The number of dam removals in the United States is expected to increase in the coming years, yet we know little about the social effects of dam removal on local people. Here we assess how two dam ...removals on a large river in the U.S. state of Maine changed local people's recreational use and perceptions of the river. We used focus groups and key informant interviews to define stakeholders' social areas of interest, conducted randomized phone surveys 5 years apart to measure changes in these areas of interest, and utilized a difference‐in‐differences technique corroborated by key informant interviews to analyze the results. Five years after dam removal, perceptions of water quality, swimming, paddling, fishing, and wildlife viewing increased, and the percentage of people saying the river was part of their family's life increased. Participation in walking/hiking also increased, but participation in boat fishing decreased, and the frequency of canoeing/kayaking declined. The observed effects were confirmed by ex‐post key informant interviews. Additional studies are needed to understand the full range of social effects from dam removals and river restoration activities and to improve our general understanding of the social aspects of ecological restoration activities.
•We propose models for decentralization in interdependent infrastructure restoration.•We provide new mathematical formulations to capture restoration interdependencies.•We measure the loss in ...restoration effectiveness resulting from decentralization.•This loss can be greatly mitigated by having infrastructures share information.
We consider restoring multiple interdependent infrastructure networks after a disaster damages components in them and disrupts the services provided by them. Our particular focus is on interdependent infrastructure restoration (IIR) where both the operations and the restoration of the infrastructures are linked across systems. We provide new mathematical formulations of restoration interdependencies in order to incorporate them into an interdependent integrated network design and scheduling (IINDS) problem. The IIR efforts resulting from solving this IINDS problem model a centralized decision-making environment where a single decision-maker controls the resources of all infrastructures. In reality, individual infrastructures often determine their restoration efforts in an independent, decentralized manner with little communication among them. We provide algorithms to model various levels of decentralization in IIR efforts. These algorithms are applied to realistic damage scenarios for interdependent infrastructure systems in order to determine the loss in restoration effectiveness resulting from decentralized decision-making. Our computational tests demonstrate that this loss can be greatly mitigated by having infrastructures share information about their planned restoration efforts.
Seasonally inundated wetlands are threatened ecosystems worldwide and increasingly important targets for wetland restoration programs. However, restoring such ecosystems is difficult, as it requires ...mimicking the historical shifts between dry and flooded states. In this study, we evaluate the responses of agriculturally impacted seasonal wetlands to pasture-scale hydrological restoration. We selected 15 seasonal wetlands in central Florida (10 within restoration easements and five in unrestored pastures) and excluded cattle from five of the restored wetlands. We monitored each wetland from 2011 to 2016 to document potential changes in water levels, plant species richness, beta diversity, floristic quality, and cover of obligate wetland species. Vegetation responses to restoration were gradual and subtle, becoming detectable only five years following restoration. By 2016, restored wetlands had significantly lower cover of facultative upland species and higher cover of obligate wetland species. Species richness was higher in unrestored wetlands due to the presence of many facultative upland species. Beta diversity within wetlands and floristic quality based on coefficient of conservatism were not affected by restoration. We did not find strong effects of cattle exclusion on post-restoration diversity metrics, but we observed a large increase in the native grass, Panicum hemitomon Schult. This study showed mixed outcomes when measured against the goals of restoring wetland communities. It also highlighted the need for more active restoration approaches to regain historical communities or promote target species (e.g. Coleataenia abscissa (Swallen) LeBlond). We emphasize the need for costly restoration activities to be coupled with long-term monitoring to assess success.
Restoration efforts in the Mediterranean Basin have been changing from a silvicultural to an ecological restoration approach. Yet, to what extent the projects are guided by ecological restoration ...principles remains largely unknown. To analyse this issue, we built an on-line survey addressed to restoration practitioners.
We analysed 36 restoration projects, mostly from drylands (86%). The projects used mainly soil from local sources. The need to comply with legislation was more important as a restoration motive for European Union (EU) than for non-EU countries, while public opinion and health had a greater importance in the latter. Non-EU countries relied more on non-native plant species than EU countries, thus deviating from ecological restoration guidelines. Nursery-grown plants used were mostly of local or regional provenance, whilst seeds were mostly of national provenance. Unexpected restoration results (e.g. inadequate biodiversity) were reported for 50% of the projects and restoration success was never evaluated in 22%. Long term evaluation (>6years) was only performed in 31% of cases, and based primarily on plant diversity and cover. The use of non-native species and species of exogenous provenances may: i) entail the loss of local genetic and functional trait diversity, critical to cope with drought, particularly under the predicted climate change scenarios, and ii) lead to unexpected competition with native species and/or negatively impact local biotic interactions. Absent or inappropriate monitoring may prevent the understanding of restoration trajectories, precluding adaptive management strategies, often crucial to create functional ecosystems able to provide ecosystem services. The overview of ecological restoration projects in the Mediterranean Basin revealed high variability among practices and highlighted the need for improved scientific assistance and information exchange, greater use of native species of local provenance, and more long-term monitoring and evaluation, including functional and ecosystem services' indicators, to improve and spread the practice of ecological restoration.
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•The degree to which projects follow ecological restoration principles is unclear.•A survey was addressed to a wide range of practitioners in the Mediterranean Basin.•An ecological restoration practice index revealed high variability among practices.•More scientific assistance and use of native species of local provenance are needed.•Long-term monitoring based on ecosystems' functions and services should be promoted.
Dune restoration projects that integrate vegetation efforts with natural, sustainable, and soft solutions have become increasingly popular in coastal communities. Eco-restored dunes have high ...aesthetic value and are likely to be more resilient to near-surface wind effects and/or minor storms events. However, environmental-friendly restoration strategies still lack scientific insight from systematic research and the role of eco-restoration in dune erosion resistance and resilience has not yet been rigorously investigated. The question is: how can we optimize eco-friendly solutions in dune ecosystem restoration to maximize the resistance and resilience of coastal dunes against erosion from wind, wave, and storm surge attack? The present paper proposes an innovative colloidal silica-based consolidation technique for coastal sand dunes. A special focus is placed on the description of the experience gained from two pilot field studies started in Salento coastal area, in the south of Italy. The preliminary observations clearly show that mineral colloidal silica increases the mechanical strength of non-cohesive sediments allowing the adopted solution to reduce the volume of dune erosion and the dune scarp retreat rate, thus improving the resistance and resilience of the dune system. Besides furthering our knowledge of coastal erosion, the results of these and future studies will be of value to coastal managers and policy makers responsible for dune restoration projects.
Land degradation is a global environmental problem that jeopardizes human safety and socioeconomic development. To alleviate severe soil erosion and desertification due to deforestation and ...overgrazing, China has implemented historically unprecedented large-scale afforestation. However, few studies have accounted for the resulting imbalance between water supply (primarily precipitation) and water consumption (evapotranspiration), which will affect ecosystem health and socioeconomic development. We compared the water balance results between restoration by means of afforestation and restoration using the potential natural vegetation to guide future ecological restoration planning and environmental policy development. Based on estimates of water consumption from seven evapotranspiration models, we discuss the consequences for water security using data obtained since 1952 under China's large-scale afforestation program. The models estimated that afforestation will increase water consumption by 559–2354 m3/ha annually compared with natural vegetation. Although afforestation is a potentially important approach for environmental restoration, China's current policy has not been tailored to local precipitation conditions, and will have therefore exacerbated water shortages and decrease the ability to achieve environmental policy goals. Our analysis shows how, both in China and around the world, future ecological restoration planning must account for the water balance to ensure effective and sustainable environmental restoration policy.
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•Ecological restoration requires balancing water supply and consumption.•Maintaining high water-use efficiency is therefore necessary.•Restoration managers must account for the water balance in restoration plans.
Questions
Native grasses are widespread with high commercial value and demand across the restoration sector, though their uptake is often hampered by seed‐use challenges. Seed enhancement ...technologies (SETs) provide a valuable tool for improving plant establishment outcomes for species (such as native grasses) where seed‐based approaches are essential to achieve large‐scale targets. However, due to the increased investment in resources and time associated with application of SETs, their adoption is dependent on the ability of these treatments to consistently provide benefits to one or more demographic life stages, particularly under field conditions. This meta‐analysis addresses the following research question: what are the overall effects of SETs on plant establishment outcomes compared to untreated florets or seeds in native grasses globally?
Location
Global.
Methods
The effects of six major SET categories (acid treatment, coating, pelleting, flash flaming, priming, and treatment combinations) on germination, emergence, and shoot and root length and biomass were explored. Furthermore, the consistency of the effects of SETs across study types (i.e., laboratory, glasshouse, and field) was investigated.
Results
The overall effects of SETs on native grasses in this meta‐analysis were positive for germination (16% improvement), emergence (22% improvement), and growth (6.42–8.86 cm and 2.26–2.77 g increase in seedling length and biomass, respectively). However, effects ranged from neutral to positive when data were grouped by SET type, with coating, pelleting and priming delivering consistent benefits across multiple life stages, and acid treatments, flash flaming, and combination treatments having mixed effects. This analysis also provided evidence that benefits observed from SET application in laboratory and glasshouse studies are not translating to field environments.
Conclusions
Overall, SETs generally had positive effects and can therefore provide a relatively low‐risk approach to improving seed‐based restoration outcomes in native grasses. Continued SET research focussed on long‐term plant establishment outcomes in field environments is needed to further advance SET uptake.
Through this meta‐analysis, the overall effect of seed enhancement technologies (SETs) on plant establishment outcomes in native grasses compared to untreated florets or seeds was found to be positive. SETs provide a relatively low‐risk approach to improving seed‐based restoration outcomes in native grasses. Further research focussed on specific SETs, and long‐term plant establishment in field environments is needed to advance SET uptake.
•Mindfulness meditation purportedly enhances attention through effortful training.•We found meditation in nature was effortless and restored attention resources.•We found conventional meditation ...incurred effort only after several weeks’ training.•Restoration is a potential pathway to attentional improvements with meditation.
Mindfulness courses conventionally use effortful, focused meditation to train attention. In contrast, natural settings can effortlessly support state mindfulness and restore depleted attention resources, which could facilitate meditation. We performed two studies that compared conventional training with restoration skills training (ReST) that taught low-effort open monitoring meditation in a garden over five weeks. Assessments before and after meditation on multiple occasions showed that ReST meditation increasingly enhanced attention performance. Conventional meditation enhanced attention initially but increasingly incurred effort, reflected in performance decrements toward the course end. With both courses, attentional improvements generalized in the first weeks of training. Against established accounts, the generalized improvements thus occurred before any effort was incurred by the conventional exercises. We propose that restoration rather than attention training can account for early attentional improvements with meditation. ReST holds promise as an undemanding introduction to mindfulness and as a method to enhance restoration in nature contacts.
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