By analogy,your doctor needs baseline data on your blood pressure,weight,and functioning of your organs and other system,as revealed through basic tests.If your health declines in some way,the doctor can run new tests and compare the results with the baseline data to identify changes and come up with a treatment.
According to a 2002 ecolgoical study published by the Heinz Foundation and the 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,scientists have less than half of the basic ecological data they need to evaluate the status of ecosystems in the United States.Even fewer data are available for most other parts of the world.Ecologists call for a massive program to develope baseline data for the world's ecosystem.經分析，醫生需要你的血壓，體重，和運作的機構和其他制度的基準數據，發現通過基本測試。如果您的健康下降在某種程度上，醫生可以運行新的考驗和比較的結果與基準數據，以確定變更並提出治療。
據2002年出版的生態學研究的海因茨基金會和2005年千年生態系統評估，科學家們只有不到一半的基本生態數據，以評估他們所需要的狀態的生態系統在美國。甚至更少的數據對大多數世界其他地區。生態學家呼籲建立一個大規模的開發項目的基線數據為世界上的生態系統。
