Managing the ecosystem to improve human health: integrated approaches to safe drinking water

An Ecosystems and Vulnerable Populations Perspective on Solastalgia and Psychological Distress After a Wildfire

We studied the relationship between psychological distress and relative resource and risk predictors, including loss of solace from the landscape (solastalgia), one year after the Wallow Fire, in Arizona, United States. Solastalgia refers to the distress caused by damage to the surrounding natural environment and it has not been examined for its relationship to psychological health. Doing so opens avenues of research that inquire into how land management might be able to support improved community resilience and psychological health outcomes after a wildfire. In 2012, we conducted a household survey mailed to all 1387 households in the five communities surrounding the fire. The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale assessed psychological distress. In the multivariate analysis, higher solastalgia score and an adverse financial impact of the fire were associated with clinically significant psychological distress. Annual household income ≥ $80,000 and a higher family functioning score were associated with less psychological distress. Part-time residents were no more likely to have psychological distress than full-time residents. We conclude that dramatic transformation of a landscape by an environmental event such as a wildfire can reduce its value as a source of solace. These results call for novel post-wildfire community recovery interventions that wed forest management and community psychology.

Ecosystem approaches to human health

The promotion of human health must be embedded in the wider pursuit of ecosystem health. Interventions will be impaired if ecosystem-linked determinants of health are not taken into account. In the extreme case, if ecosystems lose their capacity for renewal, society will lose life support services. Essential features of ecosystem health are the capacity to maintain integrity and to achieve reasonable and sustainable human goals. An ecosystem approach to research and management must be transdisciplinary and assure participation of stakeholders. These requisites provide a means for science to better deal with the complexity of ecosystems, and for policy-makers and managers to establish and achieve reasonable societal goals. The ecosystem approach can determine links between human health and activities or events which disturb ecosystem state and function. Examples are: landscape disturbance in agriculture, mining, forestry, urbanization, and natural disasters. An understanding of these links can provide guidance for management interventions and policy options that promote human health. An ecosystem approach to management must be adaptive because of irreducible uncertainty in ecosystem function.