ecosystem health

The notion of health is a universally understood concept. Thus, as with the similarly afflicted concepts of complexity and stability, it is impossible to agree upon what we mean by health. This is particularly the case when one attempts to go beyond the traditional medical usage (health of an organism) to the more controversial notion of the health of ecosystems.

Ecosystem health is ultimately referring to the ability of a living system, in the most general sense, to adaptively maintain (internal) homeostatic control in the face of perturbations to the system (internal and/or external; structural and/or functional changes). In such a context, it is directly related to the stability concepts of ecosystems and the closely allied notion of sustainable development.

More about this later, as time permits ... I am working on a synthesis at the moment.