Updated Octover 9, 2002

What is a healthy ecosystem?
Robert Costanza and Michael Mageau
Aquatic Ecology 33: 105-115, 1999
Kluwer Academic Publishers (Netherlands)

Ecosystem health: comprehensive, multiscale, dynamic, hierarchical measure of system resilience, organization, and vigor OR sustainability (which implies the system's ability to maintain its structure (organization) and function (vigor) over time in the face of external stress (resilience))

For more details about how to measure each component read this paper.
 

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