Ecological restoration knowledge field
The science behind and fact-base ecological restoration started to develop as an independt field somewhere in the 1980ties. Since then a lot has been achieved , but we are not there yet. The systematic studies of the restoration results show that the restored systems differ fro the original, non-degraded ones. We are gaining a better understanding of the biochemical and ecological processes that are constrains and dirving factors of the restoration succes, and we are improving the methods how to mediate those proceses. However we observe that the reality is not as simple as we once thought. The solutions are not always working and the copy-paste of the 'best practices' is not always effective or the best thing to do. There are several issues: sometimes we do know what is most likely the driving factor , but its not possible or too expensive or socially unaccaptable to manipulate the most important factor. What is left is to adjust other factors, which can e.g. slow down the rate of degradation, or even stop the decline in quality , but is not sufficient to make a shift to a recovering system. Already in the 1990s there was a model developed, which presented restoration as a hysteresis proces, where a certain treshold level of a change has to be achieved before the system is 'pushed back' to the different state (recovering into less degraded state). This was would be a reason to incorporate an 'overshiooting' in terms of expected outcomes of actions to actually reach the outcome close to the anticipated goals.
Concernign the gaps - the scientific developments do not reach the practitioners or managers quickly. It was once proposed that it takes about 10-20 years for a new concpet to percolate to the field application level. Recently this time gets shorter as the communication is faster and more attantion is given to dissemination - but quite often we see that a the time that new concept takes up among the practitioners, the scientist are already further and sometimes see a need for adjustments and adapting the original ideas.
Also in some sectors still very old ideas are hold as a standard. This means that the generally accapted concepts of 30-50 yr ago are still a base for the decisions - while our science and understanding is much further. A problem is that its not operational, that there is a inertia in the field, and siply that people resist change (for a psychological reasons).
Regarding the knowldge gaps related to restoring land there are several areas:
- integration of the disciplines and fully understanding the processes : infomation is often strictly one discipline , and as a results do not fully capture the complexity and the working of the systems. Consequently the driving factors are not well identified and when not addressed - the restortion will not be effective
- restoring the processes and functions as pre-requisite of creating the systems supporting biodiversity and services. We shoudl move to restore the matrix and the the driving processes instead of restoring the visual character , or selected species , or particular selected (eg abiottic) quality of a site .
- very close to the previous one : many restoration approaches do not incorporate the context and wider scope where the restoration is happaning. Often this si a limited size area - but what defines and constrains the driving factors for success at this spot - might be located outseide project area - or even far away - it may involve a fast working or long term processes. This all depends on the ecosystem type , landscape, local and histroical context, severity of degradation, and also on social context. This can be addressed by landscape system ecological analysis - which are often done as a pre-analysis in the restoration projects (see http://dt.natuurkennis.nl/uploads/OBN_LESA_international.pdf).
- soil ecology and soil biodiversity : we do not fully understand the role of soil and the interations and relations between soil and other elements of ecosystem and how this affects the restoration process
- the synergy between, adding up effect and the order of importance of different ecological processes.
- interactions between restoration and changing climate . We do not have much idea how the restoration actions should be done in a way that they will also deliver the results under changing climate and how we shoud dadapt our restoration objectives and approaches to the changing environmnet. This is a hugely underestimated problem. We usualy bae the restoration on some historical references, or the near - natural systems that are present and described now - but this is possibly not the best approach. Other approaches , such as novel ecosystems, rewilding or assisted migration have a signes of lowering the ambitions, accapting anything that comes are 'walking in the dark' . What could get more attantion is how to incorpoate the climate adaptations in the new deesignes of the projects.
- the same is true for problems related to aliane invasive species (how they interact with the restoration actions)
- socio- economical constrainst and processes around restoration. There is little sysematic insight into this issues.