Forest restoration has never been higher on policymakers' agendas. Complex and multi-dimensional arrangements across the urban–rural continuum challenge restorationists and require integrative ...approaches to strengthen environmental protection and increase restoration outcomes. It remains unclear if urban and rural forest restoration are moving towards or away from each other in practice and research, and whether comparing research outcomes can help stakeholders to gain a clearer understanding of the interconnectedness between the two fields. This study aims to identify the challenges and opportunities for enhancing forest restoration in both urban and rural systems by reviewing the scientific evidence, engaging with key stakeholders and using an urban–rural forest restoration framework. Using the Society for Ecological Restoration's International Principles as discussion topics, we highlight aspects of convergence and divergence between the two fields to broaden our understanding of forest restoration and promote integrative management approaches to address future forest conditions. Our findings reveal that urban and rural forest restoration have convergent and divergent aspects. We emphasise the importance of tailoring goals and objectives to specific contexts and the need to design different institutions and incentives based on the social and ecological needs and goals of stakeholders in different regions. Here we discuss the challenges of achieving high levels of ecological restoration and the need to go beyond traditional ecology to plan, implement, monitor, and adaptively manage restored forests. We suggest that rivers and watersheds could serve as a common ground linking rural and urban landscapes and that forest restoration could interact with other environmental protection measures. We note the potential for expanding the creative vision associated with increasing tree-containing environments in cities to generate more diverse and resilient forest restoration outcomes in rural settings. This study underscores the value of integrative management approaches in addressing future forest conditions across the urban–rural continuum. Our framework provides valuable insights for policymakers, researchers, and decision-makers to advance the field of forest restoration and address the challenges of restoration across the urban–rural continuum. The rural–urban interface serves as a convergence point for forest restoration, and both urban and rural fields can benefit from each other's expertise.
Forest restoration and hydrology Jones, Julia; Ellison, David; Ferraz, Silvio ...
Forest ecology and management,
09/2022, Letnik:
520
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•Forest restoration influences hydrology through partitioning of precipitation.•Mature and old-growth forest, a restoration reference, have consistent water yield.•Water yield is low from managed ...forest plantations, an early form of forest restoration.•Native forest restoration yields more water and low flows than managed plantations.•Silvicultural practices, past land use, and geographic setting all affect hydrology.
Forest restoration aims to increase forest cover, structure, function, and/or species composition, and it influences hydrology through the partitioning of precipitation into evapotranspiration and streamflow. This paper provides a conceptual framework for forest restoration and hydrology, reviews the literature on forest hydrology that is relevant to forest restoration, and assesses practical forest restoration approaches, their hydrologic effects, and tradeoffs. The hydrologic effects of three types of forest are assessed: mature and old-growth forests, which often are the reference model for restoration; managed forest plantations, which dominated early efforts for forest restoration; and the early stages of native forest succession, an increasingly popular, ecologically-oriented or nature-based approach to forest restoration. This review indicates that mature and old-growth forests have high evapotranspiration and consistent water yield, provided by moderated peak discharges and sustained low flows, while water yield is low from managed forest plantations, especially during dry periods. The early stages of native forest succession may provide greater water yield and increased low flows compared with managed plantations. Inclusion of native species and natural processes in forest restoration can increase some hydrological benefits relative to other forest restoration approaches. Although forest restoration affects hydrology, few studies examine the hydrologic effects of specific forest restoration practices such as choice of species, silvicultural practices, legacies of past land use, and geographic setting. Forest managers and ecologists can play valuable roles by designing studies that explore the hydrologic effects of forest restoration approaches on time scales relevant to ecological succession and forest management under a changing climate.
•Cultural Ecosystem Services in Community Forests vary with socio-demography attributes of households.•Traditional ecological knowledge is pivotal for the forest management in community forests of ...Himalaya.•Limited recognition of Cultural Ecosystem Services is attached to human well-being in community forest of Himalya.
Cultural ecosystem services (CES) of community forests (CFs) contribute to human welfare. However, limited information is available about the relationship between traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and households’ attributes with CES. The present study evaluates the relationship between TEK and socio-cultural values of households with CESs across community forests (CFs), specifically Van Panchayats (VPs), in the western Himalayan region, India. The perceived relevance of six CESs attributes (Intellectual, Inspirational, Cultural, Recreational, Spiritual and Aesthetic) was collected from 104 randomly selected households, followed by eight focused group discussions (8 FGDs) and ten Key Informant Interviews (10 KIs) in VPs of two different forest types (Himalayan Moist Temperate Forest, HMTF, and Sub- Tropical Pine Forest, STPF). The Garret ranking analysis reveals that local communities in the HMTF valued cultural attributes, such as folk and nature rituals, and pristine essence and serenity of aesthetic attributes as the most important CESs. However, the communities in the SPTF valued Recreational attributes, such as Ecotourism, and intellectual attributes, such as VPs management meetings more highly. Out-migration, forest degradation and human-wildlife conflict were identified as major threats to the socio-ecological systems and were adversely affecting the CESs, particularly aesthetic, sense of belongingness, and community harmony. The Kruskal-Wallis’s test showed a significant influence (p < 0.005) of socio-demographic variables on the prioritization of perceived CES. The research underscores the importance of acknowledging and appreciating the cultural services of the local communities. This recognition of CES is crucial for enhancing and refining the forest management for achieving conservation and sustainable development of forests.
This book shows how reforestation can conserve biological diversity while improving life for the rural poor. The author integrates ecological and silvicultural knowledge with socioeconomic issues ...that can determine the success or failure of forest restoration.
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•Thinning and burning fuel treatments reduce fire severity compared to untreated areas.•Treatments reduce wildfire carbon emissions but may not increase total carbon ...storage.•Treatment effects on understory plants are highly variable.•Large data gaps remain in treatment effects on many ecological variables.•Anecdotal evidence suggests treatments can improve outcomes for lives and property.
The prevailing paradigm in the western U.S. is that the increase in stand-replacing wildfires in historically frequent-fire dry forests is due to unnatural fuel loads that have resulted from management activities including fire suppression, logging, and grazing, combined with more severe drought conditions and increasing temperatures. To counteract unnaturally high fuel loads, fuel reduction treatments which are designed to reduce fire hazard and improve overall ecosystem functioning have been increasing over the last decade. However, until recently much of what we knew about treatment effectiveness was based on modeling and predictive studies. Now, there are many examples of wildfires burning through both treated and untreated areas, and the effectiveness of treatments versus no action can be evaluated empirically. We carried out a systematic review to address the question: Are fuel treatments effective at achieving ecological and social (saving human lives and property) objectives? We found 56 studies addressing fuel treatment effectiveness in 8 states in the western US. There was general agreement that thin+burn treatments had positive effects in terms of reducing fire severity, tree mortality, and crown scorch. In contrast, burning or thinning alone had either less of an effect or none at all, compared to untreated sites. Most studies focused on carbon storage agreed that treatments do not necessarily store more carbon after wildfire, but result in less post-wildfire emissions and less carbon loss in a wildfire due to tree mortality. Understory responses are mixed across all treatments, and the response of other ecological attributes (e.g., soil, wildlife, water, insects) to treatment post-wildfire represents an important data gap; we provide a detailed agenda for future research. Overall, evidence is strong that thin+burn treatments meet the goal of reducing fire severity, and more research is needed to augment the few studies that indicate treatments protect human lives and property.
Forest restoration is an effective method for restoring degraded soil ecosystems (e.g., converting primary tropical forests into rubber monoculture plantations; RM). The effects of forest restoration ...on microbial community diversity and composition have been extensively studied. However, how rubber plantation-based forest restoration reshapes soil microbial communities, networks, and inner assembly mechanisms remains unclear. Here, we explored the effects of jungle rubber mixed (JRM; secondary succession and natural restoration of RM) plantation and introduction of rainforest species (AR; anthropogenic restoration established by mimicking the understory and overstory tree species of native rainforests) to RM stands on soil physico-chemical properties and microbial communities. We found that converting tropical rainforest (RF) to RM decreased soil fertility and simplified microbial composition and co-occurrence patterns, whereas the conversion of RM to JRM and AR exhibited opposite results. These changes were significantly correlated with pH, soil moisture content (SMC), and soil nutrients, suggesting that vegetation restoration can provide a favorable soil microenvironment that promotes the development of soil microorganisms. The complexity and stability of the bacterial-fungal cross-kingdom, bacterial, and fungal networks increased with JRM and AR. Bacterial community assembly was primarily governed by stochastic (78.79 %) and deterministic (59.09 %) processes in JRM and AR, respectively, whereas stochastic processes (limited dispersion) predominantly shaped fungal assembly across all forest stands. AR has more significant benefits than JRM, such as a relatively slower and natural vegetation succession with more nutritive soil conditions, microbial diversity, and complex and stable microbial networks. These results highlight the importance of sustainable forest management to restore soil biodiversity and ecosystem functions after extensive soil degradation and suggest that anthropogenic restoration can more effectively improve soil quality and microbial communities than natural restoration in degraded rubber plantations.
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•Both natural and anthropogenic restoration increased soil quality.•Higher soil fertility occurred in anthropogenic restoration.•Anthropogenic restoration exhibited higher microbial diversity, complexity, and stability.•Anthropogenic restoration enhanced deterministic processes of bacterial communities.
Hardwood-dominated temperate forests (mostly in Eastern North America, Europe, North East Asia) provide valuable renewable timber and numerous ecosystem services. Many of these forests have been ...subjected to harvesting or conversion to agriculture, sometimes over centuries, that have greatly reduced their former extent and diversity. Natural regeneration following harvesting or during post-agricultural succession has often failed to restore these forests adequately. Past harvesting practices and the valuable timber of some species have led to a reduction in their abundance. The loss of apex predators has caused herbivore populations to increase and exert intense browsing pressure on hardwood regeneration, often preventing it. Particularly important are fruit, nut and acorn bearing species, because of their vital role in forest food webs and biodiversity. Restoring hardwood species to natural forests in which they were formerly more abundant will require a number of forest management actions (e.g., resistant hybrids, deer exclosures/protectors, enrichment planting, underplanting, etc.). Similarly, reforesting areas that were once natural forests will also require new silvicultural knowledge. Global warming trends will intensify the need for interventions to maintain the diversity and function of temperate hardwood forests, as well as for increase hardwood reforestation.
Community involvement is critical for the success of many interventions designed to promote reforestation. To secure this involvement, it helps to recognize that communities are heterogenous both ...within and among themselves and possess diverse mixes of livelihood assets required to implement reforestation. We explore the relationship between livelihood assets and reforestation success and outline a conceptual model that we call the community capacity curve (CCC) applied to reforestation. We argue that the shape of the CCC is sigmoidal. Importantly, communities at the lower end of the CCC have limited capacity to implement reforestation projects without substantial and ongoing capacity building and other sorts of support, including through livelihood projects that improve food security and provide cash benefits. Communities at the higher part of the CCC have greater capacity to implement reforestation projects, especially projects focused on biodiversity and environmental services. The CCC can help design, implement, monitor and assess reforestation projects, select appropriate livelihood activities and types of reforestation, select communities suited to a reforestation project, guide implementation and understand projects' successes and failure. The CCC also provides a framework to engage with policy makers and funding bodies to explore the types of support for communities to reforest successfully. This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding forest landscape restoration: reinforcing scientific foundations for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration'.
The growing impacts of climate change and uncertainty about forest vulnerability to these changes make understanding forest response to drought increasingly important. Many of the studies ...investigating forest response to drought focus on inland forest types rather than coastal forests. This study examined tree growth and growth response to drought in coastal forests at restoration thinning sites, evaluating responses to local climate, tree-level competition, and site-level factors. Tree cores were extracted at three restoration sites in Redwood National Park, California, from both thinned and unthinned stands. Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) and coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) trees > 20 cm diameter at breast height were sampled (n = 268). Thinned stands had lower tree density, individual level competition index, and higher stand basal area than control stands. We modeled the influence of competition, size, site, and species identity on tree growth as measured by basal area increment (BAI). Prior to a period of drought, Douglas-fir had greater BAI relative to redwood, and competition was negatively associated with tree growth for both tree species. There was variability among sites, with the stand closest to the coast and with the most recent thinning treatment showing the fastest growing trees. Relative to the pre-drought period (2010–2012), average BAI declined slightly during the drought period (2013–2015) for Douglas-fir and coast redwood; however, we found less evidence for this effect in coast redwood. Notably, the relationships between growth and competition did not change during the drought period for either species. These results suggest that reducing competition via restoration thinning treatment improves tree growth, and this advantage is maintained even during short (3-year) periods of drought.
•Tree growth decreased with competition and increased with tree size.•Trees in secondary stands showed decreases in growth during recent drought.•Drought did not appear to change the relationship between tree competition and growth.
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