Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
4.1
INTRODUCTION
achieve their goals. We also describe how to inexpen-
sively monitor and evaluate progress towards goals by
building on the information gained in assessing the
causes of landscape dysfunction. This monitoring
methodology, discussed in section 4.2.5, is called
Land-
scape Function Analysis
. It defi nes and measures
indi-
cators
of landscape processes that are affected by
disturbances. Restoring disturbed processes is the key
to successful landscape-scale restoration (Tongway &
Ludwig 2011 ).
Chapter 2 articulated the need for society and science
to have an integrated and concerted approach to
address restoration of disturbed ecosystems. The
authors also identifi ed a range of potential objectives
as well as possible barriers to successful restoration.
Most of the restoration objectives were defi ned in terms
of particular mindsets or paradigms, which have been
of use in a range of activities such as 'restoring' species
diversity, improving the provision of ecosystem serv-
ices, and using reference sites to help specify targets. At
one level, these are sound and worthwhile restoration
activities, but they also identify a gap in our under-
standing of how disturbances affect ecosystems, or,
more broadly,
landscapes
, defi ned as a mosaic of con-
nected and interacting ecosystems (Turner
et al
. 2001 ).
Understanding impacts of disturbances is critical to
our capacity to plan and implement effective landscape
restoration technologies.
In this chapter, we describe an approach to restora-
tion that emphasizes the need for understanding how
ecosystem processes, connected in a landscape, are
affected by disturbances, causing landscapes to be
dys-
functional
, and how this knowledge can then be used
by restorationists to set achievable goals and to design
and implement practical restoration technologies to
4.2 A RESTORATION PLANNING
APPROACH
To successfully restore, or reintegrate, a disturbed land-
scape, we recommend that restorationists fi rst take two
important steps: (1) explicitly defi ne the goals of their
restoration project, and (2) fully understand how dis-
turbances have historically affected the landscape in
question (Figure 4.1). We know examples of successful
landscape-scale restoration projects where these fi rst
two steps were done so well that steps 3, 4 and 5 fol-
lowed without having to revise technologies (e.g. Spain
et al
. 2009). We are also aware of failed restoration
projects where, in a wave of enthusiasm, the fi rst two
steps were not carefully considered. We link steps 1 and
Figure 4.1
A stepwise approach to landscape restoration with regular reviews and evaluations of whether trends in
indicators are towards specifi ed goals.
