Expanding marine protected areas to include degraded coral reefs

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a commonly applied solution to coral reef degradation, yet coral reefs continue to decline worldwide. We argue that expanding the range of MPAs to include degraded reefs (DR‐MPA) could help reverse this trend. This approach requires new ecological criteria for MPA design, siting, and management. Rather than focusing solely on preserving healthy reefs, our approach focuses on the potential for biodiversity recovery and renewal of ecosystem services. The new criteria would help identify sites with the highest potential for recovery and the greatest resistance to future threats (e.g., increased temperature and acidification) and sites that contribute to MPA connectivity. The DR‐MPA approach is a compliment rather than a substitute for traditional MPA design approaches. We believe that the DR‐MPA approach can enhance the natural, or restoration‐assisted, recovery of DRs and their ecosystem services; increase total reef area available for protection; promote more resilient and better‐connected MPA networks; and improve conditions for human communities dependent on MPA ecosystem services.     

Ecosystems,Ecological Restoration,and Economics: Does Habitat or Resource Equivalency Analysis Mean Other Economic Valuation Methods Are Not Needed?

Coastal and other area resources such as tidal wetlands, seagrasses, coral reefs, wetlands, and other ecosystems are often harmed by environmental damage that might be inflicted by human actions, or could occur from natural hazards such as hurricanes. Society may wish to restore resources to offset the harm, or receive compensation if this is not possible, but faces difficult choices among potential compensation projects. The optimal amount of restoration efforts can be determined by non-market valuation methods, service-to-service, or resource-to-resource approaches such as habitat equivalency analysis (HEA). HEA scales injured resources and lost services on a one-to-one trade-off basis. Here, we present the main differences between the HEA approach and other non-market valuation approaches. Particular focus is on the role of the social discount rate, which appears in the HEA equation and underlies calculations of the present value of future damages. We argue that while HEA involves elements of economic analysis, the assumption of a one-to-one trade-off between lost and restored services sometimes does not hold, and then other non-market economic valuation approaches may help in restoration scaling or in damage determination.     

废弃地的景观与生态恢复研究

废弃地是一种对生态环境造成重大破坏并且造成土地资源浪费的土地类型,如何进行合理的改造以形成可持续的土地利用模式是十分棘手的问题.利用新乡市北站区世利生态园的废弃地改造项目进行了废弃地"变废为宝"的探索,对合理进行废弃地的景观与生态恢复进行了较为深入的研究.通过对该废弃地现状的分析,得出对其进行合理的景观与生态恢复迫在眉睫.依据景观设计与生态恢复的理论、方法与原则,提出了景观恢复与生态恢复的具体措施,该措施可满足废弃地在自然生态、景观、经济和社会发展等方面可持续发展的要求.      

三峡库区乐天溪流域生态修复效果的遥感监测研究

论文利用多时相LandsatTM E/TM影像、文献和野外调查资料,从土地利用类型与结构、植被覆盖度、土壤侵蚀等方面对三峡库区乐天溪流域生态修复效果进行了定量研究。结果表明:通过5年的生态修复,乐天溪流域林草覆盖率由1997年的80.6%增加到2002年的83.23%,不仅林草覆盖率增长,而且林地质量有较大提高,覆盖度较高的林地和灌丛面积增幅达18.1%和9.1%,相反,疏林面积减少37.9%。流域土地利用结构明显有好转,结构基本合理,相对合理指数由0.76上升到0.81。土地利用结构的改善使得流域土壤侵蚀强度大为降低,微度、中度和强度土壤侵蚀面积分别减少11.49、26.43和4.61km₂,流域平均侵蚀模数由1999年的1562.5tk/m₂降为2002年的870.7t/km₂。生态修复效果显著,但在实际工作中生态修复也需要人工的合理干预。     

A SYSTEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE CONSTRAINTS TO URBAN STREAM ENHANCEMENTS1

ABSTRACT: The environment surrounding urban streams imposes constraints upon stream enhancement projects. Constraints include bridges, culverts, highways, sewer and water lines, lack of easements, and other floodplain structures. The consequences of failure of these infrastructure constraints can be significant and should be considered in the design process. Fault tree analysis provides a systematic technique for analyzing the interactions of events that could lead to infrastructure failure. A case study of a stream in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, shows that fault tree analysis can effectively model the interactions between the stream system and the infrastructure constraints and predict the most likely modes of failure. In addition, the relative success of alternative designs and failure mitigation techniques can be assessed using this analysis tool, lending insight into the urban stream enhancement design process. The method could also provide justification in the design permitting process and input for risk assessment.     

INCORPORATING UNCERTAINTY IN THE DESIGN OF STREAM CHMNEL MODIFICATIONS1

ABSTRACT: The designs of stream channel naturalization, rehabilitation, and restoration projects are inherently fraught with uncertainty. Although a systematic approach to design can be described, the likelihood of success or failure of the design is unknown due to uncertainties within the design and implementation process. In this paper, a method for incorporating uncertainty in decision‐making during the design phase is presented that uses a decision analysis method known as Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA). The approach is applied to a channel rehabilitation project in north‐central Pennsylvania. FMEA considers risk in terms of the likelihood of a component failure, the consequences of failure, and the level of difficulty required to detect failure. Ratings developed as part of the FMEA can provide justification for decision making in determining design components that require particular attention to prevent failure of the project and the appropriate compensating actions to be taken.     

Benefits of Investing in Ecosystem Restoration

Measures aimed at conservation or restoration of ecosystems are often seen as net‐cost projects by governments and businesses because they are based on incomplete and often faulty cost‐benefit analyses. After screening over 200 studies, we examined the costs (94 studies) and benefits (225 studies) of ecosystem restoration projects that had sufficient reliable data in 9 different biomes ranging from coral reefs to tropical forests. Costs included capital investment and maintenance of the restoration project, and benefits were based on the monetary value of the total bundle of ecosystem services provided by the restored ecosystem. Assuming restoration is always imperfect and benefits attain only 75% of the maximum value of the reference systems over 20 years, we calculated the net present value at the social discount rates of 2% and 8%. We also conducted 2 threshold cum sensitivity analyses. Benefit‐cost ratios ranged from about 0.05:1 (coral reefs and coastal systems, worst‐case scenario) to as much as 35:1 (grasslands, best‐case scenario). Our results provide only partial estimates of benefits at one point in time and reflect the lower limit of the welfare benefits of ecosystem restoration because both scarcity of and demand for ecosystem services is increasing and new benefits of natural ecosystems and biological diversity are being discovered. Nonetheless, when accounting for even the incomplete range of known benefits through the use of static estimates that fail to capture rising values, the majority of the restoration projects we analyzed provided net benefits and should be considered not only as profitable but also as high‐yielding investments. Beneficios de Invertir en la Restauración de Ecosistemas     

Assessing Changes in Amphibian Population Dynamics Following Experimental Manipulations of Introduced Fish

Abstract: Sport‐fish introductions are now recognized as an important cause of amphibian decline, but few researchers have quantified the demographic responses of amphibians to current options in fisheries management designed to minimize effects on sensitive amphibians. Demographic analyses with mark–recapture data allow researchers to assess the relative importance of survival, local recruitment, and migration to changes in population densities. I conducted a 4‐year, replicated whole‐lake experiment in the Klamath Mountains of northern California (U.S.A.) to quantify changes in population density, survival, population growth rate, and recruitment of the Cascades frog (Rana cascadae) in response to manipulations of non‐native fish populations. I compared responses of the frogs in lakes where fish were removed, in lakes in their naturally fish‐free state, and in lakes where fish remained that were either stocked annually or no longer being stocked. Within 3 years of fish removals from 3 lakes, frog densities increased by a factor of 13.6. The survival of young adult frogs increased from 59% to 94%, and realized population growth and recruitment rates at the fish‐removal lakes were more than twice as high as the rates for fish‐free reference lakes and lakes that contained fish. Population growth in the fish‐removal lakes was likely due to better on‐site recruitment of frogs to later life stages rather than increased immigration. The effects on R. cascadae of suspending stocking were ambiguous and suggested no direct benefit to amphibians. With amphibians declining worldwide, these results show that active restoration can slow or reverse the decline of species affected by fish stocking within a short time frame.     

Carbon Payments and Low‐Cost Conservation

Abstract: A price on carbon is expected to generate demand for carbon offset schemes. This demand could drive investment in tree‐based monocultures that provide higher carbon yields than diverse plantings of native tree and shrub species, which sequester less carbon but provide greater variation in vegetation structure and composition. Economic instruments such as species conservation banking, the creation and trading of credits that represent biological‐diversity values on private land, could close the financial gap between monocultures and more diverse plantings by providing payments to individuals who plant diverse species in locations that contribute to conservation and restoration goals. We studied a highly modified agricultural system in southern Australia that is typical of many temperate agriculture zones globally (i.e., has a high proportion of endangered species, high levels of habitat fragmentation, and presence of non‐native species). We quantified the economic returns from agriculture and from carbon plantings (monoculture and mixed tree and shrubs) under six carbon‐price scenarios. We also identified high‐priority locations for restoration of cleared landscapes with mixed tree and shrub carbon plantings. Depending on the price of carbon, direct annual payments to landowners of AU$7/ha/year to $125/ha/year (US$6–120/ha/year) may be sufficient to augment economic returns from a carbon market and encourage tree plantings that contribute more to the restoration of natural systems and endangered species habitats than monocultures. Thus, areas of high priority for conservation and restoration may be restored relatively cheaply in the presence of a carbon market. Overall, however, less carbon is sequestered by mixed native tree and shrub plantings.