Design Approach - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 71

ments, and oral history. Remnant reference
is the result of collecting data from several
small, isolated examples and compiling the
data to compose an overall description of
the ecosystem to create a restoration model.
Fabrication , or creation, is where the ecosys-
tem did not occur previously but adjacent or
nearby ecosystems provide the species com-
position and physical attributes (Clewell
and Aronson 2013). The design approach
you choose for your project depends on the
goals and objectives you developed early in
the planning process.

Extant Reference Site

By comparing the species and patterns on
the actual, adjacent, or nearby site, it is pos-
sible to design the vegetation and habitat
you desire (fig. 5-2). This works fairly well in
situations of isolated degraded lands near or
adjacent to natural vegetation with limited
disturbance. The specific data to collect will
be determined by the type of vegetation and
habitat under study. Typically, such data will
include cover by species, species lists, vegeta-
tion pattern, unique habitat features, species
densities, and length of edge between differ-
ent types of habitats or vegetation. Following
an initial visit to the proposed site, you will have an idea of the stressors and resources requiring your
involvement. If the soil is not damaged, then other than verifying a similar soil type, it will not be nec-
essary to conduct further studies. You should gather data that is needed for recovering impairment.
Data routinely collected by botanists and ecologists do not necessarily lend themselves to pro-
viding usable data for the development of a design. For example, knowing that vegetation has .0013
stems per meter square is almost meaningless for design building. Stem counts do not necessarily
relate to the number of individual plants. Plant demography is going to sort itself out at a restored
site regardless of how picky you are about planting densities. It is more important to ensure that
all of the desired species are present and that there is sufficient abundance of key species and
life-forms for community structure to reassemble itself promptly. Collecting data for restoration
designs does not necessarily conform to typical statistically designed data collection methods. It is
often best to develop your own reference site database.

FIGURE 5-2. Use of a reference site will assist in
developing a site with similar plant composition in
most cases. The objective is not to directly copy but
to emulate the functions and general attributes of
the reference site.