Presentation dealing with the principles and goals of restoration activities with case study

1. RESTORATION ECOLOGY IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES
G. KANTHARAJAN
AEM-PA6-01
ICAR-CIFE, Mumbai

2. How individuals are affected by/ affects
Environment
Composition and structure of
community
Presence/absence, Abundance/rarity
among population
 nothing is ever perfectly balanced - 'relatively stable state'
 Up and Down but not upwards or downwards trend
Biotic: Plants and
animals
Abiotic: soil, water, air,
light, temperature, the
climate
Balanced (Homeostasis)
Cell
Tissue
Organ
Individual Organisms
Population
Community
ECOLOGY

3. IF IT CONTINUES…
Structure of Ecosystem:
a description of the organisms and physical features of environment, amount and distribution of
nutrients
range of climatic conditions prevailing in the area
2 basic components:
1. Abiotic Components:
Inorganic substances – C, N, P etc…
Organic substances – Carbohydrate, Protein, Lipid etc…
Air, water, substrate and climate regime
Radiant energy of sun
2. Biotic Components:
• Producers
• Macro consumers (Phagotrophs)
• Micro consumers (Saprotrophs; decomposers)

4. Functions
(1) energy of sun
(2) organic materials from inorganic ones by producers
(3) Consumption of producers by consumers
(4) After the death - complex organic compounds are degraded and finally
converted by decomposers
The principal steps in the operation of ecosystem not only involve the
production, growth and death of living components but also influence the
abiotic aspects of habitat.
The two ecological processes— energy flow and mineral cycling which involve
interaction between biotic and abiotic components lie at the heart of ecosystem
dynamics.
In this transfer there is a progressive decrease of energy but nutrient
component is not diminished and it shows cycling from abiotic to biotic and vice
versa.

5. Need for Restoration Ecology…
Threatened species in India (IUCN red list)
2008 – 659 sp
2013 – 973 sp
2014 – 988 sp
64% OF WORLD’S WETLANDS DISAPPEARED
SINCE 1900 (RAMSAR, 2015)

6. • Restore v. to make almost as good as new; to give back
• Research and study of restored populations, communities & ecosystems
• the scientific study supporting the practice of ecological restoration
“the practice of renewing and restoring degraded, damaged, or destroyed
ecosystems and habitats in the environment by active human intervention and
action”
• emerged as a separate field in ecology in the 1980s
• Restoration ecology, as a scientific discipline, is theoretically rooted in conservation
biology
RESTORATION ECOLOGY

7. Concepts Underpinning Goals of RE
Disturbance
Many scales and different levels of Severity
Natural parts of every ecosystem
alter species composition, nutrient cycling & soil properties
Natural - weather damage, fire, flooding, treefalls and even volcanic
eruptions.
Anthropogenic - can alter or destroy natural habitat (like clearing land for
agriculture) and/or ecological functions (like damming rivers for flood
control).

8. FAQ during/after the Disturbance…
If uni-directional change acts faster than the organisms' ability to
adapt their tolerances;
- the system will not be sufficiently resistant
- full recovery through succession not possible – Not
resilience
(1) Will the species of this system be able to tolerate it ? (implying resistance)
(2) Is recovery possible through a successional trajectory, back to the same,
or at least a desirable, ecosystem state (implying resilience)?

9. Resistance Resilience
 property of communities to remain
"essentially unchanged" when subject to
disturbance
 Show little impact due to repeated
disturbances over time
 Ability to return to a former successional
trajectory after being degraded or
deflected by outside disturbances.
 Immediately impacted by even low
intensity disturbances
 Disturbance without loss  Capacity to recover from a disturbance
after incurring losses
 No internal re-organization and
successional change is needed
 System is internally re-organizing, perhaps
through a mozaic of patches that are at
different stages of re-assembly
 Loss of resistance can’t display early-
warning signals of a collapse
 Loss of resilience can display early-warning
signals of a collapse

10. Resistant VS Resilient

11. features of natural communities that contribute to resilience…
*ecosystem recovery (the point at which the habitat is
functioning normally) from disturbance
*resistance to alterations
*reversibility of ecosystem changes

12. Indicative recovery periods after oiling
*The goal of a restoration project may be to ‘’initiate or speed the recovery of an ecosystem
after disturbance’’
*designed to re-establish natural disturbance regimes

13. Ecosystem function
the foundational processes of natural systems - nutrient cycles and
energy fluxes
most basic and essential components of ecosystems
An understanding of the full complexity and intricacies of these cycles
is necessary to address any ecological processes that may be degraded
A functional ecosystem is completely self-perpetuating (i.e. no
management required), is the ultimate goal of restorative efforts

14. Fragmentation
the emergence of spatial discontinuities in a
biological system
land use changes and "natural" disturbance
Small fragments of habitat  small populations 
vulnerable to extinction
decreases interior habitat
edge of a fragment has a different range of
environmental conditions - different species than
the interior

15. Contd…
reduction in interior habitat -
extinction of those species which
require interior habitat
Restorative projects can increase the
effective size of a habitat by simply
adding area or by planting habitat
corridors
Reversing the effects of
fragmentation and increasing habitat
connectivity are central goals of
restoration ecology

16. Succession
‘’process by which biological community composition- the number
and proportion of different species in an ecosystem- recover over time
following a disturbance event’’
i) Passive restoration - simply allowing natural succession to occur - after
removing a source of disturbance
- The recovery of the deciduous forests in the eastern United
States after the abandonment of agriculture
ii) Active restoration involves accelerating the process or attempting to
change the trajectory of succession
- Mine tailings would take so long to recover passively that
active restoration is usually appropriate

17. Restoration or Succession

18. Options in restoration
Rehabilitation:
“the action of restoring a thing to a previous condition or status.” but something that
is rehabilitated is not expected to be in as original or healthy a state as if it had been restored.
Remediation: act of “to rectify, to make good.” but emphasis is
on the process than on the endpoint
Reclamation: “the making of land fit for cultivation.” (reclaim = to bring back to a proper state.” but
There is no implication of returning to an original state but rather to a useful one
Replacement: “to provide or procure a substitute or equivalent in place of”
Mitigation:
“to appease... So although mitigation can be an outcome of
restoration it is a separate consideration

19. Reference
Ecosystem

20. Reference ecosystem
a. A reference ecosystem can serve as the model for planning an ecological
restoration project, and later serve in the evaluation of that project (The Society
for Ecological Restoration, 2004).
b. a point of advanced development that lies somewhere along the intended
trajectory of the restoration.
c. consist of one or several specified sites
d. A reference is best assembled from multiple reference sites

21. How to Define Reference Ecosystems?
• ecological descriptions and species lists of similar intact or historical
ecosystems
• herbarium and museum specimens
• historical accounts and oral histories by persons familiar with the project site
prior to damage (e.g., expert review)
• historical and recent aerial and ground-level photographs

22. Dynamic Reference
Defining reference conditions is a challenge in the contemporary
landscape
• Impacts of human activities
• Environmental changes including climate change, species invasion, etc.
change of both reference conditions and restored sites are
measured simultaneously and are statistically evaluated.

23. • rehabilitation and replacement - offering something different, may
provide an endpoint that is more valuable than what was there in the
first place
• In the heavily developed agricultural land of Britain, sand and gravel
workings left to fill with water have contributed enormously to the
diversity of wildlife and landscape in many areas.
- This is valuable reclamation; however, it is not true
restoration although there may be restoration of particular attributes such
as biodiversity.
Something worthy???

24. Ten Hypotheses for Restoration & Rehabilitation Ecology
1. Beyond one or more thresholds of irreversibility, ecosystem degradation is
irreversible without structural interventions
2. The more thresholds passed, the more time and energy will be required
3. Without massive intervention, restoration will proceed only as far as the next
highest threshold in the process of vegetation change or succession
4. Beta diversity and life form ranges decline with ecosystem degradation, while
alpha diversity temporarily increases
5. The loss of keystone species speeds degradation more than the loss of other
species

25. 6. The reintroduction of keystone species should accelerate rehabilitation
- by facilitating the intro. of native species
7. Water and nitrogen use efficiency and nutrient cycling times decrease
with ecosystem degradation
8. Diversity of soil biota and their compatibility with extant higher plants
decrease with ecosystem retrogression.
9. Between a floor and a ceiling of a given phase of retrogression,
resistance increases but resilience decreases.
10. The rate of recovery in restoration 1/∞ structural and functional
complexity of the ecosystem

26. The Process…
• first step is to restore soils and hydrology to some functional level
• conducive to the reintroduction of higher order plants and animals
• we can rebuild the conditions of the habitats to closely resemble - initiate a self-
sustaining process
• Introduce plants and animals
• Take care of threat of invasive species
• species succession

28. Components of restoration
• Essentially three matters will need attention:
(i) Remodelling the physical aspects of the
habitat
(ii) Remodelling the chemical aspects, nutrients,
and toxicity
(iii) replacing missing species or removing
undesirable exotics
what is required will depend on what is wrong…

29. • acid land left after coal mining will require liming
• raw inert materials left to be soils will require nutrients
• lakes overcharged with phosphorus may require mud pumping
• lost species may require
reintroduction
• acid land left after coal mining will
require liming
• raw inert materials left to be soils will require nutrients
• lakes overcharged with phosphorus may require mud pumping;
• lost species may require reintroduction
• acid land left after coal mining will require liming
• raw inert materials left to be soils will require nutrients
• lakes overcharged with phosphorus
may require mud pumping
• lost species may require reintroduction
• acid land left after coal mining will require liming
• raw inert materials left to be soils
will require nutrients
• lakes overcharged with phosphorus may require mud pumping;
• lost species may require reintroduction

30. forest ecosystem - 500 yr for age structure
5000 yr – for achieving original soil structure
biological functions of a soil can be restored in less than 10 yr.
Possible to restore the functions fairly completely, but original structure?

31. Use of natural processes
- harnessed to help restoration – decide - should be used
wherever possible,
1. they cost nothing in themselves (although they may cost something to
initiate)
2. self sustaining because they originate from within nature (although they may
need nurturing in some situations)
3. they can be used on a large scale
(achieve full restoration but take a long time and need to be assisted)

32. Preservation vs Conservation vs Restoration
• Preservation* - an area set aside and
protected in its pristine, natural state.
• Conservation* – Some resource use is
unavoidable; Attempts trying to
minimize the unsustainable use of
resources
• Restoration – Return a degraded
resource to its original state
* Less Cost effective

33. Restoration Ecology vs Ecological Restoration
the science of restoration
A Scientific discipline
the practice of restoration.
A Societal activity
Restoration Ecology vs Conservation Biology
Traits CB RE
 Mind set  (Threats of) permanent
losses
 Long-term recovery
 Dominant organizational
levels
 Genetic, population  Community,
ecosystem
 Dominant taxon  Vertebrate animals  Plants
 Dominant conceptual theme  Population viability and
dynamics
 Succession and
assembly
 Dominant mode of inquiry  Decriptive and modeling  Experimental

34. How to Measure Restoration Success
The society for Ecological Restoration (SER) International had produced
the list of nine parameters to measure the restoration success in 2004,
1. Similar diversity & community structure in comparison with reference sites,
2. Presence of indigenous species,
3. Presence of groups which are necessary for long term stability,
4. physical environments capacity to sustain reproducing populations,
5. normal functioning,
6. integration with the landscape,
7. elimination of potential threats,
8. resilience to natural disturbances
9. Self-sustainability

35. Some successful restoration projects in India
• the Yamuna Biodiversity Park which is a collaborative effort of Delhi
Development Authority and Centre for Environmental Management of
Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE), University of Delhi contains flora and
fauna which used to exist 100 years ago and now extinct locally (DDA
website).
• Mangrove restoration in Andhra Pradesh, India
• In Odisha, the Chilka Lake was restored and salinity and biodiversity was
revived (UNEP website).

36. Case Study : Mangrove Restoration In Andhra
Pradesh
Original Ecosystem: The total area - 58,263 ha (33,263.32 ha are in Godavari and
24,999.47 ha area in Krishna)
Type of Degradation: Extractive Industries, Fisheries & Aquaculture, Infrastructure
Disturbances
Degradation Description
Until 1972, mangroves were clear felled - not been able to regenerate due to
topographic changes.
Krishna river - heavily utilized - reduction in fresh water flow
The rapid siltation and pollution of Kakinada Bay - increased developmental
activities and the establishment of fertilizer units - effluents are being discharge -
ammonium and nitrate in bay waters – low depth leads to reduced lateral mixing
Anthropogenic activities - firewood, fodder, fencing, house construction, thatching
and fishing poles.
Mangrove forests are also being converted into aquaculture ponds, salt pans and
paddy fields with increasing frequency.

37. Project Desc: MSSRF, Chennai
Funding Source: India-Canada Environment Facility (ICEF)
Period : 1997 – 2004
Fund : About 2 billion
Stakeholder Involvement:
“Microplans” - respective villages for the
Mangrove Management Units (MMU) – includes degraded and pristine
mangroves for management each Village Level Institution (VLI).
The VLIs were trained in nursery raising and digging canals, and the
restoration activity was carried out with the cooperation.

38. Survey - to identify the degraded areas
Digging of canals to reduce salinity, facilitate tidal flushing, and drain
stagnant water
A fishbone design - to facilitate easy inflow and outflow of tidal water
The main canals were dug at an angle of 45º to the natural creek, and the
side canals were dug at an angle of 30 º to the main canal.
The canals were dug in a trapezoidal shape - plant the saplings at the mid
level of the canal - to ensure that the plants receive tidal water
The distance between side canals was 12.5 m during the first year of
plantation; however, in subsequent years, this distance was reduced to 8 m
in order to ensure a dense canopy.
Project Activities
PHYSICAL MODIFICATION

39. 1 2
3
4
http://www.globalrestorationnetwork.org/uploads/files/CaseStudyAttachments/60_andhra-pradesh-1.jpg

40. After a buffer period of three months - plantation
The planting was done in October and November, after the southwest
monsoon, as the influx of rainwater during this period reduces the salinity of
the soil – (Utilization of Natural Process)
The eight-month-old saplings were planted along the slopes of the canals
(20-25 cm from the top) with a gap of 2 m
The species Avicennia marina, Avicennia officinalis and Excoecaria agallocha
were selected for planting, as these species tolerate a wide range of salinity.
Aegiceras corniculatum, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Rhizophora apiculata,
Rhizophora mucronata and Xylocarpus moluccensis were also planted in
order to ensure genetic diversity.
BIOLOGICAL MODIFICATION

41. A total area of 520 ha of degraded mangroves was restored in the Godavari and
Krishna mangroves.
Initially the growth rate of new seedlings was slow, but after 2 to 3 years their
growth rate had improved.
The bio-diversity of the area has been positively impacted by the restoration - The
crab population in the restored areas has increased due to the increased water
regime. As biodiversity has improved and the denuded patches have been
covered with mangroves, populations of larger animals like otters have also
increased substantially. In addition to this, the bird population has shown an
increase since the project began.
With the improvements made in hydrology, further degradation of mangroves
has stopped. Mangroves are now naturally regenerating, and the canopy cover
has become denser, as evidenced by remote sensing.
An area of 9,442 ha – long term management
RECOVERY

42. PRO ARGUMENTS
1. Provides a way to reclaim degraded lands to a higher level of ecological
functioning, benefiting both humans and wildlife.
2. Ecological restoration sites, especially those in otherwise urban
landscapes, are often high-profile installations that may serve to increase
public awareness of many environmental issues
3. Ecological restoration provides an alternative to financial penalties

43. CON ARGUEMENTS
I. Restoration is always next to preservation
II. Expensive if done effectively and many times fail to meet
expectations
III. Ecological restoration, in some cases, is done largely for aesthetic
reasons and does little to restore full ecological functioning
IV. In many cases, overseers of restoration projects have little
information about the original state of a habitat - guesses
V. Media miscommunications about successful restoration projects
may serve to undermine support for other conservation efforts.

44. REFERENCES
• Bradshaw, A. D., 1996. Underlying principles of restoration. Can. J. Fish. Aquat.
Sci. 53 Suppl (1), 3-9.
• Young, Truman P., 2000. Restoration ecology and conservation biology. Biological
Conservation (92), 73-83.
• Hobbs, R. J. and Harris, J. A., 2001. Restoration Ecology: Repairing the Earth’s
Ecosystems in the New Millennium. Restoration Ecology Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 239–246.
• Society for Ecological Restoration International (SER) , Foundations of restoration
ecology / edited by Donald A. Falk, Margaret A. Palmer, and Joy B. Zedler ;
foreword by Richard J. Hobbs. p. cm. — (Science and practice of ecological
restoration)
• http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/1373/1406592/Regional_Updates/update31.html
• Vaughn, K. J., Porensky, L. M., Wilkerson, M. L., Balachowski, J., Peffer, E.,
Riginos, C. and Young, T. P. (2010) Restoration Ecology. Nature Education
Knowledge 3(10):66
• http://www.globalrestorationnetwork.org/database/case-study/?id=60

45. THANK YOU