a framework for economic analysis should contain information about the
full implications (economic, social, and ecological) of various alternative policy options
relative to existing policy. For every policy option the various ecological-social-
economic linkages should be traced to determine the various consequences for human
welfare associated with that option, and where possible the various positive and negative
impacts should be quantified and valued (Barbier et al. 1994). Economic analysis is
about making choices among alternative uses of scarce resources, and it is in this context
that valuation becomes relevant.
When a single goal or criterion is involved the valuation problem is in principle
fairly straightforward. But when multiple goals or criteria are involved, the problem can
become much more complicated. A classic example of the multicritera problem is the
drunkard, the miser, and the health freak (Farquharson 1969, Arrow and Raynaud 1986).
In this example, a drunkard, a miser, and a health freak all sit on a committee which has
to decide how to spend the money of a foundation earmarked for building a student
residence. Three alternatives are determined:
1. no house now (leave the money in the bank to earn interest and build a better house
later)
2. a house now without a bar
3. a house now with a bar
Suppose the rankings of the three committee members are:

Miser 1,2,3
Health Freak 2,3,1
Drunkard 3,1,2
The winning option depends on the order in which the voting is done and can be
manipulated strategically. For example, if the Miser were chairman of the committee, he
could call a vote first on whether there should be a bar (option 3) or not (options 1 or 2).
Since both the Miser and Heath Freak prefer no bar (1 or 2) to bar (3), the no bar would
be chosen by a 2/3 majority. Then he could call a vote on the remaining two options
(now or later) which would yield a 2/3 majority for later (option 1) and an overall
ranking of 1,2,3. But if the health freak were chairman, he could suggest voting first on
the question of whether to build the house now (options 2 or 3) or wait (option 1). The
decision to build now would pass by a 2/3 majority. Then he could call a vote on the
question of the bar, which would be rejected by another 2/3 majority, yielding an overall
ranking of 2,3,1. Likewise, if the Drunkard were chairman he could propose voting first
between the option 2 (now without a bar) and options 1 and 3 (either build now with a
bar or wait). The second grouping would win by a two-thirds majority since both the
Drunkard and the Miser prefer either option 1 or 3 to option 2. Then a vote between
options 1 and 3 would yield a 2/3 majority for option 3 (build now with a bar) and an
overall ranking of 3,1,2. It can be shown that because of strategic manipulations and
126
other "voting paradoxes" that multi-criteria problems do not have any clear-cut,
unambiguous, systematic solutions (Arrow and Raynaud 1986) and it is only a
dictatorship of one criterion over the others that could not be manipulated strategically
(Satterthwaite 1975).
This result is obtained in an environment of fixed preference orderings and no
discussion among the committee members (criteria). Social choice theory in general has
tended to avoid the issue of the connection between value formation and the decision-
making process. As Arrow (1951 p. 7) put it: "we will also assume in the present study
that individual values are taken as data and are not capable of being altered by the nature
of the decision process itself." One way out of this dilemma is to relax the assumption of
fixed preferences and allow the committee members to talk with each other, as they
would do in a real committee -- to convey information, to try to change each other’s
minds (preference orderings), and possibly to come to a consensus on the rankings.. For
example, the drunkard could argue that recent scientific evidence has shown that two
glasses of red wine per day actually improves one’s health and this might convince the
health freak to change his ordering to 2,3,1 or even 3,2,1, especially if some restrictions
were put in so that the bar could only serve beer and wine, etc., etc.
This value formation through public discussion. as Sen (1995) suggests, is
essential to integrate the three goals of sustainability, fairness, and efficiency and can be
seen, in fact, as the essence of democracy. As Buchanan (1954 p120) put it: "The
definition of democracy as ’government by discussion’ implies that individual values can
and do change in the process of decision-making." Limiting our valuations and social
decision making to the goal of economic efficiency based on fixed preferences prevents
the needed democratic discussion of values and options and leaves us with only the
"illusion of choice" (Schmookler 1993). What are the implications of all this for the
valuation of ecosystem services?
FIXED TASTES AND PREFERENCES AND CONSUMER SOVERIGNTY
As discussed above, conventional economic valuation is based on a social

decision making rule sometimes referred to as “consumer sovereignty.“ By consumer
sovereignty is meant that consumer choices are paramount, and that individual consumer
preferences, whatever they happen to be and however they are formed, should determine
relative value. This rule embodies the assumption that tastes and preferences are fixed
and that the economic problem consists of optimally satisfying those preferences. If
tastes and preferences are fixed and given, then we do not have to know or care why
consumers want what they want, we just have to satisfy their preferences as efficiently as
possible. As long as economic efficiency is the only goal this approach works reasonably
well. But as soon as we introduce the goals of social fairness and ecological
sustainability, we run into the multi-criterion decision problem (as discussed above)
which has no systematic or "procedural" solution. One way out of this predicament is to
relax the assumption of fixed tastes and preferences and allow some democratic
discussion and modification of values. In addition, tastes and preferences do, in fact,
change anyway, especially in the longer term (North 1994). They are shaped by the
institutional framework under the influence of education, advertising, changing cultural
assumptions, etc. (North 1990). For both of these reasons we need other criterion for
127
what is “optimal“ in addition to economic efficiency and additional decision rules in

addition to consumer sovereignty.
Questioning consumer sovereignty raises legitimate concerns regarding the
possible manipulation of preferences. If tastes and preferences can change, then who is
going to decide how to change them? There is a real danger that a “totalitarian”
government might be employed to manipulate preferences to conform to the desires of a
select elite rather than the society as a whole. Two points need to be kept in mind,
however: (1) preferences are already being manipulated every day; and (2) we can just as
easily apply open democratic principles to the task of deciding how to manipulate
preferences as hidden or totalitarian principles. So the question becomes: do we want
preferences to be manipulated outside of democratic discussion and control, either by a
dictatorial government or by big business acting through advertising? Or do we want to
explore and shape them consciously, based on democratic social dialogue and consensus,
with the additional goals of long-term sustainability and social fairness in mind? Either
way, this is an issue that can no longer be avoided, and one which can best be handled
using the principle of "democracy as discussion."
CO-EVOLVING PREFERENCES, GOALS, AND VALUES
There are certainly several historical examples of societies which managed to

integrate the three goals of ecological sustainability, social fairness, and allocative
efficiency. Some of their adaptations still survive (Gadgil et al. 1993, Norgaard 1994).
In these societies a pattern of co-evolutionary adaptation between social systems and
natural systems must have been the norm, with the adaptations in many cases driven by
crises, learning and redesign (Holling et al. 1995a). Individual preferences acted in a
cultural setting that promoted sustainability of the combined and co-evolving social-
ecological system, simply because behaving in a sustainable fashion was a necessity for
survival and we only observe the societies which survived.
Some of the most sophisticated co-evolved institutions are common-property
arrangements. Examples include Spanish huertas for irrigation, Swiss grazing commons
(Ostrom 1990), and marine resource tenure systems in Oceania (Johannes 1978). In other
areas, such institutions have evolved over a short period of time (on the order of one
decade) in response to a management crisis. An example is the Turkish Mediterranean
coastal fishery in Alanya (Berkes 1992). There are social mechanisms in place that
respond to ecological feedbacks and direct societies’ adaptation towards sustainability.
The co-evolutionary character reflects the fact that ecological and social systems can
change qualitatively to generate and implement innovations that are truly creative, in the
sense of opportunities for novel cooperation and feedback management (Holling et al.
1995a).
Of course, such social mechanisms for adaptations cannot be captured in a
conventional benefit-cost analysis, which only reflects what an aggregate of current
individuals prefer, without discussion. The results of a benefit-cost study are not
sufficient to address the question of which policy is best relative to all 3 goals mentioned
above, since efficiency in a cost-benefit context does not guarantee sustainability or
fairness (Bishop 1993, Perrings 1994).
128
Thus, we can distinguish at least three types of value which are relevant to the
problem of valuing ecosystem services. These are laid out in Table 2, according to their
corresponding goal or value basis. Efficiency based value (E-value) is described in detail
in several recent publications (e.g. Mitchell and Carson 1989, Costanza et. al. 1989,
Dixon and Hufschmidt 1990, Barde and Pearce 1991, Aylward and Barbier 1992,
Pearce 1993, Goulder and Kennedy 1996). It is based on a model of human behavior
sometimes referred to as "Homo economius" - that humans act rationally and in their own
self-interest. Value in this context (E-value) is based on current individual preferences
which are fixed or given. Little discussion or scientific input is required to form these
preferences and value is simply peoples’ revealed willingness to pay for the good or
service in question.
Table 2. Valuation of ecosystem services based on the three primary goals

of efficiency, fairness, and sustainability
___________________________________________________________________________
Goal or Who Preference Level of Level of Specific

Value Basis votes Basis Discussion Scientific Input Methods
Required Required
___________________________________________________________________________
Efficiency Homo Current low low willingness

economius individual to pay
preferences
Fairness Homo Community high medium veil of

communicus preferences ignorance
Sustainability Homo Whole system medium high modeling

naturalis preferences with
precaution
___________________________________________________________________________
Fairness based value (F-value) would require that individuals vote their
preferences as a member of the community, not as individuals. This different species
(Homo communicus) would engage in much discussion with other members of the
community and come to consensus on the values which would be fair to all members of
the current and future community (including non-human species), incorporating
scientific information about possible future consequences as necessary. One method to
implement this might be Rawls’ (1971) "veil of ignorance", where everyone voted as if
they were operating with no knowledge of their own status in current or future society.
Sustainability based value (S-value) would require an assessment of the
contribution to ecological sustainability of the item in question. The S-value of
ecosystem services is connected to their physical, chemical, and biological role in the
long-term functioning of the global system. Scientific information about the functioning
of the global system is thus critical in assessing S-value, and some discussion and
129
consensus building is also necessary. If it is accepted that all species, no matter how
seemingly uninteresting or lacking in immediate utility, have a role to play in natural
ecosystems (Naeem et al. 1994, Tilman and Downing 1994, Holling et al. 1995b),
estimates of ecosystem services may be derived from scientific studies of the role of
ecosystems and their biota in the overall system, without direct reference to current
human preferences. Humans operate as Homo naturalis in this context, expressing
preferences as if they were representatives of the whole system. Instead of being merely
an expression of current individual preferences, S-value becomes a system characteristic
related to the item’s evolutionary contribution to the survival of the linked ecological
economic system. Using this perspective we may be able to better estimate the values
contributed by, say, maintenance of water and atmospheric quality to long-term human
well-being, including protecting the opportunities of choice for future generations
(Golley 1994, Perrings 1994). One way to get at these values, would be to employ
systems simulation models which incorporated the major linkages in the system at the
appropriate time and space scales (Bockstael et al. 1995). To account for the large
uncertainties involved, these models would have to be used in a precautionary way,
looking for the range of possible values and erring on the side of caution.
130
Figure 1. Sustainability as scale (time and space) dependent concepts
expected
life spans
"brittle" systems
Longevity:
sustainable systems across
System
a range of time & space scales
Life Span
unsustainable systems
0
cell organism population economic system planet
Space & Time Scale
131
Climate Change & DES
Figure 2. Relationship of indicators, endpoints, and values
Indicators:
Increasing precision
direct measurements
of small pieces of the
system
Endpoints:
"important"
composites, species,
or sectors
Values:
overall system
performance or
"health"
Increasing difficulty
Increasing comprehensiveness
Increasing modeling/integration required
Increasing relevance
132
Figure 3. A three-dimensional plot of system vigor, organization, and resilience.

Each of the planes formed when one component is zero are also labeled
Organization
Crystallized
Plane
Brittle
Plane
Resilience
Eutrophic
Plane
Vigor
133
Key Species
RT
Vigor
Organization
MS
Ascendency
Alternative state
Time
Resilience = MS / RT
Figure 4. The two components of resilience, and how they can be integrated
into a single quantitative measure. Candidates for tracking system
performance through time are listed on the vertical axis. The lower line
indicates the alternative state of a system which was unable to completely
recover from stress.
134
REFERENCES
Allen, T.F.H. and T.B. Starr. 1982. Hierarchy: Perspectives for Ecological Complexity.
University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Arrow, K. J. 1951. Social choice and individual values. New York, Wiley.
Arrow, K. J. and H. Raynaud. 1986. Social Choice and Multicriteria Decision-Making.
Cambridge: MIT Press.
Aylward, B. A. and E. B. Barbier. 1992. “Valuing environmental functions in developing
countries.” Biodiversity and Conservation 1: 34-50.
Barber, M., B. Patten, and J. Finn. 1979. Review and Evaluation of I-O Flow Analysis
for Ecological Applications, in: Compartmental Analysis of Ecosystem Models, Vol 10
of Statistical Ecology, Matis, J., Patten, B. and White, G., eds., International Cooperative
Publishing House, Bertonsville, Md.
Barbier, E.B., J. Burgess and C. Folke. 1994. Paradise Lost? The Ecological Economics
of Biodiversity. Earthscan, London, UK.
Barde, J.P. and D.W. Pearce. 1991. Valuing the Environment: Six Case Studies.
London: Earthscan.
Becker, C.D. and E. Ostrom. In press. “Human Ecology and Resource Sustainability: The
Importance of Institutional Diversity”. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics.
Berkes, F. 1992. "Success and failure in marine coastal fisheries of Turkey". in Making
the Commons Work. edited by D. W. Bromley, 161-182 San Francisco, Institute for
Contemporary Studies.
Berkes, F. 1996. in S. Hanna, C. Folke and K.G. Mäler, eds. Rights to Nature: Property
Rights and the Environment. Island Press, Washington.
Berkes, F., and C. Folke. 1994. “Investing in Cultural Capital for a Sustainable Use of
Natural Capital.“ In Investing in Natural Capital: the Ecological Economics Approach to
Sustainability, edited by A.M. Jansson, M. Hammer, C. Folke, and R. Costanza, 128-149.
Washington DC: Island Press.
Bishop, R.C. 1993. “Economic efficiency, Sustainability, and Biodiversity”. Ambio
22:69-73.
Bockstael, N., R. Costanza, I. Strand, W. Boynton, K. Bell, and L. Wainger. 1995.
“Ecological Economic Modeling and Valuation of Ecosystems”. Ecological Economics
14:143-159.
Bruce, J. P., H. Lee, and E. F. Haites (eds.) 1996. Climate Change 1995: Economic and
Social Dimensions of Climate Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
England. 448 pp.
Buchanan, J. M. 1954 "Social choice, democracy, and free markets". Journal of Political
Economy 62:114-23
Cairns, J. and J. R. Pratt. 1995. The relationship between ecosystem health and delivery
of ecosystem services. pp. 63-93 in: D. J. Rapport, C. L. Gaudet, and P. Calow (eds.)
Evaluating and monitoring the health of large-scale ecosystems. Springer-Verlag, New
York.
Cleveland, C. J., R. Costanza, T. Eggertsson, L. Fortmann, B. Low, M. McKean, E.
Ostrom, J. Wilson and O. Young. In review. A Framework for Modeling the Linkages
Between Ecosystems and Human Systems. Ecological Economics.
135
Costanza, R. (ed.). 1991. Ecological economics: the science and management of

sustainability. Columbia University Press, New York.
Costanza, R. 1997. Review of: Climate Change 1995: Economic and Social Dimensions
of Climate Change by James P. Bruce, Hoesung Lee, and Erik. F. Haites (eds.).
Ecological Economics 23:75-77.
Costanza, R., R. d’Arge, R. de Groot, S. Farber, M. Grasso, B. Hannon, S. Naeem, K.
Limburg, J. Paruelo, R.V. O’Neill, R. Raskin, P. Sutton, and M. van den Belt. 1997. The
value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature 387:253-260
Costanza, R., F. Andrade, P. Antunes, M. van den Belt, D. Boersma, D. F. Boesch, F.
Catarino, S. Hanna, K. Limburg, B. Low, M. Molitor, G. Pereira, S. Rayner, R. Santos,
J. Wilson, M. Young. 1998. Principles for sustainable governance of the oceans. Science
281:198-199.
Costanza, R. and L. Cornwell. 1992. The 4P approach to dealing with scientific
uncertainty. Environment 34:12-20,42.
Costanza, R., S. C. Farber, and J. Maxwell. 1989. The valuation and management of
wetland ecosystems. Ecological Economics. 1:335-361.
Costanza, R. and B. M. Hannon. 1989 Dealing with the "Mixed Units" Problem in
Ecosystem Network Analysis. Pages. 90-115 in F. Wulff, J.G. Field and K. H. Mann,
eds. Network Analysis of Marine Ecosystems: Methods and Applications. Springer-
Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany.
Costanza, R. and T. Maxwell. 1994. “Resolution and Predictability: An Approach to the
Scaling Problem.“ Landscape Ecology 9:47-57.
Costanza, R. and C. Neill. 1984. Energy Intensities, Interdependence, and Value in
Ecological Systems: A Linear Programming Approach. Journal of Theoretical Biology
106:41-57.
Costanza, R. and B. C. Patten. 1995. Defining and predicting sustainability. Ecological
Economics 15:193-196.
Costanza, R. and C. Perrings. 1990. A flexible assurance bonding system for improved
environmental management. Ecological Economics. 2:57-76.
Costanza, R. and M. Ruth. 1996. “Dynamic systems modeling for scoping and consensus
building”. Paper presented at the inaugural conference of the European Chapter of the
International Society for Ecological Economics: Ecology, Society, Economy. Université
de Versailles, Paris, France, May 23-25, 1996
Costanza, R., O. Segura, and J. Martinez-Alier. 1996. Integrated envisioning, analysis,
and implementation of a sustainable and desirable society. pp. 1-16 in: R. Costanza, O.
Segura, and J. Martinez-Alier (eds.), Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of
Ecological Economics. Island Press, 472 pp.
Costanza, R. and F.H. Sklar. 1985. “Articulation, Accuracy, and Effectiveness of
Mathematical Models: A Review of Freshwater Wetland Applications.“ Ecological
Modelling 27:45-68.
Costanza, R., F.H. Sklar, and M.L. White. 1990. “Modeling Coastal Landscape
Dynamics.“ BioScience 43:545-555.
Costanza, R. and S. Tognetti (eds.). 1996. Integrated adaptive ecological and economic
modeling and assessment -- a basis for the design and evaluation of sustainable
development programs. DRAFT Synthesis paper. Scientific Committee on Problems of
the Environment (SCOPE), 51 Bld de Montmorency, 75016 Paris, France
136
Costanza, R., L. Waigner, C. Folke and K.G. Mäler. 1993. Modeling Complex
Ecological Economic Systems: Toward an Evolutionary, Dynamic Understanding of
People and Nature. BioScience 43:545-555.
Cross, J.G., and M.J. Guyer. 1980. Social Traps. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Daly, H. E. 1992. "Allocation, distribution, and scale: towards an economics that is
efficient, just, and sustainable". Ecological Economics 6:185-193.
de Groot, R.S. 1992. Functions of Nature. Wolters Noordhoff BV, Groningen, the
Netherlands.
Debellevue, E.B., T. Maxwell, R. Costanza, and M. Jacobsen. 1993. “Development of a
Landscape Model for the Patuxent River Watershed.“ Discussion Paper No. 10,
Maryland International Institute for Ecological Economics, Solomons, MD.
Dixon, J. A. and M. M. Hufschmidt. 1990. Economic valuation techniques for the
environment: a case study workbook. Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ehrlich, P.R. and A.E. Ehrlich. 1992. The Value of Biodiversity. Ambio 21:219-226.
Ehrlich, P.R. and H. A. Mooney. 1983. Extinction, Substitution and Ecosystem Services.
BioScience 33:248-254.
Farquharson, R. 1969. Theory of Voting. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Faucheux, S., D. Pearce, and J. Proops. 1996. Models of sustainable development.
Edward Elgar Press, Cheltenham, UK. 365 pp.
Finn, J. 1976. The Cycling Index. Journal of Theoretical Biology 56:363-73
Folke, C. 1991. Socioeconomic Dependence on the Life-Supporting Environment. Pages
77-94 in C. Folke and T. Kåberger, eds. Linking the Natural Environment and the
Economy: Essays from the Eco-Eco Group. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, the
Netherlands.
Folke, C., C.S. Holling and C. Perrings. In press. Biological Diversity, Ecosystems and
the Human Scale. Ecological Applications.
Funderlic, R and Heath, M. 1971. Linear Compartmental Analysis of Ecosystems. Oak
Ridge National Laboratory, ORNL-IBP-71-4.
Gadgil, M., F. Berkes, and C. Folke. 1993. “Indigenous Knowledge for Biodiversity
Conservation.” Ambio 22:151–156.
Golley, F.B. 1994. “Rebuilding a Humane and Ethical Decision System for Investing in
Natural Capital.” in Investing in Natural Capital: the Ecological Economics Approach to
Sustainability, edited by A.M. Jansson, M. Hammer, C. Folke, and R. Costanza, 169-178.
Washington DC: Island Press.
Goulder, L.H., and D. Kennedy.1996. “Valuing Ecosystem Services.” in Ecosystem
Services: Their Nature and Value, G. Daily, ed., Washington DC: Island Press (in press).
Gregory, R., S. Lichtenstein, and P. Slovic. 1993. “Valuing Environmental Resources: a
Constructive Approach.” Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 7:177-197
Gunderson, L., C. S. Holling and S. Light, eds. 1995. Barriers and Bridges to the
Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. Columbia University Press, New York.
Gunderson, L., C.S. Holling, and S. Light, editors. 1995. Barriers and Bridges to the
Renewal of Ecosystems and Institutions. New York: Columbia University Press.
Günther, F. and C. Folke. 1993. Characteristics of Nested Living Systems. Journal of
Biological Systems 1:257-274.
137
Hanna, S. 1997. “Managing for Human and Ecological Context in the Maine Soft Shell
Clam Fishery” in Linking Social and Ecological Systems: Institutional Learning for
Resilience, edited by F. Berkes and C. Folke. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, in press.
Hannon, B. 1973. “The Structure of Ecosystems”. Journal of Theoretical Biology
41:535-46.
Hannon, B. 1976. “Marginal Product Pricing in the Ecosystem”. Journal of Theoretical
Biology 56:256-267.
Hannon, B. 1979. “Total Energy Costs in Ecosystems”. Journal of Theoretical Biology
80:271-293.
Harris, M. 1979. Cultural Materialism: The Struggle for a Science of Culture. New
York: Random House.
Heiner, R. 1983. “The Origin of Predictable Behavior”. American Economic Review 73:
560-595.
Holling, C. S., ed. 1978. Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management. Wiley,
London.
Holling, C.S. 1986. “Resilience of Ecosystem: Local Surprise and Global Change”.
Pages 292-317 in E.C. Clark and R.E. Munn, eds. Sustainable Development of the
Biosphere. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Holling, C.S. 1988. “Temperate Forest Insect Outbreaks, Tropical Deforestation and
Migratory Birds”. Memoirs of the Entomological Society of Canada 146:21-32.
Holling, C.S. 1992. “Cross-scale morphology, geometry and dynamics of ecosystems”.
Ecological Monographs. 62:447-502
Holling, C.S. 1994. “An Ecologists View of the Malthusian Conflict”. Pages 79-103 in
K. Lindahl-Kiessling and H. Landberg, eds. Population, Economic Development, and the
Environment. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK.
Holling, C.S., D.W. Schindler, B.H. Walker and J. Roughgarden. 1995. “Biodiversity in
the Functioning of Ecosystems: an ecological synthesis”. Pages 44-83 in C.A. Perrings,
K.-G. Mäler, C. Folke, C.S. Holling and B.-O. Jansson, eds. Biodiversity Loss:
Ecological and Economic Issues. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Holling, C.S., D.W. Schindler, B.W. Walker, and J. Roughgarden. 1995b. “Biodiversity
in the Functioning of Ecosystems: An Ecological Synthesis.” in Biodiversity Loss:
Economic and Ecological Issues, edited by C. Perrings, K.G. Mäler, C. Folke, C.S.
Holling, and B.O. Jansson, 44-83. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Holling, C.S., editor. 1978. Adaptive Environmental Assessment and Management.
London: Wiley.
Holling, C.S., F. Berkes, and C. Folke. 1995a. “Science, Sustainability and Resource
Management.” Beijer Discussion Papers Series No. 68. Stockholm, Sweden: Beijer
International Institute of Ecological Economics.
Isard, W. 1972. Ecological-Economic Analysis for Regional Development. The Free
Press, New York.
Johannes, R. E. 1978. “Traditional Marine Conservation Methods in Oceania and Their
Demise”. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 9:349-364.
Knowlton, N. 1992. “Thresholds and Multiple Stable States in Coral Reef Community
Dynamics”. American Zoologist 32:674-682.
Lee, K. 1993. Compass and the Gyroscope. Island Press, Washington DC.
138
Lee, K.N. 1993. Compass and Gyroscope: Integrating Science and Politics for the
Environment. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Leontief, W. 1941. The Structure of American Economy, 1919–1939. Oxford University
Press, New York.
Low, B., R. Costanza, E. Ostrom, and J. Wilson. 1999 “Human-ecosystem interactions: a
dynamic integrated model”. Ecological Economics (in press).
Ludwig, D., R. Hilborn and C. Walters. 1993. “Uncertainty, Resource Exploitation, and
Conservation: Lessons from History”. Science 260:17, 36.
Mageau, M., R. Costanza, and R. E. Ulanowicz. 1995. “The development, testing, and
application of a quantitative assessment of ecosystem health”. Ecosystem Health 1:201-
213.
Meadows, D. 1996. “Envisioning a Sustainable World.” in Getting Down to Earth:
Practical Applications of Ecological Economics, edited by R. Costanza, O. Segura, and
J. Martinez-Alier. Washington D.C.: Island Press. (in press).
Mitchell, R. C. and R. T. Carson. 1989. Using Surveys to Value Public Goods: the
Contingent Valuation Method. Washington D.C.: Resources for the Future.
Munasinghe, M. 1999. "Development, Equity and Sustainability (DES) in the Context of
Climate Change", paper prepared for the IPCC Expert Meeting on Development, Equity
and Sustainability, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 27-9 April, 1999.
Naeem, S., L.J. Thompson, S.P. Lawler, J.H. Lawton and R.M. Woodfin. 1994.
“Declining Biodiversity can Alter the Performance of Ecosystems”. Nature 368:734-737.
Norgaard, R.B. 1994. Development Betrayed: The End of Progress and a
CoEvolutionary Revisioning of the Future. London: Routledge.
North, D.C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
North, D.C. 1994. “Economic Performance Through Time.” American Economic Review
84: 359-368.
Norton, B.G. 1994. “Economists' Preferences and the Preferences of Economists.”
Environmental Values 3: 311-332.
Norton, Bryan G. 1995. "Ecological Integrity and Social Values: At What Scale?"
Ecosystem Health 1:228-241.
Norton, B., R. Costanza, and R. Bishop. 1998. The evolution of preferences: why
“sovereign” preferences may not lead to sustainable policies and what to do about it.
Ecological Economics 24:193-211.
Norton, B. G. and R. E. Ulanowicz. 1992. “Scale and biodiversity policy: a hierarchical
approach”. Ambio, 21:244-249.
Odum, E.P. 1989. Ecology and Our Endangered Life-Support Systems. Sinauer Associ-
ates, Sunderland, Massachusetts.
Odum, H. T. 1971. Environment, Power and Society. John Wiley, New York.
O'Neill, R. V., D. L. DeAngelis, J. B. Waide and T. F. H. Allen. 1986. A Hierarchical
Concept of Ecosystems. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
O'Riordan, T. and A. Jordan. 1995. “The precautionary principle in contemporary
environmental politics”. Environmental Values. 4:191-212
Ostrom and Schlager. 1996. in S. Hanna, C. Folke and K.G. Mäler, eds. Rights to
Nature: Property Rights and the Environment. Island Press, Washington.
139
Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective
Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Page, T. 1991. “Sustainability and the Problem of Valuation” in Ecological Economics:
The Science and Management of Sustainability, edited by R. Costanza, 88-101. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Patten, B. C. and R. Costanza. 1997. “Logical interrelations between four sustainability
parameters: stability, continuation, longevity, and health”. Ecosystem Health 3:136-142.
Patten, B. C. and S. E. Jørgensen (eds.) 1995. Complex ecology: the part-whole relation
in ecosystems. Prentice Hall, New Jersey. 705 pp.
Pearce, D. 1993. Economic Values and the Natural World. London: Earthscan.
Pearce, D. W. and G. D. Atkinson. 1993. “Capital theory and the measurement of
sustainable development: an indicator of “weak” sustainability”. Ecological Economics.
8:103-108.
Perrings, C. and B.H. Walker. 1995. “Biodiversity Loss and the Economics of
Discontinuous Change in Semi-arid Rangelands”. Pages 190-210 in C.A. Perrings, K.-G.
Mäler, C. Folke, C.S. Holling and B.-O. Jansson, eds. Biodiversity Loss: Ecological and
Economic Issues. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Perrings, C.A. 1994. “Biotic Diversity, Sustainable Development, and Natural Capital.”
in Investing in Natural Capital: the Ecological Economics Approach to Sustainability,
edited by A.M. Jansson, M. Hammer, C. Folke, and R. Costanza, 92-112. Washington
DC: Island Press.
Perrings, C.A., K.G. Mäler, C. Folke, C.S. Holling and B.-O. Jansson, eds. 1995.
Biodiversity Loss: Ecological and Economic Issues. Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge, UK.
Pezzey, J. 1989. “Economic Analysis of Sustainable Growth and Sustainable
Development”. Environment Department Working Paper No. 15. Washington, D.C.: The
World Bank.
Platt, J. 1973. “Social Traps.” American Psychologist 28: 642-651.
Randall, A. 1995. "Valuation and Beyond," Paper presented at AAAS Symposium,
Ecosystems and Landscapes: Describing and Valuing Whole Ecosystems, Atlanta,
Georgia, February 18, 1995.
Rawls, J. 1971. A theory of justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Reyes, E., R. Costanza, L. Wainger, E. DeBellevue, and N. Bockstael. 1996. "Integrated
ecological economics regional modelling for sustainable development". pp. 253-277 in:
S. Faucheux, D. Pearce, and J. Proops (eds.). Models of sustainable development.
Edward Elgar Press, Cheltenham, UK.
Robinson, S.K., F.R. Thompson III, T.M. Donovan, D.R. Whitehead and J.Faaborg.
1995. “Regional Forest Fragmentation and the Nesting Success of Migratory Birds”.
Science 267:1987-1990.
Roedel, P. M. (ed.) 1975. Optimum Sustainable Yield as a Concept in Fisheries
Management. Special Publication No. 9, American Fisheries Society, Washington, D.C.
89 pp.
Satterthwaite, M. A. 1975. "Strategy-proofness and Arrow's conditions: existence and
correspondence theorems for voting procedures and social welfare functions". Journal of
Economic Theory 10:187-217.
140
Scheffer, M., S.H. Hosper, M.-L. Meyjer, B. Moss and E. Jeppsen. 1993. “Alternative
Equilibria in Shallow Lakes”. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 8:275-
Schmookler, A. B. 1993. “The illusion of choice: how the market economy shapes our
destiny”. Albany : State University of New York Press, 349 p.
Schneider, E. and J.J. Kay. 1994. “Complexity and Thermodynamics: Towards a New
Ecology”. Futures 24:626-647.
Schumpeter, J. 1954. History of economic analysis. Allen & Unwin, London. 1260 p
Sen, A. 1995. "Rationality and social choice". American Economic Review 85:1-24.
Shugart, H. H. 1989. “The role of ecological models in long-term ecological studies”.
pp. 90-109 in: G.E. Likens (ed.) Long-Term Studies in Ecology: Approaches and
Alternatives. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Solbrig, O.T. 1993. “Plant Traits and Adaptive Strategies: Their Role in Ecosystem
Function”. Pages 97-116 in E.D. Schulze and H.A. Mooney, eds. Biodiversity and Eco-
system Function. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany.
Stigler, G. J., and G.S. Becker. 1977 "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum". American
Economic Review 67:76-90.
Tilman, D. and J. A. Downing. 1994. “Biodiversity and stability in grasslands”. Nature
367:363-365.
Turner, B.L., W.C. Clark and W.C. Kates, eds. 1990. The Earth as Transformed by
Human Action: Global and Regional Changes in the Biosphere Over the Past 300 Years.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Tversky, A. and D. Kahneman. 1986.“Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions.” in
Rational Choice: The Contrast Between Economics and Psychology, edited by R.M.
Hogarth and M.W. Reder, 67-94. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ulanowicz, R.E. 1980 “An Hypothesis on the Development of Natural Communities”.
Journal of Theoretical Biology. 85: 223-245.
Ulanowicz, R.E. 1986 Growth and Development: Ecosystems Phenomenology. Springer-
Verlag, NY.
Walters, C. J. 1986. Adaptive Management of Renewable Resources. McGraw Hill, New
York.
WCED. 1987. Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment
and Development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Westoby, M., B.H. Walker, and I. Noy-Meir. 1989. “Opportunistic Management for
Rangelands not at Equilibrium”. Journal of Rangeland Management 42:266-274.
World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our Common Future.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wulff, F., J.G. Field and K.H. Mann 1989. Network Analysis of Marine Ecosystems:
Methods and Applications. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany.
141
142

Ecological Sustainability, Indicators and Climate Change: Robert Costanza

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ecological Sustainability, Indicators and Climate Change: Robert Costanza

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

5

ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY, INDICATORS AND

These characteristics require a different conceptual framework or “pre-analytic

5.2 Ecological Sustainability

ECOSYSTEMS, BIODIVERSITY, AND ECOLOGICAL SERVICES

An ecosystem consists of plants, animals and microorganisms which live in

exhibit a limited degree of predictability. Understanding the problems and constraints

ECOSYSTEMS AND BIODIVERSITY

Species diversity appears to have two major roles in the self-organization of

ECOSYSTEMS AND ECOLOGICAL SERVICES

Ecological systems play a fundamental role in supporting life on Earth at all

DEFINING AND PREDICTING SUSTAINABILITY IN ECOLOGICAL TERMS

Defining sustainability in ecological terms is actually quite easy (Costanza and

A system is sustainable if and only if it persists in nominal behavioral states

ECOSYSTEMS AS SUSTAINABLE SYSTEMS

5.3 Indicators of Sustainability

ECOSYSTEM HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY

To understand and manage complex systems (like ecological and economic

EPA should attach as much importance to reducing ecological risk as it

Although this statement gives the concept of ecological health importance as a

effectively managing the environment a more rigorous and operational definition of

DEFINING ECOSYSTEM HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY

All complex systems are, by definition, made up of a number of interacting parts.

Costanza et al. (1992) develop the following definition of ecosystem health:

Ecosystem health is thus closely linked to the idea of sustainability. “Health” is

Table 1. Indices of vigor, organization, and resilience in various fields

Vigor Function GPP, NPP, GEP Ecology Measurement

Organization Structure Diversity index Ecology Network

Resilience Scope for growth (Bayne 1987) Ecology Simulation

Combinations Ascendancy (Ulanowicz 1986) Ecology

THREE COMPONENTS OF SUSTAINABILITY HEALTH

MODELING COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEMS

New understanding about system dynamics and predictability which has

5.4 Applications to Climate Change

GOVERNANCE TO ASSURE ECOLOGICAL SUSTAINABILITY

The key to achieving sustainable governance is an integrated (across disciplines,

Principle 1: Responsibility. Access to environmental resources carries attendant

Principle 2: Scale-Matching. Ecological problems are rarely confined to a single scale.

Principle 3: Precaution. In the face of uncertainty about potentially irreversible

Principle 6: Participation. All stakeholders should be engaged in the formulation and

valuation. But we need to be as comprehensive as possible in our valuations and choices

ECOSYSTEM VALUATION WITH SUSTAINABILITY AND FAIRNESS AS GOALS

Suppose the rankings of the three committee members are:

FIXED TASTES AND PREFERENCES AND CONSUMER SOVERIGNTY

As discussed above, conventional economic valuation is based on a social

what is “optimal“ in addition to economic efficiency and additional decision rules in

CO-EVOLVING PREFERENCES, GOALS, AND VALUES

There are certainly several historical examples of societies which managed to

Table 2. Valuation of ecosystem services based on the three primary goals

Goal or Who Preference Level of Level of Specific

Efficiency Homo Current low low willingness

Fairness Homo Community high medium veil of

Sustainability Homo Whole system medium high modeling

Figure 1. Sustainability as scale (time and space) dependent concepts

Space & Time Scale

Figure 2. Relationship of indicators, endpoints, and values

Figure 3. A three-dimensional plot of system vigor, organization, and resilience.

Costanza, R. (ed.). 1991. Ecological economics: the science and management of

You might also like