ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the health paradigm is inappropriate as an organizing principle of science and should be applied to ecosystems only as a framework within which diagnostic procedures can be used and that the definition of a healthy state for the environment should remain in the realm of policy. It examines the concepts and definitions embodied in the words "ecosystem" and "health." Ecosystem diagnostics for individual systems follows the same deductive logic as is applied to diagnosing the cause of illness in individual organisms. Diagnosis of ecosystem dysfunction and monitoring changes of systems through time require the application of methods that measure ecosystem processes and components. The ecosystems can be defined as self-organizing, open systems comprised of a set of processes. Ecosystem health, defined as a state variable, is a policy issue that goes beyond the boundaries of the natural sciences to encompass the social sciences as well.
