Ecosystem Services, Ecological Security And Ecological Risk Assessment

The services of ecological systems and the natural capital stocks that produce them are critical to the functioning of the Earth's life-support system. They contribute to human welfare, both directly and indirectly, and therefore represent part of the total economic value of the planet. Ecosystem functions refer variously to the habitat, biological or system properties or processes of ecosystems. Ecosystem goods (such as food) and services (such as waste assimilation) represent the benefits human populations derive, directly or indirectly from ecosystem functions. For simplicity, we will refer to ecosystem goods and services together as ecosystem services.Ecological security assessment is the identification and judgment of ecosystem completeness and sustainable ability to maintain ecosystem health under all kinds of risks, the core contents of which are ecological risk assessment and ecological health assessment. Ecological risk identification and ecological vulnerability are the composing elements of ecological risk assessment, while ecological health includes three aspects, i. e., ecological completeness, and ecosystem vigor and ecosystem resilience. In the studies of ecological security assessment, the rational combination of ecological risk and ecological health, and the establishment of integrated measure index system based on confirming spatial scale are needed. At present, risk factor identification index, exposure analysis index, and influence analysis index are the broader construction systems of ecological risk index. Nevertheless, on the basis of the classification of EDI, REI, and IRI, the method of superimposing exposure analysis index may be the development direction of establishing index system in the future. Among the methods of quantificational assessment, exposure-response analysis was one of the most extensive method used at present, but ecological model method to assess different-scale ecological security will be the main development filed, and focused on the security of ecological processes in the future. Ecological security assessment must be intergraded with ecological prediction, security guarantee and management.Ecological risk assessment is a procedure that predicts the probability of adverse effects of environmental pollutant on ecosystems or parts of ecosystems. The paper briefly reviews the approach of ecological risk assessment; introduces the research methods used in ecological risk assessment. On the basis of analyzing the content, the guiding ideology, and the principle of ecotourism system management, the theory and method of ecological risk analysis are introduced into the ecotourism system management. This paper put forward the program and method of ecological risk analysis in ecotourism system.The studies of ecosystem services, ecological security and ecological risk assessment have become a hot...