Summary: Ecological Modelling 229 (2012) 1­4
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Ecological Modelling
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolmodel
Editorial
Understanding human decisions in coupled natural and human systems
1. Introduction
Global human population increased exponentially during the
last 200 hundred years (Vitousek, 1994), and very soon the earth
will be home to over seven billion people (U.S. Census Bureau,
2011). Human activity reshapes the environment to such a degree
that rarely, if ever, do pure or "pristine" ecosystems remain immune
from human impact (Dompka, 1996; Vitousek et al., 1997). Humans
appropriate up to 40% of the photosynthetic output of the planet
for food and material consumption (Haberl et al., 2004) and over
80% of the land is under direct human influence (Sanderson et al.,
2002).
To relieve the human­environment tension and preserve
ecosystems and related services, scholarship and policy
have been devoted to curbing population size and altering

Source: An, Li - Department of Geography, San Diego State University

Collections: Environmental Sciences and Ecology; Geosciences