Does Nature Have Leading Indicators of Disaster?
Jan 16, 2009 In a new study, scientists take a page from the social science handbook and use leading indicators of the environment to presage the potential collapse of ecosystems. Published Jan. 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by two ecologists and an economist, the study suggests it may be possible to use nature’s leading indicators to avert environmental disaster. Ecosystems worldwide are under constant and escalating pressure from humans and many are on the brink of collapse, according to Stephen R. Carpenter, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of zoology and an author of the study. “It’s a big problem because they are very hard to predict. It is hard to get a handle on statistically,” says Carpenter of what ecologists call “regime shift,” a disastrous change in the way an individual ecosystem functions. Such change can be dramatic, as in the collapse of the North Atlantic cod fishery or increasing desertification in Africa and the Middle East, and
