Introduction to Ecological Risk Assessment - Dealing with Contaminated Sites: From Theory Towards Practical Application - page 577

Fig. 13.1 Taxonomic ranks
of organisms, including soil
organisms

Species

Genus

Family

Order

Class

Phylum

Kingdom

Domain

Life

on the political agenda (Lackey 2001 ). It is often claimed that optimal Ecological
Health is a broad societal aspiration rather than a concrete policy goal (e.g., Rapport
1995 ). Lancaster ( 2000 ) even claimed that the notion that the Ecological Health of
the environment can be assessed is a ridiculous notion in a scientific context. The
reasons for this are that there is no objective definition of Ecological Health and
there are no methods for defining degrees of Ecological Health. The authors stated
that environmental monitoring programs need to adopt a more holistic, ecosystems
approach than has been used hitherto. Some claim that the health metaphor is mis-
leading (e.g., Kapustka and Landis 1998 ), while others protest about the lack of
clear definition (e.g., Callicott et al. 1999 ). One of the advantages of the phrase is
that it is a straightforward, intuitive metaphor (De Leo and Levin 1997 ). Since it is
associated with human health - an indisputably important, if not the most important
issue in life - the phrase has a positive connotation and is generally well received
by the general public.
From a more general perspective, the phrase soil quality is often used as a holistic
quality mark that includes the condition of the soil ecosystem.
Processes are performed by organisms with distinct roles in ecosystems in
order to maintain those ecosystems, and this determines the type of ecosystem.
These functions may have different names such as Functional services, Functional
(bio)diversity, and Life support functions. In this topic, these functions are called
Ecosystem Services , since the functions may be seen as being beneficial for
mankind. This is analogous to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment 2005 ).