INTRODUCTION Since adoption of the measles case-based surveillance system in Zimbabwe in 1998, data has been routinely collected at all levels of the health delivery system and sent to national level with little or no documented evidence of use to identify risky populations, monitor impact of interventions and measure progress towards achieving measles elimination. We analysed this data to dete...

River health monitoring traditionally has made use of structural measurements (water quality or taxonomic composition of aquatic organisms). We argue that a more complete assessment of river health should include functional metrics, such as rates of organic matter decomposition and ecosystem metabolism. Leaf breakdown links the characteristics of riparian vegetation with the activity of both aq...

Geostatistical techniques were applied and a series of spatial indicators were calculated (occupation, aggregation, location, dispersion, spatial autocorrelation and overlap) to characterize the spatial distributions of European anchovy and sardine during summer. Two ecosystems were compared for this purpose, both located in the Mediterranean Sea: the Strait of Sicily (upwelling area) and the N...

for the scientific and accurate management of rangeland ecosystems, having information about ecosystem as indicators of ecosystem health and function is needed. the aim of this research is to study the effects of grazing on soil surface indicators and rangeland functional properties by using landscape functional analysis (lfa) method. for this purpose, the present study was conducted in two reg...

Located around the coastal margins of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans are 64 Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs). Within the boundaries of the LMEs, 95% of the world’s marine fisheries biomass is produced, ocean pollution is most severe, and coastal habitats are most seriously degraded. The LMEs are also important economic areas of the world, producing goods and services valued at $10.6 tril...

A hot topic in recent decades, the application of organic amendments to arid-degraded soils has been shown to benefit microbially-mediated processes. However, despite the importance of soils for global sustainability, a gap has not been addressed yet in soil science: is there any connection between ecosystem-community processes, cellular functionality, and microbial lifestyles (i.e. oligotrophy...

This paper introduces an initiative to bridge the state of scientific knowledge on air pollution with the needs of policymakers and stakeholders to design the “next generation” of air quality indicators. As a first step this initiative assesses current monitoring and modeling associated with a number of important pollutants with an eye toward identifying knowledge gaps and scientific needs that...

Over the past 2 decades, molecular techniques have established the critical role of both free-living and host-associated microbial partnerships in the environment. Advancing research to link microbial community dynamics simultaneously to host physiology and ecosystem biogeochemistry is required to broaden our understanding of the ecological roles of environmental microbes. Studies on coral reef...

Global climate and environmental changes are endangering global water resources; and several approaches have been tested to manage and reduce the pressure on these decreasing resources. This study uses the case study of Xi'an City in China to test reasonable and effective methods to address water resource shortages. The study generated a framework combining ecosystem services and water resource...