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(for example, they provide more than 24% of global net primary produc-
tion and 60-65% of the world's fish and shellfish production).
2
5. Finally, the need for a holistic or ecosystem approach to all our economic,
social, and engineering activities is not merely a sustainable development
strategic paper as often described by politicians, decision makers, and the
public.
It might be easier to use terms such as ecological crisis, integrated or interdis-
ciplinary approach to the environment, or carrying capacity. However, it is very
difficult to conceptualize the link between the ecological crisis and the dichotomy
in the development of NC components and SES. The integrated or systemic approach
also requires an understanding that the physical, chemical, and biological environ-
ment has a hierarchical organization that integrates the SES as human-dominated
and human-created ecological systems dependent on mass and energy transfer with
the other components of the hierarchy. It also must be understood that the carrying
capacity of NC is linked to stability in a broad sense as well as to the dynamic
capacity of the ecological systems to provide goods and services and to assimilate
the wastes of SES.
5,6,11,16
2.3
SPATIO-TEMPORAL ORGANIZATION
OF LAGOON ECOSYSTEMS
The basic structural and functional units of the “environment,” widely known as
ecosystems, and those from the next hierarchical level
(
Figure 2.3)
,
known as land
or sea/waterscapes, are the entities on which both scientific investigation and inte-
grated or sustainable management are focused. Coastal lagoon ecosystems, and in
particular the associated wetlands, are components of mixed land/sea/waterscapes
that are complex dynamic systems.
To approach and understand how these systems work and how they can be
managed as NC, resources and service providers as well as spatio-temporal orga-
nization and structure must be identified. This structural model that represents
the real world environment by depicting the dynamic components and their
relationships in time and space is called a
Homomorph
models are necessary for most scientists and managers to operate in the real
world. Development and understanding of homomorph models are necessary for
integrated management and for sustained use of NC that provide support for the
SES. There have been, and still are, users of basic theoretical principles of the
science of systems ecology who cannot associate these concepts with any real
counterpart. Or, even if they do, such a structural model is either very superficial
(with inappropriate space scales or oversimplification) or has no true agreement
with the real system.
One of the major targets in the field of applied systems ecology is the develop-
ment of a specific methodology for ecosystem identification and landscape or
sea/waterscape identification.
homomorph model
.
30,31
26,31-38
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