BRINGING DOWN OUR DAMS: TRENDS IN AMERICAN DAM REMOVAL RATIONALES1

ABSTRACT: Over 76,000 dams have been constructed on American rivers to provide services such as flood protection, water storage, hydroelectric power, and navigation. Although most dams continue to provide sufficient benefits to retain the structure, dam removal is becoming increasingly common. This study involved the construction of a dam removal database to analyze spatial and temporal trends in dam removal. The data included information on 417 cases of dismantled American dams, 153 with known rationales for removal. Database analysis indicated that the leading purposes for dismantling structures are safety concerns and interest in environmental restoration. There is substantial geographic variability in dam removal rationales, with California leading in razing dams for environmental purposes, and Wisconsin leading in economic and safety rationales. States with substantial removals tend to have programs that support and fund dam razing. Although removals for safety reasons have been increasing steadily in the past three decades, environmental removals made a rather dramatic and sudden entry into the dam removal arena in the 1990s. Analysis of spatial and temporal trends in dam razing are of particular significance given the likely increase in dam removals in the 21st Century.     

西北地区生态用水的探讨

我国西北地区多处于干旱气候带，水资源匮乏，生态环境脆弱。为实施西北地区生态恢复与重建，必须合理开发和利用该区有限的水资源，科学地确定社会用水同生态用水的比例，积极保证生态用水，合理利用生态用水，注重生态用水的多重效益。结合西北干旱区实际情况，就这一地区生态用水的开发和利用做了分析阐述。     

Effects of Bioengineered Streambank Stabilization on Bank Habitat and Macroinvertebrates in Urban Streams

Non-structural streambank stabilization, or bioengineering, is a common stream restoration practice used to slow streambank erosion, but its ecological effects have rarely been assessed. We surveyed bank habitat and sampled bank macroinvertebrates at four bioengineered sites, an unrestored site, and a comparatively less-impacted reference site in the urban Peachtree-Nancy Creek catchment in Atlanta, GA, USA. The amount of organic bank habitat (wood and roots) was much higher at the reference site and three of the bioengineered sites than at the unrestored site or the other bioengineered site, where a very different bioengineering technique was used (“joint planting”). At all sites, we saw a high abundance of pollution-tolerant taxa, especially chironomids and oligochaetes, and a low richness and diversity of the bank macroinvertebrate community. Total biomass, insect biomass, and non-chironomid insect biomass were highest at the reference site and two of the bioengineered sites (p < 0.05). Higher biomass and abundance were found on organic habitats (wood and roots) versus inorganic habitats (mud, sand, and rock) across all sites. Percent organic bank habitat at each site proved to be strongly positively correlated with many factors, including taxon richness, total biomass, and shredder biomass. These results suggest that bioengineered bank stabilization can have positive effects on bank habitat and macroinvertebrate communities in urban streams, but it cannot completely mitigate the impacts of urbanization.     

Effects of an Experimental Enrichment of Instream Habitat Heterogeneity on the Stream Bed Morphology and Chironomid Community of a Straightened Section in a Sandy Lowland Stream

A straightened stream stretch with poor habitat heterogeneity was divided into a “control” section with a low amount of submerged woody debris and an experimentally “wood-enriched” downstream section to study the effect of enhanced habitat diversity on the benthic invertebrate community. The downstream section was enriched by fixing 25 wood packages constructed from 9–10 branches on the stream bottom. Succession processes occurring in the two stream sections were compared by chironomid exuviae drift from July to November 2000 and from April to August 2001. During the first sampling period, more drifting chironomid exuviae (medians of control vs. wood-enriched: 446 vs. 331, no significant difference) and total number of taxa (44 vs. 36, Wilcoxon signed-rank test P = 0.019) were recorded for the control section. Although species compositions of both stream sections were highly similar (Sørensen index: 0.83) the diversity in the wood-enriched section was distinctly lower compared to the control section (Shannon–Weaver index: 1.19 vs. 1.50). During the second sampling period, exuviae numbers remained higher in the control section (median: 326 vs. 166), but total numbers of taxa were nearly equal (51 vs. 49), as well as species diversity (Shannon–Weaver index: 1.67 vs. 1.64). The lower chironomid diversity observed during the first sampling period coincided with a gradual but significant change of the streambed morphology in the wood-enriched section. There, the initially more U-shaped profile (V/U = 0.81 ± 0.37) had turned into a pronounced V shape (V/U = 1.14 ± 0.21), whereas the control section retained its unaltered U shape (V/U = 0.62–0.75). This small-scale study on experimental of woody debris in sandy lowland streams showed that the negative impact of increased hydraulic disturbance of the existing streambed more than outweighed any positive impact resulting from the increase in woody debris.     

城市垃圾填埋场生态恢复工程表面覆盖材料的研究

以青岛市湖岛垃圾填埋场作为试验点,对城市垃圾填埋场生态恢复工程的表面覆盖处理技术中的材料选择进行了研究。对城市垃圾场生态恢复工程表面处理中覆盖材料的选择指标主要取决于其投入费用和生态恢复的产出效益,同时因恢复工程的设计方案和填埋地点而异。对以降低投入为优选因子或以获得植物产出效益为主要目的的设计方案,分别推荐已分解的垃圾土和砂土为覆盖材料。      

石墨矿废弃地生态复垦研究

通过现场试验和小区工程措施,研究了石墨矿废弃地的生态复垦问题并建立了复垦示范田。结果表明,通过一定的技术工程措施石墨矿废弃矿坑和尾渣堆的复垦土地的理化性质基本达到了当地农业耕地的水平。从技术、经济的角度分析,石墨矿废弃地复垦的关键是耕种层的熟土配比。经筛选后的矿渣或矿毛与熟土按1:1或1:2的比例混配都可达到生态复垦的目的,但是前者的保水、供水、供肥能力不及后者。     

无居民海岛前大连岛的原自然海岸特征

确定自然海岸特征是海岸修复中的重要内容,但是在开发后弃管的无居民海岛却面临缺少历史资料参考的困难。在大连普兰店湾中部前大连岛的研究证明,依据历史影像和现存海岸地质地貌情况可以分析确定原自然海岸位置及性质。1972年KH 卫星影像表明当时的前大连岛仍然保持自然海岸形态,海岸位置在2020年海岸后 方的岛屿陆域内部。结合2020年海岸地质考察结果可以进一步确定1972年的前大连岛东部、西部分布海蚀崖形式的基岩海岸,南部、北部则分布砾石质海岸。1972—2020年,前大连岛自然海岸全部变化为人工海岸,海岸长度也从约2.38 km 增加至约3.12 km。     

城市生态规划和生态修复中气象技术的应用研究

气候因素能够对城市生态规划和生态修复造成较大的影响,通过科学使用气象技术可以对城市生态规划进行改善,同时还能促进生态修复。本文主要对城市生态规划和生态修复中的气象技术进行分析,对气象技术在该领域的应用也做了一定的研究,旨在更好地促进城市生态规划和修复的发展。     

Scale dependency of conservation outcomes in a forest-offsetting scheme

Offset schemes help avoid or revert habitat loss through protection of existing habitat (avoided deforestation), through the restoration of degraded areas (natural regrowth), or both. The spatial scale of an offset scheme may influence which of these 2 outcomes is favored and is an important aspect of the scheme's design. However, how spatial scale influences the trade-offs between the preservation of existing habitat and restoration of degraded areas is poorly understood. We used the largest forest offset scheme in the world, which is part of the Brazilian Forest Code, to explore how implementation at different spatial scales may affect the outcome in terms of the area of avoided deforestation and area of regrowth. We employed a numerical simulation of trade between buyers (i.e., those who need to offset past deforestation) and sellers (i.e., landowners with exceeding native vegetation) in the Brazilian Amazon to estimate potential avoided deforestation and regrowth at different spatial scales of implementation. Allowing offsets over large spatial scales led to an area of avoided deforestation 12 times greater than regrowth, whereas restricting offsets to small spatial scales led to an area of regrowth twice as large as avoided deforestation. The greatest total area (avoided deforestation and regrowth combined) was conserved when the spatial scale of the scheme was small, especially in locations that were highly deforested. To maximize conservation gains from avoided deforestation and regrowth, the design of the Brazilian forest-offset scheme should focus on restricting the spatial scale in which offsets occur. Such a strategy could help ensure conservation benefits are localized and promote the recovery of degraded areas in the most threatened forest landscapes.     

Ranking Agricultural Sub-basins for Environmental Protection

Reconstructing long-term vegetation buffers along streams in agricultural landscapes has become a common environmental restoration strategy for improving water quality and wildlife habitat connectivity. This article developed a linear weighted model to rank the priority of agricultural sub-basins for the establishment of vegetative buffers. The method was applied to an agricultural watershed of 146 km2 in Ontario, Canada. The watershed was divided into 11 sub-basins as basic decision units. In each sub-basin, four stream buffer schemes with widths of 5, 10, 15 and 20m were generated. For each buffer, three benefit-cost attributes of reconstructing vegetation cover were estimated, which include acreage per dollar, sediment abatement per dollar and habitat benefit per dollar. These attributes were first normalized using a linear normalization approach to eliminate the effects across different units. The normalized attributes were then integrated using a simple additive weighting method to rank the 11 sub-basins for prioritizing spatial restoration action. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted to observe the impact of a change in attribute weights on the management decisions. The results suggest that vegetation buffers reconstructed for achieving the water quality goal are not effective in improving habitat connectivity and vice versa.