Title: “Determining Overall Ecosystem Resilience in the Hudson Highlands Region Through Soil, Water, and Species systems”

Abstract/Description: The Hudson Highlands Region is an ecosystem that we as a society rely on heavily for industry, water supply, and as a recreation resource for its beauty and diverse ecosystem. The purpose of the study is to see if the ecosystem resilience; capacity of the system to maintain it’s key structures and functions in the face of damage/disturbance as well as the time it takes to return to it’s configuration before that issue, of the Hudson Highlands Region has been lowered/weaken because of industry and other external stressors. Looking at how the systems of the Hudson Highlands Region responded to things like Sulfur and Iron Mining in this region (industry). Ecosystems influenced by stressors should be assessed under two conditions: stability of the ecosystem(s) and resilience of the ecosystem(s). Ecosystem Resilience can be lowered by: animal habitat depletion/eradication, animal trait changes to respond to environmental stressors, soil contamination increase, water contamination increase, loss of forest/ecosystem biomass, increased forest fragmentation, and many other factors that destroy an ecosystems ability to survive. Damaging key structures like water supply, animal habitats, forest structures, etc. all lead to longer and longer sections of time needed for the ecosystem to return to its former state; the continued degradation of the Hudson Highlands Region could mean that it will never return to this former state causing it to take a new stable state in which we might not be able to survive; neither man or nature.