Abstract: Ecosystem management is a holistic approach for sustainable resources use and reasonable protection of the environment since the 1990s, and people wish to realize the harmonious development between human and nature through this approach. As an object being managed, ecosystems are complex, dynamic and uncertain, and always guided by sets of goals that may conflict in various ways. The ecosystem management process is thus composed of huge knowledge and mass work that is not so easy to accomplish. System engineering has been prevailing in many domains in recent 20 years, which mainly studies complex large-scale systems and synthetically optimizes them through analysis and design. As the popular methods of system engineering, multi-criteria optimization and decision support system are exactly suitable for the analytical and design process of ecosystem management. Ecosystem management is a goal oriented approach. This paper presented the definitions and primary elements of ecosystem management, and introduced the methodology that described the goal structure and goal compatibility of the system being managed as well as the techniques, such as multi-objective optimization and decision support system, which could be helpful in ecosystem management.

Key words: Ecotone of temperate and subtropical zone, Landscape change, Agricultural landscape heterogeneity, Landscape conduit