Historical Information for Ecological Restoration in Estuaries and Coastal Ecosystems
Historical Information for Ecological Restoration in Estuaries and Coastal Ecosystems
The appropriate role of historical information in ecosystem restoration is a topic of debate within restoration ecology, as the discipline and the practice of restoration adapt to keep up with the increasing demands and challenges of multiple human impacts and global climate change. Whereas historical data have traditionally been used to define restoration baselines and criteria for success, current practice emphasizes a less prescriptive and more process-based interpretation of historical data. In addition to these traditional applications, in this chapter, Keryn Gedan, Denise L Breitburg, Robin Grossinger, and Torben C. Rick describe the broader use of historical information to describe landscape processes and linkages and understand ecosystem trajectories and controls by examining historical responses of ecosystems to human impacts, disturbances, and climate changes. Historical ecology can also inform restoration sustainability and the identification of novel ecosystems. Despite the challenges of restoring ecosystems within larger, often highly modified landscapes and the need to manage ecosystems to be resilient to global environmental change, ecosystem restorations make sense only in the light of history.
Keywords: ecological restoration, historical ecology, estuaries, baselines, novel ecosystems
California Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
