Abstract
This chapter deals with the management of ecosystems, based on the premiss that the modern approach encompasses the gathering of appropriate data and its analysis, possibly using a digital computer. For example, the search for regularities in quantitative “leading indicators” has been motivated by the hope that it might be possible to predict the collapse of ecosystems.
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Boettiger et al. (2013).
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Hastings and Wysham (2010).
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See the monumental review by Goel et al. (1971).
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Even more stark is: “If one looks around, the world appears like an anthill where its inhabitants have lost all sense of direction. They run aimlessly about, chop each other to pieces, foul their nest, attack their young, spend tremendous energies in building artifices that are either abandoned when completed, or when maintained, cause more disruption than was visible before, and so on” (von Foerster 1972).
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Although one might accept the trade-off, one might criticize its implementation: much of the water taken for irrigation is lost through seepage (e.g., because of unlined canals). Excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides has led to pollution of potable water, and the now dry, salty bed of the sea is a source of aerial dust (\({\sim }60\) Mt/year) transported away by the wind, and the cause of widespread respiratory problems. These deleterious consequences of the transfer of water from sea to fields might have been foreseen and mitigated accordingly. A project to divert water from the great Siberian rivers to the Aral Sea was under investigation but was abandoned with the end of the Soviet Union—another kind of collapse.
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Ramsden, J. (2015). Ecosystems Management. In: Bioinformatics. Computational Biology, vol 21. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6702-0_21
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-6702-0_21
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