Ecological Restoration of Coal Mine‐Degraded Lands in Dry Tropical Climate: What Has Been Done and What Needs to Be Done?

In developed countries, ecological restoration is a widely accepted practice to restore the productivity of degraded coal mine spoils and prevent mine‐degraded sites from acting as sources of pollution. During the past decade, ecologists realized the global need for ecological restoration, and the benefit of restoration is now assessed on the basis of ecosystem services that the restored lands can provide. In this article, the knowledge gap between crude reclamation and ecological restoration is examined, the steps crucial to ecological restoration in tropical conditions are identified, and simple guidelines are given for easy understanding. Restoration issues, such as modification of the forestry restoration approach, reestablishment of biodiversity, removal and reuse of topsoil during progressive and final stages of ecological restoration, drainage, promotion of a plant‐succession‐based approach, use of a grass–legume mixture as an initial colonizer, stabilization of steep slopes, and soil blanketing, are discussed. Those attributes of a degraded ecosystem that are responsible for the success of any restoration project are critically examined, and the opportunities provided by ecological restoration are explored.     

Defining an ecological baseline for restoration and natural resource damage assessment of contaminated sites: The case of the Department of Energy

Retrospective ecological risk assessment, restoration, natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) and managing ecosystems all require having a baseline. This policy and practice paper explores the factors that influence baseline selection, and it is suggested that ecological resources would best be served by: (1) integrating NRDA considerations into both future land-use planning and remediation/restoration; (2) selecting a baseline for NRDA that approximates the land-use conditions at the time of occupation (or a preferred ecosystem); and (3) integrating both the positive and negative aspects of industrial occupation into restoration decisions, baseline selection and NRDA. Under the Comprehensive Environmental Response and Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), natural resource damages are assessed for injuries incurred since 1980 due to releases, but the release itself may have occurred before 1980. The paper uses the Department of Energy as a case study to examine NRDA and the management of ecosystems. Releases occurred at many DOE sites from the 1950s to the 1980s during nuclear bomb production. It is suggested that the DOE has been responsible not only for injuries to natural resources that occurred as a result of releases, but for significant ecosystem recovery since DOE occupation, because some lands were previously farmed or industrialized. Natural resource injuries due to releases occurred simultaneously with ecosystem recovery that resulted from DOE occupation. While the 1980 date is codified in CERCLA law as the time after which damages can be assessed, baseline can be defined as the conditions the natural resources would have been in today, but for the release of the hazardous substance. It is also suggested that NRDA considerations should be incorporated into the remediation and restoration process at DOE sites, thereby negating the need for formal NRDA following restoration, and reducing the final NRDA costs.     

Realizing the Potential of Ecosystem Services: A Framework for Relating Ecological Changes to Economic Benefits

Increasingly government agencies are seeking to quantify the outcomes of proposed policy options in terms of ecosystem service benefits, yet conflicting definitions and ad hoc approaches to measuring ecosystem services have created confusion regarding how to rigorously link ecological change to changes in human well-being. Here, we describe a step-by-step framework for producing ecological models and metrics that can effectively serve an economic-benefits assessment of a proposed change in policy or management. A focus of the framework is developing comparable units of ecosystem goods and services to support decision-making, even if outcomes cannot be monetized. Because the challenges to translating ecological changes to outcomes appropriate for economic analyses are many, we discuss examples that demonstrate practical methods and approaches to overcoming data limitations. The numerous difficult decisions that government agencies must make to fairly use and allocate natural resources provides ample opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of natural and social scientists to improve methods for quantifying changes in ecosystem services and their effects on human well-being. This framework is offered with the intent of promoting the success of such teams as they support managers in evaluating the equivalency of ecosystem service offsets and trades, establishing restoration and preservation priorities, and more generally, in developing environmental policy that effectively balances multiple perspectives.     

Urban and Ecological Planning in Chicago: Science,Policy and Dissent

Home to some of the tallest buildings in the world, the urban landscape of Chicago announces itself long before visitors can reach it. This first impression is presently being contradicted by the implementation of an 80 937 ha ecological restoration in the city's greater metropolitan area. Using these projects as a case-study, the objective of this analysis is to understand the integration of environmental conservation efforts into urban life, exploring the viability of a model for combining urban renewal and environmental restoration. Controversies surrounding the Cook County Forest Preserve project familiarize us with some of the difficulties encountered in the science, policy and politics of urban ecological restoration projects. Though the city's urban and environmental history provides clues to precedents and structural opportunities for restorationists, it has not eliminated the doubts of those favouring conservation. However, the case shows that, while controversy may be a burden, it need not end initiatives for urban and environmental planning. Moreover, these controversies can be opportunities for an institutional learning and policy adaption process.     

我国新时期生态保护修复总体战略与重大任务

生态保护修复是美丽中国建设的重大任务,是加快推进生态文明建设的优先行动,是推动生态产品价值实现的重要基础。近年来,我国生态保护修复取得显著进展,但生态系统本底脆弱、保护修复基础薄弱、管理机制不协调等问题依然突出。在大力推进生态文明建设的新的历史时期,面对百年未有之大变局,我国生态保护修复工作所面临的形势更加严峻,与实现国家生态治理体系和治理能力现代化的要求依然存在较大差距,尚难以满足人民日益增长的优质生态产品需要。本文在总结近年来我国生态保护修复主要进展基础上,分析了未来一段时期生态保护修复面临的问题与挑战,提出新时期生态保护修复应以习近平生态文明思想为统领,以提升生态系统服务功能、协同改善生态环境质量、维护国家生态安全为核心,探索构建生态保护修复与污染防治统筹推进机制,强化监管制度设计、示范样板引领、体制机制创新,加快实现山水林田湖草整体保护、系统修复、综合治理,筑牢美丽中国生态根基。     

Impact of Perceived Importance of Ecosystem Services and Stated Financial Constraints on Willingness to Pay for Riparian Meadow Restoration in Flanders (Belgium)

The strategic importance of ecosystem service valuation as an operational basis for policy decisions on natural restoration has been increasingly recognized in order to align the provision of ecosystem services with the expectation of human society. The contingent valuation method (CVM) is widely used to quantify various ecosystem services. However, two areas of concern arise: (1) whether people value specific functional ecosystem services and overlook some intrinsic aspects of natural restoration, and (2) whether people understand the temporal dimension of ecosystem services and payment schedules given in the contingent scenarios. Using a peri-urban riparian meadow restoration project in Flanders, Belgium as a case, we explored the impacts of residents’ perceived importance of various ecosystem services and stated financial constraints on their willingness-to-pay for the proposed restoration project employing the CVM. The results indicated that people tended to value all the benefits of riparian ecosystem restoration concurrently, although they accorded different importances to each individual category of ecosystem services. A longer payment scheme can help the respondents to think more about the flow of ecosystem services into future generations. A weak temporal embedding effect can be detected, which might be attributed to respondents’ concern about current financial constraints, rather than financial bindings associated with their income and perceived future financial constraints. This demonstrates the multidimensionality of respondents’ financial concerns in CV. This study sheds light on refining future CV studies, especially with regard to public expectation of ecosystem services and the temporal dimension of ecosystem services and payment schedules.     

Restoring Ecological Integrity in Highly Regulated Rivers: The Role of Baseline Data and Analytical References

The goal of restoring ecological integrity in rivers is frequently accompanied by an assumption that a comparative reference reach can be identified to represent minimally impaired conditions. However, in many regulated rivers, no credible historical, morphological or process-based reference reach exists. Resilient restoration designs should instead be framed around naturalization, using multiple analytical references derived from empirically-calibrated field- and model-based techniques to develop an integrated ecological reference condition. This requires baseline data which are rarely collected despite increasing evidence for systematic deficiencies in restoration practice. We illustrate the utility of baseline data collection in restoration planning for the highly fragmented and regulated lower Merced River, California, USA. The restoration design was developed using various baseline data surveys, monitoring, and modeling within an adaptive management framework. Baseline data assisted in transforming conceptual models of ecosystem function into specific restoration challenges, defining analytical references of the expected relationships among ecological parameters required for restoration, and specifying performance criteria for post-project monitoring and evaluation. In this way the study is an example of process-based morphological restoration designed to prompt recovery of ecosystem processes and resilience. For the Merced River, we illustrate that project-specific baseline data collection is a necessary precursor in developing performance-based restoration designs and addressing scale-related uncertainties, such as whether periodic gravel augmentation will sustain bed recovery and whether piecemeal efforts will improve ecological integrity. Given the numerous impediments to full, historical, restoration in many river systems, it seems apparent that projects of naturalization are a critical step in reducing the deleterious impacts of fragmented rivers worldwide.     

Mapping Ecological Processes and Ecosystem Services for Prioritizing Restoration Efforts in a Semi-arid Mediterranean River Basin

Semi-arid Mediterranean regions are highly susceptible to desertification processes which can reduce the benefits that people obtain from healthy ecosystems and thus threaten human wellbeing. The European Union Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 recognizes the need to incorporate ecosystem services into land-use management, conservation, and restoration actions. The inclusion of ecosystem services into restoration actions and plans is an emerging area of research, and there are few documented approaches and guidelines on how to undertake such an exercise. This paper responds to this need, and we demonstrate an approach for identifying both key ecosystem services provisioning areas and the spatial relationship between ecological processes and services. A degraded semi-arid Mediterranean river basin in north east Spain was used as a case study area. We show that the quantification and mapping of services are the first step required for both optimizing and targeting of specific local areas for restoration. Additionally, we provide guidelines for restoration planning at a watershed scale; establishing priorities for improving the delivery of ecosystem services at this scale; and prioritizing the sub-watersheds for restoration based on their potential for delivering a combination of key ecosystem services for the entire basin.     

Assessing Societal Impacts When Planning Restoration of Large Alluvial Rivers: A Case Study of the Sacramento River Project, California

Studies have shown that ecological restoration projects are more likely to gain public support if they simultaneously increase important human services that natural resources provide to people. River restoration projects have the potential to influence many of the societal functions (e.g., flood control, water quality) that rivers provide, yet most projects fail to consider this in a comprehensive manner. Most river restoration projects also fail to take into account opportunities for revitalization of large-scale river processes, focusing instead on opportunities presented at individual parcels. In an effort to avoid these pitfalls while planning restoration of the Sacramento River, we conducted a set of coordinated studies to evaluate societal impacts of alternative restoration actions over a large geographic area. Our studies were designed to identify restoration actions that offer benefits to both society and the ecosystem and to meet the information needs of agency planning teams focusing on the area. We worked with local partners and public stakeholders to design and implement studies that assessed the effects of alternative restoration actions on flooding and erosion patterns, socioeconomics, cultural resources, and public access and recreation. We found that by explicitly and scientifically melding societal and ecosystem perspectives, it was possible to identify restoration actions that simultaneously improve both ecosystem health and the services (e.g., flood protection and recreation) that the Sacramento River and its floodplain provide to people. Further, we found that by directly engaging with local stakeholders to formulate, implement, and interpret the studies, we were able to develop a high level of trust that ultimately translated into widespread support for the project.     

金属尾矿废弃地的生态恢复

尾矿废弃地是一种典型的退化生态系统。本文通过对其生态恢复所面临问题的研究，讨论了尾矿废弃地生态恢复的理论和方法，分析了使用外来物种对于尾矿废弃地这一独特的退化生态系统进行恢复的可能性，并探索了尾矿废弃地生态恢复的评价标准。     

面向管理的海洋修复工程生态绩效考核指标体系构建研究

目前国内关于海洋修复工程的考核研究多为修复工程的生态效果考核,极少包含成本效益考核,以致无法比较和分析不同类型、不同规模的海洋修复工程的生态绩效,不利于海洋修复工程的考核和验收管理。根据当前自然资源部实施“蓝色海湾”等整治修复工程的检查验收管理的新需求,本文构建了基于海洋生态系统健康恢复、生态系统服务价值增长和单位成本生态效益等理论的海洋修复工程生态绩效考核指标体系。此外,本文以温州海域2014—2016年海洋修复的生态绩效的考核为例,结合考核结果以及直接相关性、独立性、可测量性和业务化等指标选取原则,对指标体系进行了改进。结果表明本指标体系可以在海洋修复工程的检查验收中被用于生态绩效考核,管理部门可根据海洋修复工程的类型和管理需求,有选择性地采纳部分或全部指标进行考核。     

中国绿色信贷成本收益核算研究

为充分识别、量化和评估绿色信贷的成本与收益,本文从银行和社会两个角度,梳理绿色信贷的直接（间接）成本和直接（间接）收益的类型和内涵,提出全面核算绿色信贷成本与收益的一般框架,以我国21家主要商业银行2013—2017年绿色信贷实施情况为例探讨了该框架的可行性。依据该核算框架对银行的直接成本和收益、社会的直接收益进行了定量核算,对银行的间接成本和收益、社会的直接和间接成本、社会间接收益进行了定性分析。结果表明：多数商业银行施行绿色信贷能带来利润;近半数银行的绿色信贷项目收益率在全行信贷项目平均收益率之上;核算期内绿色信贷节能减排的环境效益累计达1.03万亿元,平均每万元绿色信贷投放带来253元环境效益。本文为实现绿色信贷影响的综合分析、绿色信贷环境外部性内生化提供了科学的分析方法,对政府和商业银行实施绿色信贷政策具有重要意义。     

Major Ecosystems in China: Dynamics and Challenges for Sustainable Management

Ecosystems, though impacted by global environmental change, can also contribute to the adaptation and mitigation of such large scale changes. Therefore, sustainable ecosystem management is crucial in reaching a sustainable future for the biosphere. Based on the published literature and publicly accessible data, this paper discussed the status and trends of forest, grassland, and wetland ecosystems in China that play important roles in the ecological integrity and human welfare of the nation. Ecological degradation has been observed in these ecosystems at various levels and geographic locations. Biophysical (e.g., climate change) and socioeconomic factors (e.g., intensive human use) are the main reasons for ecosystem degradation with the latter factors serving as the dominant driving forces. The three broad categories of ecosystems in China have partially recovered from degradation thanks to large scale ecological restoration projects implemented in the last few decades. China, as the largest and most populated developing nation, still faces huge challenges regarding ecosystem management in a changing and globalizing world. To further improve ecosystem management in China, four recommendations were proposed, including: (1) advance ecosystem management towards an application-oriented, multidisciplinary science; (2) establish a well-functioning national ecological monitoring and data sharing mechanism; (3) develop impact and effectiveness assessment approaches for policies, plans, and ecological restoration projects; and (4) promote legal and institutional innovations to balance the intrinsic needs of ecological and socioeconomic systems. Any change in China’s ecosystem management approach towards a more sustainable one will benefit the whole world. Therefore, international collaborations on ecological and environmental issues need to be expanded.     

对加快推进我国矿山生态修复的思考

绿色矿山建设是矿业领域践行"绿水青山就是金山银山"的重要体现。本文从矿山生态修复的内涵到外延，从问题识别到任务措施，从单一治理修复目标到生态系统功能修复目标，从矿山生态修复系统到与经济社会发展系统相结合等多个方面，系统地梳理矿山生态修复的解决路径，围绕矿业绿色发展提出一系列建议。     

Modelling the Ecological Vulnerability to Forest Fires in Mediterranean Ecosystems Using Geographic Information Technologies

Forest fires represent a major driver of change at the ecosystem and landscape levels in the Mediterranean region. Environmental features and vegetation are key factors to estimate the ecological vulnerability to fire; defined as the degree to which an ecosystem is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of fire (provided a fire occurs). Given the predicted climatic changes for the region, it is urgent to validate spatially explicit tools for assessing this vulnerability in order to support the design of new fire prevention and restoration strategies. This work presents an innovative GIS-based modelling approach to evaluate the ecological vulnerability to fire of an ecosystem, considering its main components (soil and vegetation) and different time scales. The evaluation was structured in three stages: short-term (focussed on soil degradation risk), medium-term (focussed on changes in vegetation), and coupling of the short- and medium-term vulnerabilities. The model was implemented in two regions: Aragón (inland North-eastern Spain) and Valencia (eastern Spain). Maps of the ecological vulnerability to fire were produced at a regional scale. We partially validated the model in a study site combining two complementary approaches that focused on testing the adequacy of model’s predictions in three ecosystems, all very common in fire-prone landscapes of eastern Spain: two shrublands and a pine forest. Both approaches were based on the comparison of model’s predictions with values of NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), which is considered a good proxy for green biomass. Both methods showed that the model’s performance is satisfactory when applied to the three selected vegetation types.     

Socially Strategic Ecological Restoration: A Game-Theoretic Analysis Shortened: Socially Strategic Restoration

Major transitions in a multiple-use or mosaic landscape often lead to frictions among new and existing users. In this article, we consider the problem of ecological restoration within a mosaic landscape in which restoration activities elicit feedbacks from individuals and groups that are harmed by restoration outcomes. Using game theory, we identify three potential outcomes ranked by the extent of restoration of ecosystem services and processes: nonstrategic, noncooperative strategic equilibrium, and cooperative bargaining solution. We identify conditions under which additional restoration can decrease the overall flow of ecosystem services and processes. A “strategic restorationist” will cease new restoration activities when the net effect of defensive response moves by farmers offsets gains. Imperfect information regarding expected payoffs to farmers can lead to inefficient overshooting or undershooting the optimal scale, geographical positioning, and form of restoration. Gains to all parties from cooperation might exist. As a case study and to aid model design, we consider restoration activities on California’s upper Sacramento River. An erratum to this article is available at .     

中国生态保护修复20年：回顾与展望

近20年来，中国生态保护修复事业取得长足进步，为保障国家生态安全、推进美丽中国建设提供了重要基础支撑。国家通过实施一系列生态保护修复政策和重大工程，生态保护修复取得明显进展，生态产品供给能力保持总体稳定。本文回顾了近20年中国生态保护修复发展历程，分别从国土生态空间管控、生态系统保护修复、生物多样性保护、生态文明示范建设等重点领域总结了主要进展和成效。面向建设美丽中国以及实现碳达峰碳中和目标愿景，以维护国家和区域生态安全、恢复和提升生态系统服务功能、推动生态产品价值实现为着力点，对新时期中国生态保护修复提出未来展望。     

白洋淀湿地生态修复的现实困境及解决路径探析

白洋淀湿地有"华北之肾"的称号,是京津冀地区的重要水源地之一。近年来白洋淀湿地显现出了生态退化的趋势,生态修复工作正在开展但成效不稳固。从生态系统整体性的角度全面评估白洋淀湿地的基本情况、生态修复工作开展情况,在此基础上提出生态修复过程中将会面临的问题,并提出解决路径。     

生态产品价值实现的“一村万树”绿色期权模式

随着经济的不断发展，越来越多的国家和地区开始重视绿色高质量发展，对生态产品的研究也在不断加强。各种政策工具相继出现，致力于将自然给予的生态产品资本化，并赋能经济发展。其中，衢州市柯城区的“一村万树”项目就是一种具有创新性的生态产品价值实现模式。本文对衢州市柯城区“一村万树”项目及其绿色期权模式进行研究，结合部门统计数据和空间信息数据，对“一村万树”项目实施区2018年的生态效益进行核算，并选取柯城区2010—2018年相关社会经济统计数据进行相关性分析，探析项目的社会经济效益，最后在量化分析的基础上结合公共池塘资源治理的八条设计原则，定性分析了“一村万树”绿色期权的合理性。结果显示：“一村万树”实施区2018年的生态效益为124.63亿元，约为研究区国内生产总值估算值的1.68倍，说明该项目具有巨大的生态效益；同时，相关分析结果表明该项目实施对当地第三产业的发展有较大的促进作用。柯城区“一村万树”项目以及绿色期权模式给当地带来了巨大的生态和社会经济效益，为我国的乡村绿化建设和生态产品价值实现提供了一种新范式。