Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Multiscale Assessments

One of the major innovations of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment is that it incorporates a series of local and regional assessments - 33 in all - in a global portrait of the planet's health. It is the first global assessment of the planet's ecosystems to include not only a diversity of ecosystems, but to draw on a wide range of cultural orientations and intellectual traditions, including those of indigenous peoples. The Sub-global Assessments Working Group integrated information from multiple sources and found that biophysical factors such as land-use change, climate change and variability, pollution, and invasive species have a significant effect on human well-being across cultures. For example, in places where there are no other social safety nets, diminished human well-being tends to increase immediate dependence on ecosystem services, which can damage the capacity of those local ecosystems. Multiscale Assessments provides students, researchers, and policymakers with a baseline and framework for ongoing assessments of ecosystem and human well-being on a variety of scales around the world.