Human activity is rapidly transforming most of Earth's natural systems. How this transformation is impacting human health, whose health is at greatest risk, and the magnitude of the associated disease burden are relatively new subjects within the field of environmental health. We discuss what is known about the human health implications of changes in the structure and function of natural system...

The "dilution effect" implies that where species vary in susceptibility to infection by a pathogen, higher diversity often leads to lower infection prevalence in hosts. For directly transmitted pathogens, non-host species may "dilute" infection directly (1) and indirectly (2). Competitors and predators may (1) alter host behavior to reduce pathogen transmission or (2) reduce host density. In a ...

Customers of Platform as a Service providers are unable to evaluate the risk of their provider going bankrupt. Lacking this information, businesses are effectively putting their critical business services in jeopardy. In this paper, we present a method to evaluate the ecosystem health of eight different PaaS providers. The results of our research enable businesses and individuals to make an inf...

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of type of players on ecosystem accounting system using structural equations. In total, 84 activists in the field of environmental accounting (ecosystem) were selected through convenience sampling. Subjects filled the 22-item questionnaire of components of actor network and the 25-item questionnaire of ecosystem accounting. Given the fact that the signifi...

Global attention to climate change has advanced an awareness of human impacts on the environment. Progressing more slowly is recognition of the critical link between forest ecosystems and human welfare. Forests provide a number of societal benefits or ecosystem services, such as water purification, climate and flood regulation, recreational opportunities, and spiritual fulfillment. This paper e...

A better understanding of the links between biodiversity, health and disease presents major opportunities for policy development, and can enhance our understanding of how health-focused measures affect biodiversity, and conservation measures affect health. The breadth and complexity of these relationships, and the socio-economic drivers by which they are influenced, in the context of rapidly sh...

Assessing ecosystem health is helpful to determine reasonable eco-environmental restoration and resource management strategies. Based on a pressure-state-response (PSR) framework, a set of comprehensive indicators including natural, social and economic aspects was proposed and applied for assessing the ecosystem health of Yuanzhou County, Loess Plateau, Ningxia Province, China. The basic data u...