Ecosystem Stability in Integrated Catchment Management

Freshwater is vital for human civilization. Growing population and societal development demand for more water resources. Freshwater is not considered globally scarce, but its distribution across the planet is not even and many countries suffer from water shortage. Human activities constantly produce an impact upon natural waters causing their destruction, degradation and pollution. Freshwater is a multi-purpose resource and this circumstance dictates a need to coordinate the interests of various water users. Integrated catchment management is a framework with the explicit objective to improve natural resources management on a catchment basis. Water resources are an integral part of ecosystems and their sustainable management is only possible within an ecosystem-based approach. It is important to predict ecosystem stability properties in response to exogenous stress. The paper discusses ecosystem stability from mathematical and ecological perspectives and demonstrates invariant patterns in ecosystem stress reactions. Using the typology of the stress reactions, the tasks of integrated catchment management can be viewed as a prediction of a particular type of ecosystem behaviour in response to the expected effects of planned activities.