Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Field et al. (2002), like instability can increase in nearest two decades by a con-
siderable extent at the expense of the change of the many features of the World
Ocean ecosystem. Milne (2004), analyzed the history of different large catastrophes
and made pessimistic forecasts for the fate of humankind, using terms like
doomsday
.
In general case,
the rise of ecological danger on given territory is due to
de
ections of environmental parameters for limits, where living organism under
long stay begins to change on direction not corresponding to natural process to
evolution. The notion
fl
are connected with
notions of stability, vitality, and wholeness of biosphere and its elements. More-
over, the NSS, being self-organizing and self-structuring system that is developed
according to the laws of evolution, creates collections of ecological niches, the
acceptability of which for the population of given territory is de
ecological danger
or
ecological safety
ned, as a rule, in
accordance with national criteria (a set of environmental quality criteria, religious
dogmas, national traditions, etc.).
When considering the viability conditions for life on Earth, it is necessary to
move away from human-oriented standards to assess the level of environmental
degradation, since local and regional changes in the environment in the course of
time become global. The amplitudes of these changes are de
ned by mechanisms of
the NSS functioning, which provide the optimality of changes in its elements.
Humankind has increasingly deviated from this optimality in its interaction with
environmental abiotic and biotic formations. However, human society
as just
another NSS element
will in time understand its large-scale relationship with
nature, as a result of many sciences and studying the causal relationship in this
system (Kondratyev et al. 2003b).
The ecological environment in which people are living is a complex dynamic
system. Its stability in time depends on the regularity of its structure, material
composition, energy balance, and stability of its reactions on the same external
in
uences from both
passive and active external impacts. In other words, in modern conditions nature N
and human society H, forming a united planetary system and having hierarchical
structures ( j ;
fl
uences. The system stability can be disturbed as a result of in
fl
j ), interact pursuing their own goals ( N , H ). From a formal
standpoint, this interaction can be considered a casual process
(x, t) with an
unknown distribution law, presenting the tension level between subsystems N and
H or evaluating the state of one of them. Here x ={x 1 ,
ʷ
, x n } is a set of the
identi
cation features of the subsystems N and H, being components of the possible
indicator of the arising natural catastrophe i.e. de
(x, t) for limits, where
state of the subsystem N becomes threatening for H. It thus follows that the pur-
poses and behaviors of subsystems N and H are functions of the factor
fl
ections
ʷ
ʷ
, and their
ʷ
behaviors can be antagonistic, indifferent, or cooperative depending on
. The main
goal of the subsystem H consists in the achievement of the high living standard with
warranty of the permanent survival
in the comfort conditions. The goal and
behavior of the subsystem N are de
ned by the objective laws of co-evolution (it
follows to call the attention to this context on concept of the biotic regulation of
environment (Kondratyev et al. 2003b, 2004b). In this sense, the division between
Search WWH ::




Custom Search