Land management is presently undergoing enormous change: away from managing single resources to managing ecosystems. From forest to tundra, to desert, to steppe, the world’s ecosystems vary vastly. To manage them effectively we need to understand their geographic distribution better. We need to do this at various levels of detail because ecosystems exist at multiple scales in a hierarchy, from regional to local. Maps are needed to display ecosystem distribution and hierarchy. Until now, information on defining ecosystem boundaries has been scarce. This book is the first to clarify and systematize the underlying principles for their mapping. It presents a synthesis of the knowledge in this field and provides a.
