Design Approach - Project Planning and Management for Ecological Restoration - page 77

FIGURE 5-4. Example of a remnant approach: the Curtis Prairie restoration project, on an abandoned farm
that is now part of the Arboretum of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Restoration began in 1936 and
is the oldest documented prairie restoration project in North America. (Photo by John Rieger.)
not true ecological restoration. This practice is more appropriately called fabrication or creation,
and it typically is associated with compensatory mitigation requirements in the environmental
permitting process. Fabrication should, however, still employ the various principles and steps that
are present in true ecological restoration projects as described in this topic.
In many cases, selected sites require extensive changes in topography and elevation to create
the hydrologic conditions required of the created ecosystem. Species composition is derived from
sampling nearby and may be a composite of several sites. In extreme situations, such as undevel-
oped lands in the middle of an urban landscape, there may not be any representative ecosystems
nearby. In a project conducted in west Los Angeles, for example, the senior author compiled a
list of species using various remnants, references in a journal, and herbarium collections from the
general region. This approach is typically used in extensively cleared landscapes and where adja-
cent natural areas are absent. As part of a land use plan for derelict industrial lands, fabrication and
ecological restoration has been under way in the Ruhr Valley of Germany. An example (fig. 5-5)
can be found at an aluminum factory, using a small reference site, one eighth of an acre, believed
to date back to the mid-1800s.