Land ecosystems and global ecodynamics

Abstract

The growing global size of the population and the associated growing forcing of human activity on the environment and ecosystems have become not only the main threat to further sustainable development of our civilization in the context of the global ecological safety but also reflect a dangerous disorder in the normal functioning of various systems of life support (Grigoryev and Kondratyev, 2001a,b). An alarming symptom of barbaric impacts on nature was the bombardment of Yugoslavia by NATO (Kondratyev, 2001a). In connection with the key role of the ecosystems in the processes of natural regulation of environmental properties, of principal importance is an analysis of the available data on global dynamics of ecosystems and an assessment of possible trends. Important information on these problems can be found, in particular, in recent publications by many authors (Sellers et al., 1997; Hackler et al., 1999; Lee et al., 1999; Fang et al., 2001; Kondratyev and Krapivin, 2001a,b; Sedjo, 2001; Gbondo-Tugbawa and Driscoll, 2002; Ito and Oikawa, 2002; Seppelt and Voinov, 2002; Lischke et al., 2002), among which the most informative is the report prepared by the World Resources Institute (USA) supported by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), and the World Bank (A Guide to World Resources, 2000). This report emphasizes the close relationship between the global ecosystems and the global population - a symbiosis, unique and extremely sensitive to external forcings. These presentations have been thoroughly substantiated by Gorshkov et al. (2000) in the form of a concept of biotic regulation of the environment. Monographs by Kondratyev (1998a,b; 1999c) and new publications (Ernst, 2000; Kondratyev et al., 2000; Kondratyev and Krapivin, 2001c,d) contain an analysis of the key aspects of the global changes from the viewpoint of functioning of the global systems of life support and requirements for adequate ecological monitoring.