title: [Several problems in ecological security assessment research].
abstract: Ecological security assessment is the identification and judgment of ecosystem completeness and sustainable ability to maintain ecosystem health under all kinds of risks, the core contents of which are ecological risk assessment and ecological health assessment. Ecological risk identification and ecological vulnerability are the composing elements of ecological risk assessment, while ecological health includes three aspects, i.e., ecological completeness, ecosystem vigor, and ecosystem resilience. In the studies of ecological security assessment, the rational combination of ecological risk and ecological health, and the establishment of integrated measure index system based on confirming spatial scale are needed. At present, risk factor identification index, exposure analysis index, and influence (response) analysis index are the broader construction systems of ecological risk index. Nevertheless, on the basis of the classification of EDI, REI and IRI, the method of superimposing exposure analysis index may be the development direction of establishing index system in the future. Among the methods of quantificational assessment, exposure-response analysis was one of the most extensive method used at present, but ecological model method to assess different-scale ecological security will be the main development field, and focused on the security of ecological processes in the future. Ecological security assessment must be intergraded with ecological prediction, security guarantee and management.
authors.affiliation: State Key Lab. of Fozen Soil Engineering, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, School of Resources and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China. gxwang@ns.lzb.ac.cn
authors.forename: Genxu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Guodong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Ju
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Qian
mesh_terms: D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D008954:Models, Biological; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012449:Safety