Integrity/Health and the SOHO model:

James J. Kay

© COPYRIGHT 1999

Three aspects of Ecosystem Integrity and Health:

Current Organization

About state of system (entity)

Status relative to its current attractor

Re-organization

About disturbing state of system (entity)
re-organization in the face of change;
ability to re-attain a state of ......

Ability to deal with change that disturbs it from its current attractor point or changes it to the domain of another attractor.

Self-organization

About patterns and process, function, development, and evolution

This pertains to the system's ability to develop, regenerate, and evolve in its normal environmental circumstances. This is about its capacity to:

• continue to develop, that is increase its organization relative to an attractor;
• regenerate, to deal with birth-growth-death-renewal cycle (i.e. the Holling four box model [2]), that is to deal with the multiple nested dual attractor problem; and to
• continue to evolve, that is switch attractors spontaneously (emergent complexity).

Updated 27 December, 1999

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