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"wetland restoration"
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Use of Remote Sensing and Field Data to Quantify the Performance and Resilience of Restored Louisiana Wetlands
Typical goals of wetland restoration efforts are to conserve, create, or enhance wetland structure, and to achieve wetland function that approaches or exceeds natural conditions. Measuring wetland establishment, condition, and resilience can be difficult, especially because monitoring wetland function has traditionally been time-intensive, costly, and often required repeat field-based surveys. Remote sensing provides novel collections of data and facilitates rapid assessments of wetland landscapes, land cover, species/habitat composition, change detection, degradation, diversity, as well as system threats and pressures. A combination of remotely collected and in situ vegetation data were used in conjunction with landscape metrics and vegetative indices. These data were used to evaluate and compare changes and trends in condition, function and resilience of restoration sites and reference wetlands in southwest Louisiana, USA. Results of this work show the restored wetlands reached structural and functional equivalency to reference wetlands after approximately three to ten years post-construction. With adequate maturity, the restored wetlands outperformed the reference wetlands, having higher percentage of land, land aggregation, aboveground vegetation productivity and floristic quality. Supplementing traditional field-based methods with remote sensing applications provided enhanced metrics for inventorying and monitoring of wetland resources, forecasting of resource condition and stability, and adaptive management strategies.
Journal Article
Valuation of Wetland Restoration: Evidence from the Housing Market in Arkansas
This paper investigates the impact of the Wetland Reserve Program utilizing the residential housing and wetland easement data to estimate the benefit of wetland restoration in Arkansas. The environmental benefits of alternative agricultural management practices are underestimated and largely ignored by agriculture producers and beneficiaries. Governments at various levels have developed programs to provide appropriate economic incentives to optimize agricultural production and environmental benefits. Based on a quasi-experimental approach and an event study design, our results indicated that there is a statistically significant increase in property values near the wetland restoration sites and the estimated increase ranges from 6% to 10%.
Journal Article
Using Remote Sensing to Select and Monitor Wetland Restoration Sites: An Overview
Klemas, V., 2013. Using remote sensing to select and monitor wetland restoration sites: an overview. Coastal and estuarine wetlands represent highly productive and critical habitats for a wide variety of plants and animals and provide protection from storms and wave damage. However, wetland acreage in the continental United States has been steadily decreasing mainly as a result of human activities and sea level rise. Major efforts are being made by federal, state, and local agencies to protect existing wetlands, restore lost wetlands, and improve those stressed by human activities. The restoration process can involve removing exotic plants, removing bulkheads and fill, elevation grading, creating flushing channels, and planting native vegetation. Having developed criteria for selecting wetland sites to be restored or enhanced, wetland managers must prioritize the sites based on ecological and economic considerations. Remote sensing techniques can provide a cost-effective means for selecting restoration sites and observing their progress over time. The objective of this paper is to review airborne and satellite remote sensing techniques for identifying suitable wetland restoration sites and monitoring their progress.
Journal Article
Long-Term Assessment of Alternative Strategies for the Restoration of Floodplain Forest in the Presence of an Invasive Grass, Phalaris arundinacea
In 1998, a 6.1-ha wetland restoration project along the Rock River, IL, USA was designed to test five afforestation methods on former agricultural land, including planting bareroot trees, balled-and-burlapped trees, seedlings, acorns, or allowing natural regeneration. Fifteen years later, we assessed vegetation at the site to determine the effectiveness of alternative strategies and compare treatments to an adjacent floodplain forest. We also compared the cost of treatments to determine whether long-term restoration outcomes justified initial costs. After 15 years, lower cost treatments (acorn plantings and passive restoration) were dominated by dense reed canarygrass (
Phalaris arundinacea
) with sparse trees, whereas higher cost treatments (bareroot and balled-and-burlapped tree plantings) had developed closed tree canopies, and tended to have greater plant species richness, tree basal area, and density of stems >7.5-cm diameter. For every additional $10,000 per ha spent on restoration, predicted richness increased by 1 species per 250-m
2
plot, predicted
P. arundinacea
biomass decreased by 61 g m
−2
, and predicted tree basal area increased by 3 m
2
ha
−1
. Although some studies have indicated that passive regeneration alone is effective for afforestation, restoration of floodplains in the presence of
P. arundinacea
will require a more intensive approach.
Journal Article
Floristic and Macroinvertebrate Responses to Different Wetland Restoration Techniques in Southeastern Wisconsin
Assessments of wetland restoration quality, especially comparisons among restoration techniques, are essential to adaptive management, but are rarely reported. We evaluated wetlands in southeastern Wisconsin that were restored using different hydrological techniques along with wetlands in two reference groups: wetlands without hydrological modification and Waterfowl Production Areas. Our objectives were 1) to compare condition of wetlands using indices for plant communities and macroinvertebrates and 2) evaluate provisioning of macroinvertebrates for waterfowl broods as a measure of habitat quality. Overall, floristic quality of sedge meadows and emergent marshes was poor in restored wetlands (weighted mean C-values were 1.55 ± 0.13 (SE) and 1.47 ± 0.25, respectively); however, sedge meadow quality was greater in wetlands without surface modification (weighted mean C-value = 3.43 ± 0.82). On a scale from “excellent” to “very poor”, we classified condition of open water communities as “good” based on the macroinvertebrate index across all restoration categories. Density and abundance of macroinvertebrate taxa preferred by waterfowl broods were similar across restoration categories and indicated that wetland basins provide ample food resources. We recommend that conservation planners and wetland managers state quantifiable, appropriate objectives for restoration ahead of implementation and address conflicting objectives with stakeholders.
Journal Article
Plant Diversity and Soil Properties at Different Wetland Restoration Stages along a Major River in the Arid Northwest of China
Agricultural activity is widely recognized as one of the leading drivers of natural wetland loss in many parts of the world. The suitability of farmland abandonment as the wetland restoration has not been well studied in arid regions. The plant growth, community structure and soil property were examined in three farmlands abandoned for 2 (W2), 6 (W6) and 15 (W15) years and reference wetland (Wr) in the Zhangye National Wetland Park in Gansu province. The results showed that the plant abundance, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, soil water content increased and pH value decreased along the wetland restoration stages. Shannon-Wiener diversity and Pielou’s evenness index moved towards natural wetland with increasing time of farmland abandonment, the plant community composition of the three abandoned farmlands also changed from annual to perennial dominant species. The farmland abandonment is conducive to improve soil nutrients and quality. Soil and vegetation facilitated one another in the abandonment stages. Thus, farmland abandonment is rational for wetland restoration. The mechanism of interaction between plant and soil can be used to guide wetland restoration of abandoned farmland.
Journal Article
Quantifying Functional Increases Across a Large-Scale Wetland Restoration Chronosequence
Over 300,000 ha of forested wetlands have undergone restoration within the Mississippi Alluvial Valley region. Restored forest successional stage varies, providing opportunities to document wetland functional increases across a large scale restoration chronosequence using the Hydrogeomorphic (HGM) approach. Results from >600 restored study sites spanning a 25 year chronosequence indicate that: 1) wetland functional assessment variables increased toward reference conditions; 2) restored wetlands generally follow expected recovery trajectories; and 3) wetland functions display significant improvements across the restoration chronosequence. A functional lag between restored areas and mature reference wetlands persists in most instances. However, a subset of restored sites have attained mature reference wetland conditions in areas approaching or exceeding tree diameter and canopy closure thresholds. Study results highlight the importance of site selection and the benefits of evaluating a suite of wetland functions in order to identify appropriate restoration success milestones and design monitoring programs. For example wetland functions associated with detention of precipitation (a largely physical process) rapidly increased under post restoration conditions, while improvements in wetland habitat functions (associated with forest establishment and maturation) required additional time. As the wetland science community transitions towards larger scale restoration efforts, effectively quantifying restoration functional improvements will become increasingly important.
Journal Article