Original Articles

Eco-mechanics Analysis and Quantitative Expression for Degradation of Ecosyste ms

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  • Institute of Tropical and Subtropical Ecology, South China Agri cultural University, Guangzhou 510642; Institute of Soil Science,Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008

Received date: 2003-02-01

  Revised date: 2003-03-01

  Online published: 2003-05-24

Abstract

The degradation of ecosystems was discussed from a view of eco mechanics in thi s paperIt was suggested that any ecosystem could be regarded as a kind of the substance integration with three dimension spatial structure, and that it also had a property of "movement" which referred to the displacement of the state, but not the c hange of the place of ecosystem Actually, the degradation of ecosystem was a p rocess of ecological movement from a high level or stable state to an imbalance state Any ecosystem had a certain eco mass and eco inertia When the result ant of eco forces produced by human and natural disturbance exceeded their inhe rent ecological resistance force, ecosystems would take movement or displacement  This paper also presented a quantitative expression for calculating the poten tial of ecosystem degradation with four indices, including the eco mass index ( EMI), the natural disturbance index (NDI).

Cite this article

ZHANG Jia'en, XU Qi . Eco-mechanics Analysis and Quantitative Expression for Degradation of Ecosyste ms[J]. PROGRESS IN GEOGRAPHY, 2003 , 22(3) : 251 -259 . DOI: 10.11820/dlkxjz.2003.03.004

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