Human–environment interactions in population and ecosystem health

As the global human population continues to grow, so too does our impact on the environment. The ingenuity with which our species has harnessed natural resources to fulfill our needs is dazzling. Even as we tighten our grip on the environment, however, the escalating extent of anthropogenic actions destabilizes long-standing ecological balances (1, 2). The dangers of mining, refining, and fossil fuel consumption now extend beyond occupational or proximate risks to global climate change (3). Among a plethora of environmental problems, extreme climate events are intensifying (4, 5). Storms, droughts, and floods cause direct destruction, but also have pervasive repercussions on food security, infectious disease transmission, and economic stability that take their toll for many years. For example, within weeks of the catastrophic wind and flood damage from the 2016 Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, there was a dramatic surge in cholera, among other devastating repercussions (6, 7). In a world where 1% of the population possesses 50% of the wealth (8), those worst affected by extreme climatic events and the aftermath are also the least able to rebound. Compounding the impact of natural disasters, our progressively more intimate interactions with fragmented environments (9) have given rise to an era of disease emergence and re-emergence at unprecedented rates, as exemplified by recent outbreaks of the Ebola and Zika viruses. Furthermore, globalization to an extent that includes the airline travel of over eight million people every day has enabled such disease outbreaks to disseminate rapidly and pose a threat far beyond their areas of origin (10). Addressing these challenges requires an understanding of coupled human–environment dynamics, whereby human activity modifies an environmental system (often detrimentally), and the resulting environmental repercussions then impact humans. In turn, these impacts can potentially spur a shift in human activity toward protection and restoration. … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: alison.galvani{at}yale.edu. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

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