title: Preferred ecosystem characteristics: their food and health relevance to China's rapid urbanisation.
abstract: For most of its history, China has supported a growing population through food systems which have been mutually inclusive of people and their locality. This trajectory has required adequate ecosystem maintenance or humanised reformulation and a high degree of recyclable nutrient flow. The 'tipping point' in habitat sustainability has come with the size and demographic structure of China's population to one that is ageing, with modernisation of its infrastructure and increased expectations of better livelihoods, standards of living and health. In order to meet these expectations, China has embarked on rapid urbanisation for upwards of 300 million people over the next 15-20 years and to do so taking account of the environmental limitations. The process will radically change rural as well as urban China and the systems which connect them. Chief among these will be ecosystems in number and type along with the food and health systems integral to them. To minimise ecological damage and optimise the benefits to people and place, describing, monitoring and managing the process will be paramount. The present paper is a situational analysis of health as it may be ecologically favoured or disordered (Ecosystem Health Disorders) and of the food systems on which the environment and health depend. An effort is made to enumerate the current situation in China in a way that might enable the optimisation of humanised ecosystems.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China. Email: vee@iue.ac.cn; vgibson06@qub.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Valerie
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Gibson
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Yong-Guan
authors.initials: YG
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, China.
authors.forename: Rubing
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ge
authors.affiliation: Fuli institute of Food Science and Nutrition, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province, China.|Division of Preventive Medicine and Health Services Research, Institute of Population Health Sciences, National Health Research Institutes, Miaoli County, Taiwan.|Monash Asia Institute, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
authors.forename: Mark L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Wahlqvist
mesh_terms: D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D004463:Ecology; D017753:Ecosystem; D005502:Food; D005523:Food Supply; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D059027:Recycling; D014507:Urbanization / Q000639:trends*